I.N.J. CulbardCritiques
Auteur de Oscar Wilde's The picture of Dorian Gray: a graphic novel
Critiques
When professor collapses during the class in Arkham's Miskatonic University he is placed under close monitoring and care. Five years later he awakens totally oblivious of time passed. As he recuperates strange memories of times past and future start to flash in his mind and he starts the search for mysterious locations haunting his mind.
Entire concept is truly great. Wont go into details here because it would be major spoiler but artist truly managed to bring the strange events from Lovecraft's novels to life.
Highly recommended to all fans of horror and especially Lovecraft.
My experience is partly the result of poor jacket copy - I quickly figured out that Celeste is a trippy dream sequence with pretty art, not a speculative comic about the disappearance of humankind. However, I'd argue this was a structural failing as well. The art is the only success here; I found the three parallel narratives shallow and disappointing.
... non evocate nessuna entita'
che non possiate rimandare indietro. (alla fine)
118
no visitors
%%
Tzava'at Harivash 118
For every letter is a complete
world. Thus when you say the word with great hitkashrut,
surely you bestir those supernal worlds and thereby achieve
great effects.
This series went about like I thought it would and it earned a 3, because I just can't bring myself to actually give it a two, though I enjoyed very little of this story outside of guest appearances (or distance conversations with) by the other Umbrella Academy members. Klaus is just as willing to do whatever it takes from beginning to end of this series to get his next fix, and it does include several purposeful OD's.
Favorite thing in these books is Gerard Way once again reminding the readers and the whole world that these characters do not view themselves as siblings. It's only another habit Reginald trained into them.
Culbard, like Thompson, has the positive of being a faithful adaptation without any additions or embellishments (or any "updating") to the Lovecraft story. Those graphic novelists that have tried to out-Lovecraft Lovecraft have usually failed. Better your own original or at least original Lovecraftian story.
Shadow was one of the last stories Lovecraft wrote and is more of a science fiction horror story than a pure horror story. The problem with this book is the starting material is so much weaker than Ward or Madness. There are a lot of opinions about the quality of this Lovecraft story: Kenneth Hite thinks it is a mediocre story, Joshi thinks it is one of Lovecraft's best, Lin Carter thought it was Lovecraft's absolute best story, and, in typical fashion, Lovecraft didn't think much of it. I tend to follow Hite and Lovecraft here. Shadow for me has always been a mediocre Lovecraft story. This is not to say that it is a bad story, mediocre Lovecraft beats most others' best, but Shadow has always seemed to me like a mish-mash of bits from much better Lovecraft stories. There is a bit of The Whisperer in Darkness, a lot of The Call of Cthulhu, and a lot of At the Mountains of Madness put together in a fashion that pales relatively when compared to these stories. The ending seems rushed and almost tacked on from a typically Lovecraft formula. Lovecraft was obviously trying work some themes he had used before into a new story but it just seems like a rehash with nothing new when compared to what he had already achieved.
Basically then the problem here is the weaker Lovecraft starting material. But as I said, weak Lovecraft is still pretty damn good and Culbard does the most with it. 3 1/2 stars.
The second, by Paknadel, Rob Williams, and a host of artists, wraps up the ongoing Sapling storyline with the return of the forgotten silence. It has some great moments and good callbacks—I got chills at the return of an element from Alice's very first story way back in vol 1, and the way they defeat the villain was clever—but this title has set a very high bar for itself, and "Year Three" was not as strong as the first two years, and neither was its finale. The story didn't feel as personal to our protagonists, and the Sapling never really emerged as a character. Good stuff, and still the best of the Titan ongoings, but it seems best that it ended here.
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Year Three, alas, breaks the pattern. For the first time in the run of The Eleventh Doctor, we have a collected edition with no Rob Williams content, and this volume doesn't bring back Alex Paknadel from vol 1 of The Sapling, either. And to add insult to injury, the writer primarily used instead is George Mann. Now, Mann has gotten better than he was, even if he's not great, but I didn't find him very suited to the style of The Eleventh Doctor; neither is James Peaty, who handles the other of the four issues collected here. (There's also a four-page backup story by Vince Pavey.) Neither writer can get the short story down; in all of the examples collected here, the Doctor discovers a problem, and then defeats it right way, much too easily. Too long is spent on the build-up, keeping there from being an effective twist or turn at the climax; in Mann's "Fooled," for example, the Doctor just takes the villain's device and breaks it, and that's it; in Peaty's "Time of the Ood," things go similarly easy. Even when Mann has two issues, as in "The Memory Feast," we still have one-and-a-half issues of running around before we get to a quick resolution. (Overload the thingy, that good old Doctor Who standby.)
I also didn't find the engagement with the ongoing Sapling arc very satisfying. The Sapling himself is a blank slate of a character, the supposed memory crisis that the Doctor and Alice are experiencing doesn't really seem to make much of a practical difference, and though two of the three stories are about memory, they thematically are not up to much.
What does work is the art of I. N. J. Culbard. He's worked on two previous volumes of The Eleventh Doctor, but this is the first where he's made an impression on me, and it's a strong one; he draws three of the four issues here, and he has a somewhat Mike Mignolaesque style, even if it's all his own. Very atmospheric, pairs well with the coloring, and as The Eleventh Doctor does at its best, it feels like comics, not comics-as-tv (or tv-as-comics). I see that for the final volume he'll be back, and paired with Alex Paknadel, which should hopefully be an excellent combination.
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As always, Rob Williams trades off his stories with another writer; in this case, newcomer Alex Paknadel writes "The Tragical History Tour" with returning artist Simon Fraser. Again, this is a story with an off-the-wall concept: time on Earth becomes spatialized, so you can get from one year to the next just by walking. The late 1960s start invading future years to take their stuff; the Doctor, Alice, and the Sapling bump into Alice's neighbor Kushak, all whose past selves are taking refuge in his 2015 apartment. So the Doctor, Alice, the Sapling, and all the Kushaks pile into a bus and drive back to 1968 to figure out what's going on! I enjoyed it a lot, though I did wish it was a three-parter as I felt the character(s) of Kushak kind of got lost in the midst of everything else. But this is a series that never does three-parters really, and is probably better for it; The Eleventh Doctor rockets through concepts that other Titan ongoings would probably drag out to tedium, always chasing the novelty that makes it always the best of the ongoings.
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Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
One of the best things about the first season of Netflix's adaptation of The Umbrella Academy was the way it developed Klaus. In the comics, he wasn't depicted as much more than a troubled drug addict who could talk with the dead. But the show dove deep into his past, expanding upon the trauma he undergoes by exposing himself to these unrestful spirits, and giving him a heartbreaking love story and an unhealthy amount of Vietnam PTSD. The show turned a character who was merely quirky in the comics into a character that was multi-layered and deeply complex. So, in the wake of this, the announcement of a Klaus-centric prequel comic was exciting. What kind of a past would the character's creator, Gerard Way, (and co-writer Shaun Simon) give him? How much would it differ from the show? What happened to eighteen-year-old Klaus after he was expelled from the Umbrella Academy? As it turns out, these aren't really the questions at the front of the comic's mind. While it does explore some of Klaus's trauma and psyche, You Look Like Death is more of a fun romp with a fan-favorite character than an intimate character study. But honestly, it's so much fun that that's not much of a problem.
This is a fun story. That’s the emotion that jumps out the most while reading this comic. Fun. If you’ve read The Umbrella Academy and always wondered what life outside of whatever city it’s typically set in is like, then look no further than You Look Like Death. This comic takes readers outside of the confines of The Umbrella Academy and into this universe's version of Hollywood—a town crawling with actors, demons, gods, vampires, and monkeys who are sometimes vampires. It's an eclectic town, much like the real-life Hollywood. And it's a place that feels quite inviting to Klaus. The general plot of the story involves Klaus making his way to Hollywood after being kicked out of the Umbrella Academy and angering a local drug lord (who's also a vampire monkey). There, he is taken in by Vivian, an aging actress who promises Klaus all manners of escapes from reality in exchange for his ability to channel long-dead actors and actresses.
For an Umbrella Academy story, it's surprisingly straightforward. With the main series' first three arcs, Way established a pattern where he'd introduce a bunch of complicated, seemingly unconnected ideas, expand on them for several issues, and then have them crash together in the final issue or two of the arc. And that's sort of what he does here, but everything is a little easier to follow than most Umbrella Academy stories. Everything moves at a nice, brisk pace and answers are never far behind the moments you start asking questions. I can't classify the genre of a story like this—it's part classic Hollywood film, part mob drama, part introspective character study, and part comedy. On paper, this isn't a story that should work. At all. This combination of strange and ill-fitting elements should result in a story that feels discombobulated. But it doesn't. Somehow, Simon and Way have created this weird story that feels both vast in scale and extremely intimate. It's a delight from beginning to end.
It helps that this book doesn't have an ensemble cast in the way the rest of the series does. Klaus is clearly the main character, with every other character acting as support for him. All stories revolve around—and converge with—Klaus's, and it makes for a more linear, coherent experience. That's not to say this book isn't weird as hell—I mean, there's a subplot involving a turf war between vampires and another that involves the Hollywood Gods looking for their next big movie. Hardly a page goes by without something weird happening. And, if all of that wasn't enough, there's a kind of purgatory between heaven and hell that Klaus occasionally visits (more on that in a moment), complete with flying furniture and a dead man named Lyle who's spent his life writing a novel, to the neglect of all his loved ones.
Thematically, this is a story about Klaus coming to terms with his past trauma. The parasitic relationship he and Vivian share mirrors the one he's had with Sir Reginald Hargreeves his entire life, and it's the closest the book comes to a true deep dive into Klaus's psyche. If like me, you're approaching this comic in the hopes of reading something with the depth found in Klaus's arc in season one of the Netflix show, you're gonna be disappointed. There are hints of something that deep, but Simon and Way never focus on it that much. The closest they come are in the scenes between Klaus and Lyle in Purgatory. While most of these scenes focus on Klaus helping Lyle, there are a few where Lyle tries to probe Klaus's trauma, getting him to divulge little bits about himself that are as revealing as they are important to the grander storyline. To be clear, there aren't many of these moments, but when they're there, they're delightful. I'd have gladly traded some of the smaller subplots for more scenes exploring Klaus's psyche, but it's hard to complain when the rest of the book is as fun as this is. I mean, who doesn't want to read such a bonkers comic?
As is often the case, You Look Like Death’s artwork is what holds the comic together. I cannot emphasize how impressed I am by I.N.J. Culbard’s artwork. It can be really hard for a new artist to play around in a world so defined by the work of another artist, yet Clubard’s artwork pulls this off brilliantly. It’s noticeably different than Gabriel Bá’s work in the main series, but it also feels like it exists within the world he’s created. Culbard adheres to the established designs of characters like Klaus and Hargreeves while still putting his own spin on them. But with the book being set in Hollywood instead of the normal Umbrella Academy setting, Culbard is given the freedom to create his own little corner of the Umbrella Academy universe. And he does this with immense style and beauty. He draws Hollywood as a city that lives in both light and shadow. At times, it has a sort of futuristic noir-like feel, with lots of blues and neon. But at other times, it feels very warm and inviting. For a book as seeped in fantasy as You Look Like Death is, Culbard’s artwork grounds it in something close to reality. The purgatory-like Void he creates is mesmerizing, too. It looks unlike any other depiction of purgatory I’ve ever seen, and it’s the kind of setting that you want to spend more time in. Overall, Culbard’s artwork is a brilliant addition to Simon and Way’s story. It’s beautiful, but not distractingly so. His artwork does a perfect job of helping readers understand the visual aspects of the story and I can’t praise it enough.
While You Look Like Death isn't really the story I expected, or wanted, going into it, I can't deny how much fun I had reading it. Yes, it's not as deep a look into Klaus's psyche as the Netflix show has given. And, yes, that's a little disappointing. But what it is is an exploration of some previously unseen corners of The Umbrella Academy universe. And, while it doesn't probe its main character particularly deeply, it does develop him as a character, making him feel more three-dimensional than he's felt in some of the series' main arcs. The plot is simple but completely nuts, with lots of weird asides, unusual characters, and creative ideas. The whole thing is tied together by some beautiful artwork from I.N.J. Culbard that manages to straddle the line between honoring what Gabriel Bá has done in the main series and being its own thing. If you're a fan of any aspect of The Umbrella Academy—whether it's the show or the comics or both—then you're gonna love this. If you're a fan of Klaus, you're gonna love this even more. It's a great, unique, exciting read.
Een van die elementen is dat in dit deel creatieve Daleks voorkomen die door rechtgeaarde Daleks nooit als Dalek erkend zullen worden. Deze creatieve Daleks zorgen voor een uitbundige variatie aan hoe een Dalek eruit kan zien en ook hoe hij zich gedraagt. Ik heb veel lol gehad om deze mutante Daleks. En dat terwijl ik de Daleks eigenlijk al vele jaren zat ben.
In de vorige delen stonden mij de tekeningen erg tegen en dan met name omdat ik soms de Doctor amper nog kon herkennen. Vele tekeningen hebben in dit deel nog steeds dat euvel. Maar soms was er opeens een heel goed gelijkende Doctor. En ik heb eens zitten kijken waar hem dat nou in zat en dat lijkt toch de hoeveelheid details te zijn. De meeste tekeningen blijven er dan ook slordig en snel uitzien waarbij er meer om tijdsbesparing is gegeven dan om kwaliteit.
Dit lijkt ook te zien te zijn aan fouten zoals dat de Doctor en zijn companion Alice Obiefune op een gegeven moment door de Squire gevangen worden genomen waarbij ze hun handen op hun rug gebonden krijgen. Maar een paar plaatjes later lopen ze met hun handen los en even later weer met hun handen op de rug gebonden. Ik snap dat met de handen voor het gezicht geslagen een emotie makkelijker is uit te drukken maar dat had vast ook anders opgelost kunnen worden.
Als laatste vond ik dat River te veel als plot device gebruikt is. In bijna het hele boek kwam ze niet voor maar popte dan wel op het laatst nog even op om voor de schijnbare onmogelijke oplossing te zorgen.
Nee, allemaal erg zwak. Als Doctor Who fan doet dat wel een beetje pijn.
Contents: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; The Case of Charles Dexter Ward; At the Mountains of Madness; The Shadow Out of Time
I had read the latter two adaptations separately before, but I was delighted to find that INJ Culbard had illustrated 'Dream Quest' and 'Charles Dexter Ward', each of which has come out well, though maybe with a touch less attention to detail than the previously-published two.
Wishlist: An adaptation of The Haunter of the Dark would have perfected this collection.
Opening and closing the collection with 'Dream Quest' and 'The Shadow Out of Time' reminded me of the parallels between those two -- a man in each driven to explore his tantalising and terrible dreams to the utmost.
In this story, Randolph Carter, Lovecraft’s alter ego, has dreamed three times of a marvellous city named Celephais, ‘in the valley of Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian hills’. He wants to go and live there in the dreamworlds, leaving the real one behind. So he prays to the hidden gods of dream and goes on a quest, which takes him across several different landscapes, where he encounters a variety of strange creatures. Nasty zoogs and gugs are out to get him but the cats of Ulthar are his friends.
It’s weird fantasy set in imaginative realms with almost no connection to the mundane world. Quests are not my favourite type of yarn as they can easily become a mere parade of ‘wonders’ that become boring after a while. Happily, this one doesn’t go on long enough for that to happen as the original work was a novella, not the three thick volumes of modern fantasy. The ending, I should add, is excellent and quite unexpected.
Lovecraft’s writing is an acquired taste but one I have acquired. The art of I.N.J. Culbard is also an acquired taste and one I’m working on, not always successfully. The first issue of ‘Brass Sun’ was pretty good but the pictures were not so great thereafter. At his best, he has a gift for good storytelling with panels and a very simple linear design technique that can be pleasing. At his worst, the page looks like it was drawn by a child. This adaptation does not contain his best all the way through but there are some good panels, particularly a double page spread near the end. I recommend sneaking a peek at the pages before you buy to see if the pictures appeal for, in my view, a graphic novel is not worth having if you actively dislike the art. At the moment, I’m ambivalent about Culbard. I will say that he seems to have converted much of the prose into pictures as the work is not heavy on captions. Art and dialogue carry the story along and it’s a quick, easy read. Lovecraft isn’t. Ever! But he’s worth the effort.
It’s a nice edition physically, on good quality paper and with plenty of pages for your pounds. It’s a moot point whether Lovecraft should be adapted to visual form as all those indescribable horrors may be best left to the readers’ imagination. Culbard is trying though and he deserves an ‘A’ for effort.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
There’s a very cinematic opening few pages in which the view pans from a distant shot of the Milky Way galaxy right up to our own lovely planet. Then it focuses on three objects that look like rose petals which drift down from the sky and land on three different people. These are an albino young lady in London just getting up for work, a man in the USA driving to work and a man in Japan about to hang himself. In the blink of an eye, it appears that all the people around them vanish and they are left alone. Then the albino girl finds another girl, the man in the US finds a fellow trapped in the boot of a car, hands bound, and the man in Japan finds odd looking shape-changers who attack him in various ways. There is some nudity and not very gory violence.
The storytelling was excellent throughout and it was perfectly simple to follow even though there were many pages with neither dialogue nor captions. It was easy to see what was going on. Making sense of it was a different matter, unfortunately. I very much enjoyed the developments in the first half which built up a great sense of expectation of something brilliant about to be revealed but the concluding part was, to me, disappointing. This sort of obscure story always passes my understanding, however, and people who like experimental fiction will probably enjoy the whole thing.
I’m glad that the medium of comics is being stretched in this way and used for something other than super-heroes, monsters and Science Fiction. This was a fantasy or maybe magic realism. I certainly appreciate the tremendous amount of work that I.N.J Culbard put into this project and I emphasise again that the graphics are lovely. However, the meaning of it all was lost on me. I have reviewed similar experimental works in this manner and among the creators, my name will surely be infamous as a blockhead best left reading simple super-hero adventures. Sorry.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
Suddenly several people around the world find themselves alone, the world has gone and they're alone, what they do and how they react is interesting.
One minute Ray is talking to a policeman about his wife in LA, two commuters meet each other's eyes in a crowded underground in London and in Japan, comic artist Yoshi who has some to the Aokigahara Forest in Japan, fails to hang himself when suddenly there's no-one else around them. Ray is surrounded by cars, Aaron and Lilly talk about everything and nothing and it's very sweet and Yoshi is chased by demons.
I cared about the different characters and what was going on with them
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Entire story is told through dreams. Our intrepid hero tries to find the unknown magnificent city and in order to find it he tries to contact mysterious and dangerous creatures who are keepers of the distant frontiers.
Story itself aged well and even today resonates very well. While watching our protagonist discussing the events with his friend about their quests and adventures one can draw parallels with the modern day computer game players, people finding more sense and enjoyment in distant worlds where they become whomever they want and do whatever they want. They might not dream in the true sense of the word but they are definitely living in their own worlds. If you ask me this story is cyberpunk to the core, only element missing are techno-gadgets.
Art is great and truly manages to depict the otherworldliness of dreams and dream-like experiences.
Truly great adaptation. It begs the question do we dream of things or is our very existence (and our dreams) just echo of another dreamer. So Inception-like...
Highly recommended.