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<HTML> <HEAD><TITLE>Bob's Comics Reviews</TITLE></HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#D0D0FF"> <table width="100%"> <td width="385"> <A HREF="bob.shtml"><IMG Align=Top SRC="illo/bob.png" height="71" width="374" ALT="Bob's Comics Reviews"></a> </td><td><font size="5">September 2003 </font></td> <td> <MAP NAME="BobTable"> <AREA COORDS="0,0,37,36" HREF="bob40.html"> <AREA COORDS="38,0,74,36" HREF="bob42.html"> </MAP> <IMG SRC="illo/bob-arrows.gif" border=0 height="36" width="74" USEMAP="#BobTable" alt="Arrows"> </td> <td width=30%> <p><A HREF="default.html"><img src="home.gif" align=right border=0 alt="Home"></A> </td></tr></table> <P><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr bgcolor="#606090"><td width="20"></td><td><font size="5" color="#F0F0FF"> Jason Little : <B>Shutterbug Follies</B> </font></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#606090"><td height="5" colspan="2"></td></tr> <tr><td height="10"></td></tr> </table> <img align="right" src="illo/bee.gif" title="Bee on the job" alt="Bee on the job"> Bee, orange-haired and 18 years old, is a clerk in a photo store in New York, with a bad habit of making extra copies of the pictures she processes, to chuckle over with her friend Lyla. And then she finds that the pictures taken by a Russian guy named Oleg, who claims to be an artist and a journalist, may point to a murder, and she can't help investigating... <p> Bee is essentially a <A HREF="frenchy.html#Tintin">Tintin</a> for the '00s: plucky, resourceful, and occasionally a step behind rather than ahead of the suspicious folks she investigates. Although she's not quite so focussed as the boy reporter: while trailing bad guys, she finds the time for a date or two. <p>The art is stylized, with beautiful colors, and some neat comics tricks (e.g. the use of the photographs and negatives Bee is looking at as panels). It makes a satisfying thriller, with a bittersweet ending. I've never heard of this guy before, but I hope he does much more of this. <p> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr bgcolor="#606090"><td width="20"></td><td><font size="5" color="#F0F0FF"><a name="2"> Bill Willingham : <B>Fables</B> </a></font></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#606090"><td height="5" colspan="2"></td></tr> <tr><td height="10"></td></tr> </table> Sometimes someone has a killer idea. Suppose all the characters from fairy tales-- Snow White, Bluebeard, the Big Bad Wolf, Beauty and the Beast, and many more-- had to move to New York, bury their differences, and make a living. Cool, eh? This is such a good idea that even Hollywood could hardly muck it up. And it gets better: murder mysteries! <p>Snow White's sister Rose Red is missing, and her apartment is full of blood. B. Wolf, Fabletown's chief of security, is on the case. And pay attention: it's an honest detective story, where you can put the book down just as the hero announces he's solved the case, and match your wits with his. <p>It's a lot of fun, and my wife loved it too (which I usually take as a good indication of whether non-comics-geeks will like something). My only cavil is the art. It's competent, about the level of the majority of <i><A HREF="bob26.html">Sandman</a></i>... but that's simply not very exciting-- illustrative rather than evocative. Occasionally, for instance, there's an attempt to jazz up the panel borders, but it only makes <A HREF="bob39.html#2"><i>Promethea</i></A> look that much better. The original covers are gorgeous, though. <p>There are two TPBs out, and I hope more to come. <p> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr bgcolor="#606090"><td width="20"></td><td><font size="5" color="#F0F0FF"><a name="3"> Marjane Satrapi : <B>Persepolis</B> </a></font></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#606090"><td height="5" colspan="2"></td></tr> <tr><td height="10"></td></tr> </table> <img src="illo/marjane.gif" title="Marji in class" alt="Marji in class" align="left"> A kid's eye view of the Iranian Revolution. Marjane is about ten when the revolution breaks out. She lives with her parents in a good neighborhood in Tehran, and goes to a French school; her family is fairly Western-oriented-- and for a Third World nation, somewhat spoiled-- and has a number of leftist friends, including an uncle who was imprisoned by the Shah. <p>Slowly but surely the revolution intrudes on their enclave: the colleges are closed; gangs of religious enforcers hassle beardless men and unveiled women; schoolteachers begin teaching Islamist boilerplate. And then the war with Iraq begins; soon teenage boys are being sent en masse to die at the front, missiles bombard Tehran, and the government takes advantage of the confusion to kill off dissenters. <p>It's grim when the situation warrants; but the tone is usually light (aided by Satrapi's cheerful cartoonish drawings). The revolution fascinates Marjane, but as a kid it's hard to take seriously-- as in the scan, where she and her classmates can't resist having fun even as they're made to knit hoods for the fighters. Marjane is an Islamist one day, a resister the next; at the same time she's discovering boys, and listening to Kim Wilde and Iron Maiden. <p>Don't be afraid of the alien language there; <i>Persepolis</i> has just been published in English. <HR> <p><center><A HREF="default.html"><img src="home.gif" border=0 alt="back to Metaverse"</A></center> </BODY> </HTML>