An interesting piece of SF canon but one that feels somewhat dated.
Montellier’s comics from the late 1970s and early '80s are reissued with new translations.
This collection gathers three comics (Wonder City, Shelter, and 1996) originally published in France’s Métal Hurlant and updates them with new English translations. (When they appeared in the American Heavy Metal magazine, “her dialogue was translated from straightforward French into such outlandish English that readers essentially had to translate it again,” according to translator Brock.) Wonder City is the story of a couple who meet and fall in love in a dystopian near-future New York before uncovering a terrible secret about the state-supplied birth control given to every woman. In Shelter, a group of strangers is trapped in an underground mall after a nuclear attack, and survivors live under the thumb of a tyrannical mall director. 1996 is a collection of shorter pieces; most are only a page or two long and echo the ideas and themes in the other two comics: totalitarian societies; oppression of women and people of color; violent suppression of protests, and more. The art consists of simple pen-and-ink drawings, done entirely in black and white except for some swaths of vibrant pink. A translator’s note by Brock and an interview with Montellier offer compelling and illuminating insights into the times in which these comics were written. However, as is often the case with older SF, what was once innovative is now commonplace—and, as such, these comics currently feel unsubtle and unsurprising. It’s a dystopian future but one viewed through the lens of the late 1970s with few 21st-century concerns. There are female protagonists—unusual for the time—but they’re constantly victimized by men or society or both; there are scenes of actual or implied sexual assault that feel exploitative. Although this collection can (and should) be appreciated as a piece of comic history, readers might be better served by translations of Montellier’s work from this century.
An interesting piece of SF canon but one that feels somewhat dated.Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781681377407
Page Count: 200
Publisher: New York Review Comics
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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