Tag Archives: Ng Suat Tong

In Search of “It”: A response to a review of Potential

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My first contact with the work of Ariel Schrag occurred almost ten years ago following the release of Potential from Slave Labor Graphics. My renewed interest in her work stems from my host’s, Noah Berlatsky’s, enthusiasm for her comics which he considers among the best produced this past decade.

Noah is probably Schrag’s most articulate apologists and I was especially interested in hearing his views on her work before I found a review he did for The Chicago Reader which neatly summarizes his affection for the book (it might be wise to read Noah’s review before continuing with this response to that piece of criticism):

” Written while Schrag was still an adolescent, Potential seems pitched more toward her peer group than the New York Times editorial board. It doesn’t have the purple rhetorical flourishes of Fun Home or the pomo magical realist tics of Maus. Its focus is the non-highbrow subject of teen-girl angst.”

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TCJ.com/fail/update: A Comment

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(Part of an impromptu mini-roundtable on the failure of TCJ.com)

A few days ago, Noah wrote to me about a critical endeavor that he is planning for the HU site. By the by, I mentioned that TCJ.com deserved another “kick in the butt” now that it had enough time to improve itself to which he responded that he was planning a little something on Sunday (read here).

Noah’s complaints are not the voice of a single cranky individual, they are merely some of the unvoiced grievances of a number of online reviewers and comics enthusiasts. Noah, as well as I, can point to a number of seasoned reviewers and bloggers who find the new TCJ.com a mess.

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Dream of the Red Chamber: An Introduction to the manhua adaptation

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The growing affluence of the mainland Chinese has led to a steady growth in both the quantity and quality of reprints of classic Chinese comics. These comics have been available sporadically over the years but mostly in abridged and unlicensed versions. Even up to 10 years ago, the quality of these reprints were poor with images possibly 2-3 generations removed from the originals.

It is only in recent years that more expensive “collector’s editions” preserving the original format of the comics (i.e. a single image per page in rectangular booklets) have emerged.

The 2005 collector’s edition of Dream of the Red Chamber from the Shanghai Fine Arts Publishing House (SFAPH) is a case in point. The comics  (lianhuanhua) from the SFAPH represent the high point of the adaptors art in China.  Originating from the middle of the twentieth century their influence on all future adaptations of the four great novels of classical Chinese literature is inestimable.

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Review: Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms

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“The ultimate defeat is, in short, to forget; especially to forget those who kill us. It is to die without any suspicion, to the very end, of how perverse people are. There is no use in struggling when we already have one foot in the grave. And we must not forgive and forget. We must report, one by one, everything we have learned about the cruelty of man. Otherwise we cannot die. If we do this, then our lives will not have been wasted.”

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Le Voyage au Bout de la Nuit (as quoted by Kenzaburo Oe in Hiroshima Notes (“On Human Dignity”))

Fumiyo Kouno’s famous work on the after effects and survivors of the Hiroshima bomb needs little by way of introduction. Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms has won a Tezuka prize and has received near unanimous acclaim from American comic critics. This includes a book of the year citation from Dirk Deppey as well as high and consistent praise from the noted manga critic, David Welsh, who counts it among his very favorites.

The opening pages of  Kouno’s narrative are intentionally filled with a sense of the ordinary: there is a period of communion over a recently finished dress; the protagonist’s, Minami’s,  tranquil passage through the city of Hiroshima with its period detail; and her quiet austerity as she collects bamboo wrappers to make a pair of sandals. The gentle rhythms of life and conversation are interrupted only by Minami’s exclamations and flashbacks.  Her past ordeals are inseparable from her present reality and triggered by the simplest of suggestions: in one instance, that she would make “a good wife” and, later, a combination of memory and the senses as the shadows, heat and steam of a bathhouse produce unwelcome reminiscences. Another flashback is triggered by the hint of romantic love which becomes mixed with descriptions of swollen bodies, melting shoes and of walking over the dead. Her friends and family remain at a distance, almost placid observers of her gradual descent into darkness. It is this tragic lyricism, the slow but measured pace conferring a sense of dignity, which seems to have earned Kouno’s story a place in so many readers’ hearts.

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xxxHolic Roundtable: Calling a Spade a Spade

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(A longish comment on xxxHolic Vol. 1-3 and the roundtable so far)

The roundtable so far: Vom Marlowe, Kinukitty, Adam Stephanides on xxxHolic. All posts on the roundtable here.

It’s not difficult to admire the gentle artistry of CLAMP. It’s easy on the eyes and doesn’t deviate significantly from the style readers have come to expect from manga. Still, while there are individual illustrations of some interest every so often in xxxHolic, my eyes were flitting through most of the pages with a general lack of enthusiasm.

My primary feeling upon completing the first 3 volumes of xxxHolic was that of boredom.

An uncomfortable amount of the drawings and panel to panel transitions here function solely as tools to move the story forward, failing to form any sort of pleasant and unique narrative voice. The sparse backgrounds and general lack of variation in page compositions are all typical of deeply commercial stories bound to rapid serialization schedules. These elements are also perfectly suited to the needs of the inevitable anime adaptations. Reading this series was not unlike listening to a relatively agreeable narrator delivering a quick recital of a very forgettable story; no different from the multitude of disconnected, languidly paced, by the numbers dramas we might find on television today.

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Best Online Comics Criticism 2009

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The Year in Reviews (Part 1)

This is an effort to collate and acknowledge the good work that has been done (mostly to little notice) by online comics critics over the course of 2009. These writers have helped make comics a slightly more interesting place to inhabit for readers like myself, ensuring that the conversation doesn’t end the moment a comic is consumed or half-digested by the reader

At the risk of stating the obvious, the articles here aren’t really the “best” pieces of comics criticism of 2009. They are merely the pieces which have been arrived at through the votes of 5 people (namely Noah Berlatsky, Frank Santoro, Tucker Stone, Matthias Wivel and myself). Such a process is prone to exclude worthy articles of a more esoteric nature. A more accurate reflection of the best pieces of writing on comics available online in 2009 may be found in the long list of articles which received votes in the final stage of this process.

While there will be some overlap in critical concerns, it should be clear that the needs and preferences of people who write about comics often dictate what we like and thus vote for in such situations. When you read a piece of comics criticism by Noah Berlatsky, what you’ll find apart from the engaging tone are opinions which address the merits of a work in the context of wider social and political issues, an approach which is clearly different from that of Frank Santoro who is more interested in the history, inner workings and craft underlying individual works. Tucker Stone wears his knowledge lightly and brings a broad interest in comics across all genres as well as a specific interest in criticism directed at entertainment and performance. Matthias Wivel brings a European and more academic perspective.

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