May 14, 2014

Martin Stiff's Absence: It won’t change your life



I like graphic novels.  For me they’re light reading, since the genre is so visual that I can read a book in an evening even with all the other distractions of life. I also like the pictures, and I know that writing a graphic novel, drawing it and inking it are as much work as writing an equivalently lengthy prose novel. 

The problem here is that the one of the genre’s strengths is also a weakness. I can read a graphic novel, and it will have disappeared the next day amid the other dross my brain has to deal with.  I don’t necessarily like that, but I still get and read them, so I think when I read graphic novels I am more in the moment and less reflective and thoughtful of a reader, so my memories of the work don’t last.

That’s the case here. The title is a good reflection of the work’s effect on my mind. I read it, but for recall there is an absence of sorts. I enjoyed reading it and the setting of coastal England mostly during the war, and an eccentric rich guy building what he called a house in the countryside.
I had read nothing of the book before I picked it up.  I had just grabbed it off of the shelf of my library. And here’s the thing.  This is what I remember most.  The cover had a picture of a man’s jaw with no lips.  I tell you what I was expecting – zombies.  Were there zombies? Not that I recall.
Overall a quick entertaining read and a nice way to pass the evening. It won’t change your life or anything. There’s only one _Bone_, come on.

No comments:

Post a Comment