Okay. So I bailed on Ghost Hunters for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Having seen the movie too many times on AMC, I assumed I had a feel for the graphic novel.
Not so. The movie was a comic book version of a strange, uncomfortable text.
Surprisingly, the League is neither headed up nor staffed by gentlemen. Miss Murray, who has had a troublesome year prior to the start of the narrative is a miss, a woman. She runs herd on an opium addict (Quatermain), a pirate (Captain Nemo), a sex offender (The Invisible Man), and a schizoid (Dr. Jekyll and Edward). No gentlemen.
The narrative emerges slowly—like a Kurosawa movie. You have to give this one some time for the story to get underway. (Thankfully not as much time as The Seven Samurai or Rashomon.)
Deciphering the graphics held my interest until the narrative hook set. The men all vaguely resemble zombies, except for Nemo, who seems an extension of his complex industrial sub. The structures dwarf and dehumanize the humans, reducing them to small incomplete sketches. The people of the novel are simply another detail in the gigantic landscape of an industrialized, polluted empire. Like gods glancing down from the heavens, we have to squint to see what these creatures are up to. The tiny figures are often engaged in violent, erotic, ominous acts. Watching, we become voyeurs in their diseased world.
And that decadence seems to be the point. The empire is corrupt. The men short-sighted and fallen. The graphic novel is most engaging when the point is made subtly—as Quatermain and Edward enter the opium den. In the same vein, the story becomes tired and sophomoric when the authors and artists feel it necessary to emphasize the dehumanization (the guestroom in the girl’s boarding school).
With its drawings, fliers, games, and posters, the work can be a busy, sometimes tiring affair. And poking holes in imperialism or deconstructing machismo in this day and age is like shooting dead fish in an empty bucket.
With all of that said, the adventure is there. And I will continue. I want to know what has happened with the cavorite, and I am curious to see what other familiar characters I run into in this unfamiliar world.
Bayard
7 comments:
An after thought--although thought provoking, the rawings lack the vibrancy of Duursema, Parson, and Anerson's work in Star Wars Legacy.
I think that League of Extraordinary Gentleman is one of the best comics ever.
It was with the second series that Moore & O'Neill really took off with the character references.
Be sure to go back and look at the newspaper headlines strewn throughout the book. There may be a hint to what's to come.
If you want even more reference, check out Jess Nevins' annotations to the series here:
http://www.reocities.com/ratmmjess/annos.html
and here:
http://www.enjolrasworld.com/Jess%20Nevins/League%20of%20Extraordinary%20Gentlemen/LoEG%20index.htm
Good stuff.
Thanks, Robert. That is incredible.
What do you think about the density of this comic? How much do these details add?
In some ways, I saw all of the extra content a part of the effort to recreate a Victorian piece--the text colonizes us.
Having read it, I had teh definite sense that I had missed a great deal.
To me the density adds to the Victorian feel of the book. Also, Moore's borrowing from Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Family here, so it also evokes that a lot. A lot of the detail is just there for fun. There are a lot of pieces that Kevin O'Neill added just because he could.
The first two trades definitely add up to a whole lot of fun.
I can't help but think there is a thesis or graduate project orpaper in those notes and websites.
Scholars have been doing that sort of thing with 'literature' to land full time jobs at poosh universities.
Jess Nevins is a University Research Librarian by trade. So that's why the format seems familiar.
He also has a book listing the different pulp novels and which libraries in the world (yes the world) have copies of them.
He's released and encyclopedic volume on Victorian era characters and he has on on Pulp characters that I believe is still forthcoming.
He used to be on an Avengers mailing list I lurk on.
Revealing my lack of etchie skills--can we move that all of that information into a category? It is too important (at least to me) to disappear in a comment.
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