Tales from Outer Suburbia

It was back in June that I had initially decided to make a short note on this graphic novel; yet time passed and I was nowhere near to it.
What made it so difficult for me to write about Shaun Tan's? It is exactly that which makes his novel so special: Proper storytelling is not dependent on the age of the story's receiver: proper storytelling is an art in itself, it's magic storytelling. The Arabian Nights have always been a prime example for this.
And it's for this reason that

Tales from Outer Suburbia is a book for every human being you know, from the age of nine and up. It’s heartbreaking, and funny, and weird, and smart, and unlike any other book you’ve read up until this point in time. It’s what happens when someone tells you a dream they just had and you end up crying and laughing at the description all at once.[...]
In brief, each tale takes place (to some extent) in suburbia. Where people have lawns and bus stops and playgrounds. But it’s a suburbia where the peculiar is almost commonplace (though anything that shakes up the neighbours takes on a special glow). There are tales of water buffalos, rescued turtles, marriage quests, and a single nameless holiday. It’s the stuff that crawls around in your head when you're half asleep, and you could maybe even chalk it all up to subconscious ramblings if the stories didn’t make so much sense and didn’t linger in your head for quite so long. [...]

And what better display of the power of proper story telling than by careful crafting of all details in an ever-complementing combo with the graphics? It's a book to read over and over, and then to dream it, again.

Credits for the 2 images & full review go here.

The Ticking

As the word spread, I decided to give graphic novels a go.
This was the 1st try:

Renee French, The Ticking (Top Shelf Productions, 2005)
I am sure there is someone out there-- in fact, I am sure there are a lot of some-ones out there-- who can read through The Ticking a few times and tell you all sorts of things about the subtext, the symbolism, and all sorts of other under-the-surface stuff about this book. I am not one of them. I'm just here to tell you that The Ticking is one of the flat-out oddest productions I have encountered in the universe of graphic literature.
Edison Steelhead's mother dies in childbirth. His father sees that Edison has inherited his own deformities, and sets about trying to get Edison plastic surgery to make him look more normal. Edison himself isn't sure about all this, and flees from the necessity of these confrontations into his career as an aspiring artist. Edison's father then brings home a sister for Edison-- Patrice, a chimpanzee, and Edison and Patrice begin down the road to sibling-hood, one not smooth at the best of times. And that's just the beginning. Things get odder from there.
This is a book both amusing (how amusing you will find it depends largely on your capacity for appreciation of black humour) and horrifying, often in the same panel. French's panorama is the world of the deformed, but [...] French approaches her subjects with a warmth and humour that translates to the audience's ability to better relate to the book's subjects-- always a wonderful thing.
If the book has a problem, it's that it could have been longer. French's impressionist style is wonderful, and the holes that are left are done with an obvious sense of planning, but I'd still have liked to see a little more of... well, everything. The relationship between Patrice and Edison's father in particular stands out as not quite covered enough, but the Patrice-and-Edison scenes, some of the best in this always-strong book, are too few.

As reviewed on Amazon.
To my agreement, the "Unbearable, but beautiful" title of the review made for a very appropriate choice.