Wrap Up of 11th Annual Manga/Graphic Novel Reading Challenge

I read 16 books for the 11th Annual Manga/Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.  I signed up to read 24 books at the Bronze Level so I fell short with this challenge.  Below is a list of the books that I read:

Portugal by Cyril Pedrosa
Sabrina by Nick Drnaso
Berlin by Jason Lutes
The Arab of the Future 3 by Riad Sattouf
Leaving China by James McMullan
Zahra's Paradise by Amir Khalil
Rosalie Lightning by Tom Hart
Brazen by Penelope Bagieu
Palestine by Joe Sacco
The Photographer by Didier Lefevre
March-Book 1 by John Lewis
March-Book 2 by John Lewis
March-Book 3 by John Lewis
Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle
Poppies of Iraq by Brigitte Findakly
Brew Harder by Dan Dougherty

Favorite Book:  Berlin by Jason Lutes.  This book is simply a masterpiece.  It tells the story of the fall of the Weimar Republic from 1928-1933.  The City of Berlin is the protagonist of the story.

Second Favorite Book:  Brazen, Rebel Ladies who Rocked the World by Penelope Bagieu.  This book was very inspirational to me.  It contains mini biographies of 30 women from antiquity to the present who changed their society.

Least Favorite Book:  Rosalie Lightning by Tom Hart.  This book was too depressing for me. It did give an accurate depiction of parental grief over the death of a child but having never been through the experience, it was too dark.

Portugal

I waited 6 weeks for an Amazon 3rd party shipper to deliver this graphic novel to me and it finally arrived today. Cyril Pedrosa's Portugal is about a fictional cartoonist named Simon Muchat traveling to his family's country of origin in order to overcome his artist's writing block.

The story opens with Simon Muchat and his live in girlfriend Claire arguing over whether to continue their relationship by advancing it with the purchase of a home.  Simon decides to not discuss it and Claire takes her cue from Simon as a "no." Simon decides to travel to Portugal, the land his grandparents emigrated to France from, for a comics convention.  There he feels an attachment to the people he meets even though they are different from him and speak another language.  Upon his return to France, Simon and his father attend a family wedding of Simon's cousin Agnes whom Simon has not seen in 20 years.  A third of the book concerns the interactions of the family members during the wedding celebration week.

The family dynamics are what make this book.  It is an accurate depiction of what I think most families are like.  Each generation seems fractured by how they were raised.  The grandparents who emigrated from Portugal to France pined for their home in Portugal and the reader never discovers why they left although there is speculation.  The grandmother spent her whole life crying for everything she left behind.  The grandfather only communicated with the oldest child because he was born in Portugal.  The rest of the children were born in France so there is some sibling rivalry over the oldest being the favorite.  When these children grew up and had their own families they were not close families.  However, during the wedding celebration week, the children of the immigrants spent every minute of every day together reminiscing, making new memories and a little fighting.  They enjoyed each other's company though.

Simon then decides to return to Portugal to meet his relatives.  He stays in his uncle's home, which was formerly owned by his grandfather before he emigrated to France.  Here he discovers his family's history and ponders the reason why the men in the family are unable to pursue happiness, including himself.

The artwork is done is very dark colors, so dark that it is difficult to see the faces of the people in the drawings.  The drawings themselves are loose.  They look like pen drawings colored over with watercolor paint and are not detailed.  Each character's face is unhappy.  I am not sure if that is intentional due to how they are feeling or if this is the author's style.  It seems unusual to me that every character looks depressed.  However, during the last third of the book when Simon was in Portugal, the colors used were light. Obviously, the author used color to reflect the characters' emotions.

This book was rather depressing.  I enjoyed the middle part of the book when the celebration of Agnes' wedding occurred. However, the book is about Simon.  I could not feel any sympathy for him as a character.  The drawings of him did not make him look very likable and the colors that the author  used for the Simon scenes were not attractive.  I enjoyed Simon's search for his family's roots which is what the book is really about but the characters were unappealing and that detracted from the story.

Sabrina

Nick Drnaso 's second graphic novel Sabrina follows his successful 2016 graphic novel Beverly. Sabrina has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize, the first graphic novel to be considered for this award. It was published in May, 2018 by Drawn and Quarterly.

Teddy's girlfriend Sabrina has gone missing putting him in a severely depressed state. He moves to Colorado to stay with an old friend, Calvin Wrobel, who is in the air force. Sabrina's sister Sandra calls Teddy a few times but he rebuffs her, not even attending her funeral. Teddy lays in bed all day in his underwear, listening to a shock jock radio host and only eats when Wrobel leaves food outside his bedroom door.

When a video of Sabrina's murder surfaces and goes viral, the media and the public goes into overdrive and conspiracy theories begin to point fingers at the victim's friends and family even though the killer is identified in the video. Sandra, Teddy and Wrobel all get threatening messages as the public begins to believe the video is fake and that one of them is the actual killer.

Sound familiar? This is what is happening in society today with our 24/7 news coverage of murders across the country. No one believes the truth anymore and our minds imagine new truths to fit what we hear on cable TV programs that talk about true crimes.  Sabrina is an indictment of our conspiracy theory society.

Sabrina is brilliantly  plotted with compelling characters. Some of the plot movements you only see from drawings with no dialogue. The emotions of the characters pop off of the page. The artwork consists of simple line drawings which are colorful, but the colors are all muted.

5 out of 5 stars!

Berlin

Jason Lutes' historical graphic novel Berlin is a masterpiece. It tells the story of the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party during the years 1928 through 1933. It was originally serialized in 22 issues over 2 decades but it was published in one volume by Canadian publisher Drawn and Quarterly in September, 2018.

The story opens with Marthe Muller arriving in Berlin on a train where she has met Berlin journalist Kurt Severing. Muller has come to Berlin to take art classes and is mourning the loss of her brother in World War 1. Many of the scenes in the book show both of them throughout their days with the people they meet and live with. The Braun family is also prominent. They are a working class family struggling to make ends meet. Another family prominent in the book is a Jewish family adapting to the political environment.

The city of Berlin is actually the protagonist of the story. Both its luxuriousness and poverty are shown. The author has scenes depicting lavish salons, severely disabled homeless veterans, automobiles for the rich, crumbling buildings, and elaborate train stations. He also uses characters to show that it was a city of intellectualism with a loose sexual culture before it fell into decline.

While the main characters are interesting, there are many secondary characters that tell a major part of the city's story. Some of them you may only see in one scene but they reflect the views of people in a changing society who don't really care for change whether it be political or technological. Other secondary characters are members of political groups fighting for change.

The artwork consists of intricately detailed black and white drawings set in a traditional comic book page spread. Every couple of pages there is a full page drawing so detailed that I think it could be colored in with watercolors in the same way that urban sketchers work. Even the drawings without dialogue say a lot because the faces within them are so expressive.

Berlin is truly a masterpiece. It is an epic historical novel in 575 pages. I highly recommend it.

The Arab of the Future 3

Riad Sattouf has recently published part 3 of his series about growing up in the Middle East. It only covers 2 years of his life; from 1985 through 1987. Riad has a French Christian mother, Clementine, and a Lebanese father who teaches at a Syrian university. Together with his younger brother Yahya they live in the countryside village of Ter Maaleh where there are many deprivations of life. The power frequently goes out, there are no traditional grocery stores and many foods are scarce.

Riad is now 7 and continues to struggle with fitting in. Because he is blonde like his mother Riad is frequently accused of being Jewish. He and his best friend Saleem are star pupils and are never in trouble with the teacher. However, they incur the wrath of other students who regularly get caned by the teacher. They still manage to have a good time in an increasingly cruel society run by Bashir Al-Asad. His parents frequently fight as Clementine demands they either move to a large city in Syria or back to France where she is from. His father struggles with his lack of religious piety, something that his mother demands from him, including a demand that Riad be circumcised like all Muslim boys. Success always seems right around the corner for this family. With interesting relatives that make great secondary characters Sattouf has another hit with this graphic memoir.

As with the earlier two novels, the artwork consists of line drawings with a color scheme based on where the family is located during a scene. The drawings are colored pink when they are in Syria and blue when they are in France. Since most of the story takes place in Syria, this book is primarily colored in pink.

I have looked forward to getting this book since part 2 was published.  It was a long wait but well worth it. Now I have to wait for part 4!

Leaving China

When I purchased this book I thought that it was a graphic novel.  It is more of a memoir told in both the written word and in paintings. On each double page spread James McMullan shares a written page about a phase in his life and a painting showing that phase.

McMullan begins his story with his grandparents arrival in China as missionaries and their departure from preaching the gospel to providing practical assistance that their Chinese neighbors desperately needed. In this process some people became Christians but the family also became wealthy, by Chinese standards, as they created business enterprises to support their practical ministries.

His parents continued the work but when the author came of age he was more interested in art than missionary work. McMullin left China for training but returned with a family. When WWII began the family had to find other places to go to for safety and hence, leave China. This is what this book is about.

McMullan has a captivating story to tell and he tells it well.  While his paintings are nice, I think his written word about his experiences are what makes this book excellent. It is a family saga covering 3 generations.  Their story is shaped by the historical events of the era which also makes this book a learning experience for those unfamiliar with the late 1800s through the mid twentieth century.

I enjoyed the book immensely. It was a relaxing read and I rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

Zahra's Paradise

Zahra's Paradise takes place in Tehran in 2009. The author and illustrator have chosen to remain anonymous for political reasons and are known only as Amir and Khalil. This is a graphic novel.

The story is about a mother, Zahra, searching for her son, Mehdi, after one of the biggest street protests that took place in Tehran after an election. Mehdi has disappeared.  His mother and his brother Hassan, a blogger and the book's narrator, search for him at all of the city's hospitals, prisons and at the morgue.  They plead with corrupt politicians for information on an almost daily occasion, showing them all a copy of Mehdi's photograph. Hassan even hacks into one of the regime's most notorious prison's computer system with the hope that he will find him there.

This story primarily shows that a mother's love has no boundaries. However, it also shows how Iranians engaged with each other at that time period, which was not so long ago, just 9 years ago.  We westerners have been taught by the media that Iran is solely Muslim yet Zahra's best friend since the 3rd grade is Miriam, a chain smoking, drinking Armenian Christian. The title of this book "Zahra's Paradise" is also the English translation of the name of the largest cemetery in Iran, located in Tehran. Those interred there include people who both supported and opposed the Iranian Revolution as well as the current regime. Also, the regime buried Jews there that they caught and murdered. This story is showing a more diverse Iran than I am accustomed to hearing about with Jews and Christians living there alongside Muslims.

The artwork is composed of black and white drawings with varying degrees of grey shading which I assume reflects the desperation felt by Medhi's family. The comic is formatted in a traditional comic book page spread.

This story is an important one to tell. It shows what life is like in Iran at this time period. While this is a book of fiction, real life events took place in its pages. The election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 as President of Iran resulted in days of protests. The arrest, torture and murder of Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi is part of the story. Also, the hanging of 2 gay men was mentioned. I remember reading about this in the newspaper. What surprised me was what the Iranians in the book thought about the execution of these 2 men. They wondered why their leaders could not wait for God's judgment on them and why they felt that they had to be the judge and executioner.

Highly recommended!

Rosalie Lightning

Tom Hart's story of his 2 year old  daughter Rosalie's death is memorialized in his graphic novel Rosalie Lightning.

He talks about the things she loved, her favorite sayings and activities.  He also goes into great detail describing the grieving process he and his wife shared after her unexpected death just days before her 2nd birthday.  All of his best memories became nightmares after she was gone.  He asks the question "what do you do after your child dies?"

This is a sorrowful book. Anyone who has suffered a loss will appreciate this book.

Brazen

Penelope Bagieu's graphic novel Brazen is subtitled Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World. It contains 30 short biographies of women who challenged the norms of their eras and made changes to society.  As a feminist, I could not help but love this book.

With the exception of Wu Zetian, Nellie Bly, Josephine Baker, Hedy Lamarr and Mae Jamison I had not heard of any of  these women. One in particular surprised me. Agnodice was a female gynecologist in the B. C. era. I didn't know there were gynecologists back then let alone women gynecologists.  She had to masquerade as a man to practice because prior women gynecologists were accused of performing abortions and women were then outlawed from working in that profession. Some things never change do they?

Be prepared to be inspired to dream big and learn how to persevere to reach those dreams of you read Brazen. I recommend this book as a must read for all girls for this reason.  Us older gals like myself could use a good dose of inspiration to either keep us on track or be inspired to find another path as a few of the rebel ladies did.

The artwork is done in a traditional comic book page layout using primarily colored layouts but occasionally black and white drawings. What strikes me about the drawings is how well the author captures women's emotions on their faces.  When a rebel lady gets treated badly or gets bad news, the author has drawn the perfect expression on her face.

Highly, highly recommended!

Palestine

Journalist Joe Sacco wrote Palestine in 1991 and 1992 as a 9 issue comic book series.  He wrote it after spending two months in the Occupied Territories and it is about the first intifada against the Israeli occupation which he says in the Foreward was running out of steam at the time of his visit. The edition that I have read is the 2015 Fantagraphics Books edition. The original comic book series won the 1996 American Book Award.

Sacco interviewed many Palestinian families but heard the same stories over and over. People were run out of their homes by Israeli policemen or soldiers, were arrested and jailed for offenses that they did not commit, lived in squalor, were not allowed to work, and had their businesses razed among other things. That said, he did present their hatred of Jews. The book opened with a discussion he had with a Palestinian about Jewish American tourist Leon Klinghoffer being thrown over the ledge of a cruise ship in his wheelchair by the PLO. The Palestinian only cared about the international news coverage that he felt the Jews were getting over the murder.

The artwork is a little different from what I am accustomed to seeing.  The author used black line drawings and text in full page and double page spreads as well as an occasional traditional comic book page layout.

Had I read this when he wrote it, it would have been newsworthy for me.  However, I have heard these stories from several different news sources and have read one or two books on the Palestinian/Israeli issue. I am aware that Sacco's book was groundbreaking for it's time, particularly for a graphic novel and therein lies it's value.

The Photographer

The Photographer, Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders is a reportage comic written by Didier Lefevre. In July, 1986 he traveled to Afghanistan with the French Doctors Without Borders during the height of the Soviet war to photograph their mission. The artwork of Emmanuel Guibert also helps to tell the story of their 3 months in Afghanistan. The book was published in three sections in France between 2003 and 2006. It was translated into English by Alexis Siegel who also wrote the Introduction and was published in English in 2009.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section is the month long trek to the mission location. The second section deals with the provision of medical treatment to the Afghans and the third section is the month long walk out of the country.

The graphic novel begins with the photographer leaving France for Pakistan where he meets up with other members of the mission and helps them prepare to enter Afghanistan. The first glimpse of local flavor is here.  The MSF (French name of Doctors Without Borders) packs up their supplies in boxes so that there is no room inside due to the battering that the boxes will go through during the expedition through the mountains to their post in Badakhshan. I was quite surprised to discover that the contents of a pack of pills could be crushed to a fine powder if they were to shift within the boxes. The boxes then must be covered in waterproof tarp in case they fall into a river. Negotiations over the purchase of animals for the expedition take place, where else, in a refugee camp.

The medical mission itself was pretty straightforward. Most of the harrowing stories dealt with how the group got into Afghanistan and how they got out.
The book ended with an update on what each member of the mission is currently doing with their life.

The artwork is colored in the browns of the region. While some of the drawings are detailed, many are not. They were drawn first in a black outline and later colored in by Frederic Lemercier. The photographs are all in black and white. A few of them are out of focus and I cannot understand why they were used in the book. Most of the photos are dark and I am not sure why.  Lefevre had good cameras with him. I wonder if the brown terrain made everything dark. However, in some places he said he was in beautiful terrain and the photos were still dark. His photos of the wounded and the surgeries were very clear. The comic print style of putting a page together is used regardless of whether there are photographs on the page, drawings or a combination of the two.

The story told here is an important one. It not only is an MSF story and an Afghanistan story, but a story of how the American war on terror began. The Introduction discusses the people involved in Afghanistan at the time of this mission who were also involved in the September 11 attacks in the U. S. The role of the CIA in Afghanistan is also discussed.

I highly recommend this book.

March - Book 3

The final book in the March series won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2016.  As with Books 1 and 2 it was written by GA Congressman John Lewis and it is about the civil rights movement of the 1960s.  Book 3 covers the period of time from September, 1963 when 4 girls were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL to August, 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was signed into law.

The danger that has surrounded the marchers since the beginning of the movement gets pretty violent in book 3, violent enough to get the nation's attention.

The book opens with African American citizens being asked to count the correct number of jelly beans in a jar or the number of bubbles in a bar of soap in order to be eligible to register to vote.  Many voter registrars required literacy tests be taken by only African American applicants.  If they were able to pass these tests and actually get registered to vote their names were printed in the newspaper which made them targets for violence and to be fired by their employers.

There was some nasty politics between the movement and President Johnson who wanted total control over the movement so that he could have his moment being nominated by his party for president as well as trying to get votes in Congress for a voting rights act.  In the end, the Act was passed by Congress and signed into law.

The March books are incredibly powerful graphic novels.  They present the civil rights movement with extraordinary storytelling. While the movement began the year I was born, I remember watching many of these events unfold on tv when I was a child.  The book is just as gripping as watching the events as they happened.  Congressman Lewis did a great job at capturing the spirit of the times, a story he told from his memory.

More than highly recommended!

March - Book 2

The 2nd book in Congressman John Lewis's trilogy on the civil rights movement focuses on the period of time from November, 1960 to August 28, 1963 when Dr. Martin Luther King made his famous "I Have a Dream" at the March on Washington, DC.  Rep. Lewis also spoke at that event.  As with Book 1, the story alternated between the 1960s and the Obama inauguration.

Book 2 did not seem to me to be as dramatic as Book 1.  However, some pretty dramatic events took place here.  The Freedom Rides, the killing of 3 Freedom Riders by law enforcement officers/KKK and the beginning of the push for a Voting Rights Act are depicted.  For the uninitiated the freedom rides were organized to protest a U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Boynton vs. Virginia where segregation on buses was upheld by the Court.

I am looking forward to reading Book 3 which won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2016.

Burma Chronicles

Somehow I missed reading one of Guy Delisle's travelogues, his 2008 Burma Chronicles. DeLisle has traveled throughout Asia with his wife who works for Doctors Without Borders.  He has written 4 travelogues from his travels with her.

In Burma Chronicles DeLisle manages to describe the daily struggles of life in a dictatorship without being political with his use of minimalist black and white drawings and his affiliative type of humor.  Each chapter addresses a different experience DeLisle had.  Some of these experiences include discovering a Time magazine that had been censored by articles being cut out of pages, finding the Rangoon neighborhood where the Army officers live and the supply of electricity and water is plentiful, and being prevented by armed soldiers from walking past Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's home.

This is a serious book written in a humorous fashion but the author gets his point across.  If you haven't read any of the travelogues, Pyongyang, Jerusalem, Shenzen, and Burma Chronicles, I encourage you to read them.  For most of these places, society has not changed since the books were published so they should still be timely. 

March - Book 1

Georgia Congressman John Lewis wrote this book in 2013 with one of his staffers Andrew Aydin.  Nate Powell was the illustrator.  The book presents the beginning of Lewis's life as well as the beginning of the civil rights movement in the U. S.

Lewis grew up in Troy, Alabama hoping to be a preacher.  A trip one summer with an uncle to visit relatives in Ohio opened his eyes to the inequalities between the white and black races in the American South.  He was shocked to find his Ohio relatives living in a home in between 2 white families.  When he returned home he had some trouble concentrating on his studies and in his free time was pouring over newspapers and listening to radio reports.  It was on one of these radio stations that he first heard a sermon by MLK, Jr. that hit him like a bolt of lightening.  MLK had applied the principles of the church to what was happening in the world at that time.  It was called the social gospel.

Lewis wanted to attend Troy State University near his home but blacks were not admitted there.  He wrote MLK about it and after being invited to meet with him, Lewis traveled to meet MLK where they discussed his parents  suing the school on his behalf because he was a minor.  His parents declined due to the threats and terror the family and neighbors would have to endure if they sued.

After beginning college Lewis participated in sit-ins at lunch counters in Nashville, TN. At first the sit-ins involved  a group of blacks entering a white only store and asking to be served. They would leave when told that colored people were not served there. Later the group decided to not leave until they were arrested upon which another group took their place. The groups prepared themselves for abuse to be heaped upon them by practising being "insulted" by white people.  They wanted to be able to handle the abuse with dignity.

Folks.  This is history being told in an easy way for the younger generation to learn about how the civil rights movement got started.  Whoever came up with the idea to write this as a graphic novel is a genius.  No kid wants to read a political tome but a comic is another story.

I personally met John Lewis at a fundraiser that an attorney I worked for in Atlanta sponsored for him at the law firm we worked at during his campaign for his first term in Congress. I was quite impressed with Mr. Lewis.  He was incredibly grateful for the opportunity to speak at our firm.  I had never met a grateful politician before, and none since, and I have now been in politics for 42 years. He had something inside him that was compelling to me.  I now know that I recognized a moral rectitude in him.  He is truly a national treasure.

I already have purchased books 2 and 3 in the March series and will be reading them next.

Poppies of Iraq

Poppies of Iraq was written in 2017 by Brigitte Findakly and illustrated by her husband Lewis Trondheim is a memoir of Findakly's life growing up in Iraq.  Findakly had a better than average life in Iraq as her father was a dentist and they could afford private schools and vacations in France where her mother emigrated to Iraq from.  The family was unique because they were Orthodox Christians in a Muslim country.

With her father being asked to pay excessive taxes that he could not afford to pay, he decided to leave Iraq for France.  His cover story for the government was that he needed training on how to do dental implants.  The training was approved and the family left with no intention of returning until things improved in Iraq.  I believe the author was about 18 years old at this time.  However, this was 1979.  The Iran-Iraq War followed from 1980 until 1989, the Gulf War in 1990, and the second Gulf War in 2003.  Her father never expected his exile to be that long.

The family was not political unless they had to be and when her father could no longer support Saddam Hussein's government he willingly gave up his government pension and all hope of ever returning to Iraq.  The author, however, made several trips back to Iraq over the years and saw her relatives homes, possessions and dreams becoming more and more shattered.  Eventually they all left by 2016, their homeland no longer recognizable.

While the family did not suffer much religious prejudice while the author lived there, as Saddam Hussein's government took hold her cousins suffered persecution and developed Islamaphobia.  It seems to me though that the author's mother kept her indoors at certain times so perhaps there was some prejudice happening to them.

Poppies in Iraq is an informative graphic memoir on life in Iraq from 1950 through the present time.  The title comes from an archeological site in Nimrod where the author used to play as a child.  Poppies were prevalent there.

Brew Harder

Dan Dougherty's 2nd book in his Beardo series is Brew Harder. At this point Beardo, an art school graduate, has worked as a barista for 5 years.  He met his girlfriend at the coffee house and together with his  roommate all 3 of them live in Beardo's condo.  Struggling to make the mortgage payment with reduced hours at the coffeehouse, Beardo joins a cover band to earn a few extra bucks.  His girlfriend drops the not so occasional hint that she would like an engagement ring but Beardo has been resistant.  Or has he?  You will have to read the book to find out!

After reading The Art Degree Guarantee I knew that I would have to get the sequel.  Brew Harder does not disappoint.  It is hilarious.  From the wacky customers to the weird co-workers the characters provide a ton of humor. The comic strip panels are colorful which is always a plus for me. 

Beardo is my favorite comic series to date and I will be buying books 3 through 6 ASAP.  

11th Annual Manga/Graphic Novel Reading Challenge

This reading challenge was my favorite for 2017 so I am rejoining next year.  However, since I read many more graphic novels than required this year, I am going to sign up at the Bronze Age level.  The Bronze Age requires that I read at least 24 books.  In 2018 the link-ups to reviews will be in a Facebook closed group so if you are interested in this challenge you must join the Facebook group and post a link at least once a month in order to remain active.