Thursday 7 August 2008

Alice In Sunderland Review.


This is from issue 10 of Verbal Magazine, and was something of a headfuck to review. It wasnt completely shallow, and as it had subtext , it drove me up the wall( i'm a shit like that). What i really wanted to say was it was all right , but the author is something of a self abuse expert. Sadly Verbal isnt that kind of publication. I did at the very least get to say that he was up his own hole, so Grots you have my admiration and respect for that. This issue had some nice reviews by big Dave Campell. Check it out here:



Align Centre

Alice in Sunderland: An Entertainment
by Bryan Talbot




In quite a departure from his normal work
on titles such as Batman, Judge Dredd, and
Hellblazer, comics veteran Bryan Talbot has
created one of the most thought provoking
graphic novel pieces in quite some time. Based
in part (in the loosest possible sense) on Alice
in Wonderland, Talbot (the main character
in his own comic no less), takes a sideways
journey looking at the history and character
of the city of Sunderland in general and its
Empire Theatre in particular.
Moving between past and future, and
containing a mixture of fantasy and reality the
narrative and art of the book are distinctly non
linear, switching between styles and ideas with
seemingly little rhyme or reason. There is a
wealth of both visual and factual information
contained within. Its all meticulously
researched, but it borders on information
overload, with some of the double page
spreads seeming quite confusing.
The author describes his work as being
‘an epic meditation on myth, history and
storytelling’ which is a pretty grand statement
about a book, and in the normal run of things,
would make it sound like he was right up his
own arse, but in the context of the story its
actually a reasonable enough claim. Its all very
clever, and you can’t ever shake the feeling
that its aware of how clever it is. Almost TOO
clever. Having said all that the art, in all its
varied styles is nothing short of superb, and
it’s very hard to be too critical of a book of any
kind that features the ghost of Syd James as
one of the major characters.
This is complex stuff and not for beginners. If
you’re one of the spandex set you may be best
advised to give this one a miss. However for a
fan of graphic literature looking for something
a little different. This is your fellah.

No comments: