38.
Title: [Daytripper]
Author: Gabriel Ba
Genre: Graphic Novel
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Library Book
Date Completed: May 21, 2014
Rating: ****

The colleague who recommended this novel to me loves using Ba's text in class, but says that students often complain about it, saying it's too depressing.  In this case I'm inclined to agree with the students.  The protagonist of the episodic novel works as an obituary author, while working on his own attempt to write a "great novel," the likes of which his father has already achieved. At the conclusion of each episode, the protagonist dies, leaving curious and often sympathetic obituaries of his own.  On one level I hated the text: it is immensely depressing, and forces one to consider their own mortality in often uncomfortable ways. It asks the reader to think about their own final moments, and what they would leave behind if this is it.  The protagonist is, in many ways, an everyman, both preventing sympathy on the part of the reader and allowing him to project himself into these very real moments.

So, if I hated the book, why did I give it four stars? For its relentless and successful pursuit of raw emotion - even though I disliked the book it managed to make me feel at every turn. 

39.
Title: [Persepolis II]
Author: Marjane Satrapi
Genre: Graphic Novel
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Library Book
Date Completed: May 21, 2014
Rating: ***

I've come to Persepolis II by a rather circuitous route: I read Persepolis I years ago, saw the film weeks ago, and I've now read the second installment.  What I found did not quite live up to my expectations. Ultimately, I preferred the text to the film, which significantly alters the tone of the text (notably withdrawing any sense of sympathy the narrator shows for her antagonists), but found the introspection less moving than the first book. 

40.
Title: [The Three Incestuous Sisters]
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Genre: Graphic Novel, of a different sort
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Library Book
Date Completed: May 22, 2014
Rating: ****

The Three Incestuous Sisters shows the history of three sisters who find themselves in a complicated conflict of love with a single man, with occasionally disastrous consequences.  Niffenegger manages to craft an elaborate and significant story with minimalist text and sophomoric yet alluring images reminiscent of Edward Gorey.  It is concise and enthralling, showing complex relationships in a single sentence and single illustration.  I found it disturbing and moving and captivating. 

41. 
Title: [A Death in the Family]
Author: Jim Starlin
Genre: Graphic Novel
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Borrowed from a true Batman fanatic
Date Completed: May 24, 2014
Rating: **

I am horrified: I am left searching for something significant to say about this text that means so much to a very dear friend.  But the reality is that I found the book lackluster; the development is nothing like what I've come to expect of graphic novels, and the continuous internal dialogue is utterly ridiculous.  The conflict seems to be a stream of Bruce Wayne saying to himself, "Lucky for me I have a compact helicopter in my back pocket," and otherwise fabricating ridiculous solutions to present conflict. As this is my first foray into comic books proper, I am willing to accept that this may be an aspect of the genre that readers accept, but as an outsider it was more than I was willing to swallow. 

I did find two things of particular interest.  I greatly enjoyed the portrayal of the Joker, who is far more malignant in text that I've found him to be in film (confirming that Ledger's most recent portrayal is closest to the canon, although even he isn't quite as sociopath as his drawn counterpart).  The character exists externally to all sense of right, wrong, and reason, and is compelling for his own absurdity.

Of similar interest, although critically, I found the visual representation of Robin to be of interest.  Supposedly a young man, he is almost grotesquely developed, with his Olympian legs drawing as much attention as the costume which bares them.  In a culture which is now warring against the unrealistic expectations placed on young women, I find it interesting that this similarly-exaggerated model of youthful masculinity is not also facing static (or, if it is, I just haven't yet been exposed).  Robin is a representative figure of physical "perfection," trained to obey the every command of an older (and more modestly clad) male role model.  I think there is much to be said here, but perhaps I am coming 50 years too late to this party - it has probably already been said.