Comments on: Freddie & Me

By: Steven Grant

Steven Grant — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:48:15 +0000

Yeah, I find the general critical reaction to the book to be odd. (Of course, I felt the same way about Blankets.) I don’t doubt Dawson’s talent, but my first question on reading something is do I feel like I read something, and the answer with Freddie was no. It felt empty, a series of more or less random (albeit usually well presented) incidents that pretty much added up to nothing. I took a lot of crap for writing a few weeks ago that I didn’t think 2008 was a very good year for comics and graphic novels, and while I was probably a little too hard on the business, that Freddie & Me has ended up on so many ten best lists sort of underscores my point.

- Grant

By: Johanna

Johanna — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:29:40 +0000

Suzene, I’m glad you liked them!

Grant, I’m glad I’m not the only one. Skimming net reviews suggested other people were much more interested than I was — or less willing to be negative.

By: Steven Grant

Steven Grant — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:53:21 +0000

Harvey’s original material was observational; his subject matter wasn’t so much his own life as where the lives of others intersected with it, and his great skill was in presenting it simply but in an interesting way, and letting us know via his technique why we should think it was interesting. (It also helped that he kept most of his pieces no longer than four pages. That’s not overtaxing the reader’s good will.) His longform pieces focused on his own life have been considerably less interesting.

I reviewed Freddie & Me a few months ago and had pretty much the same reaction as Joanna. The core idea was pretty much, “LOOK AT ME!” I never got the slightest idea from the book that Freddy Mercury and the music of Queen had any more real effect on Dawson’s life than, say, Elton John’s music had on me, aside from being contemporaneous with his youth and giving his relatively ordinary life a marketing hook.

And it was something of a relief to see Johanna asking those same questions.

- Grant

By: Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » Jan. 6, 2009: Plenty of seats

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:32:50 +0000

[...] [Review] Freddie & Me Link: Johanna Draper Carlson [...]

By: Suzene

Suzene — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:12:04 +0000

That’s disappointing. I’ll probably give this one a miss, then.

On the other hand, I did pick up ‘Gimmick’ and ‘Fox Bunny Funny’ due to your recs and I’m enjoying them both tremendously, so thanks for that.

By: Mike Chary

Mike Chary — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:36:40 +0000

After Harvey pekar, an interesting life is no longer a requirement for an autobiographical comic book.