*Masterpiece Comics — Best of 2009
- Posted by Johanna on December 21, 2009 at 5:40 pm
- Category: Graphic Novel Reviews
- CREDITS: by R. Sikoryak
- PUBLISHER: Drawn and Quarterly; $19.95 US
Only in comics could something this creative and unusual happen this brilliantly.
Classical literature is mashed up with the lowest popular culture, and the result sheds a new light on both. R. Sikoryak has an amazing ability to mimic whatever art style is needed to make these stories work with familiar comic characters. Stories here include:
- Adam and Eve as Dagwood and Blondie. This kicks off a strip-oriented section which also includes Dante’s Inferno with Bazooka Joe, Faust with Garfield, and Macbeth with Mary Worth.
- Wuthering Heights told as if one of the Tales From the Crypt.
- The Little Lulu cast acting The Scarlet Letter, my favorite of the pieces because of how well it works when it shouldn’t at all.
- Batman starring in Crime and Punishment.
- A combination of Little Nemo in Slumberland and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
- If Kafka wrote Peanuts.
While readers may have seen some of these pieces before in various anthologies, this book also includes fake letter pages that make explicit some of the allusions. Sikoryak clearly knows his material, both literary and comic, which is why these pastiches work so well. And the oversized thin hardcover format, like a picture book for adults, only contributes to the unusual feel of the bizarre combinations.
December 22, 2009 at 10:45 AM
Saw this in a bookstore last night and it piqued my curiosity, but I was in a hurry (Christmas shopping) and didn’t flip through. I read Dostoevsky Comics a few years back in a Drawn and Quarterly anthology and thought it was just great.
I’ve already got a half-dozen trades, and probably almost as many hardcovers, that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet, but this is probably going to go on my list. Thanks for the heads-up.
December 22, 2009 at 11:49 AM
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December 23, 2009 at 4:17 PM
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September 12, 2010 at 11:09 AM
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January 4, 2011 at 7:47 PM
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