message in a bottle (02.2003 - 09.2008)

Comics, as it has been discussed on this journal before, is a fantastic storytelling medium and those who (still) believe that comics are for kids should not even be lurking around this place. Alternatively, maybe they should gift their kid a copy of Sandman.

Being recently exposed to a huge variety of comics in mammoth comic book sections of enormous bookstores, I have been trying to get a taste of all kinds. That is how I came across Re-gifters.

It is a story of a young Korean-American schoolgirl, who like her family struggles to keep her Korean traditions in tact as she tries to make a success of her life in LA. This in itself is not path breaking, I know. Because what stopped my heartbeat was the presentation. The writer, Mike Carey, introduces the plot in the first three panels and then builds characters from there. He tells a tale in each short chapter with the most wicked titles and then moves the story forward with those. He maintains a dignified limit of pop culture references and pays special attention to building character of each one introduced.

The protagonist is cute as a button. She is extremely likable but realistic girl, who behaves like most teenagers only not. Her two adorable (to the reader, she thinks them nasty) brothers and her stick-through-everything friend are very cool as well. Not to mention her alarm clock that goes ‘Wake up and Kill Bill!’

The art, by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel, is the kind I dig - no mess, clean, complete, detailed, and cute. Some full page panels are so much fun that I not only found myself coming back to them to check out what happened in the background but also googling them to make user icons.

It is an easy read that every comic lover should pick up. No, it is not a Watchman or a Fables but it is something. Something very good.

Oh yes and my copy is personally signed by Sonny Liew. He also drew me a super quick but delightful cartoon.

It was almost like being back to school – three days of the week that just went by. Great part was that I was enjoying the training. Maybe if I pick up a subject that I really enjoy, I could go back to school for a while. It would be nice. And I think I can afford it, especially now that I have a husband who can pay the bills. Okay, that was a cheap shot but so what?!

So, do you know of Victor Frankl? I did not until I attended last week’s training. I still do not know a lot about him but I know a small something which is enough for me to think of him as a hero. While Frankl was in Nazi concentration camp, he discovered that the choice is always yours to make. When Nazi made him undergo humiliating and inhuman experiments, he decided to choose his reaction to those actions. He survived them and maintained his sanity all through. This made me thing if those moments when I feel awful because getting tickets to a certain movie is not in my control or when I am unable to plan a vacation due to circumstances out of my control. I have been living with the belief that I am a product of my circumstances, which is untrue. I am a product of my choices.

So while we are on the subject of heroes and idols, I realize that I want to become like Celine from Before Sunset. Yes, I know she is a fictional character. Yes, I also know that she is pretty confused and slightly depressed, but hey, I never said I want to be her – I want to be like her. I get to choose what I like and what I don’t like even in my fictional idol, right?

This reminds me that it has been ages since I talked about movies and books on this journal. Strange! There was a time, not so long back, when all I talked about here used to be movies and books. And food. Food was usually accompanied by tempting pictures. Let me correct my folly and talk about my favorite reads from last few days.

I just finished reading Bone - a grand comic book with amazing art in black and white, a brilliant story and fascinating characters. Written by Jeff Smith, it is a story of adorable creature called Fone Bone, Bone being the species of cuteness with huge noses. Fone Bone and his magnificent adventure that introduces him to princess and queen of the lost city, makes him friends with huge red dragons, tiny leaf-like bugs, hairy baby monster, and makes him fight a war against locusts, huge army of veiled humans called stick eaters, big hairy rat-monsters, a humongous mountain lion, and lots of other weird fellows.

Another beautiful graphic novel I recently finished was The Absolute Sandman – Volume 1. Written by the charming Neil Gaiman, this is a collection of 20 stories about Sandman – the lord of the dreamland. This is what can be classified as dark fantasy that blends age-old myths with the modern day life. It is one of those hard-to-put-down collections with splendid art and vivacious use of colors. I found myself glued to it for weeks though because the beautiful hardcover ensures that I cannot carry it with me. You sit down on your comfy yellow beanbag and read this book, turning each page with care. It is a collector’s item – most definitely.

In between the fat comic books like Bone and Sandman, I picked a couple of issues of Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley. Scott is a twenty-something boy living in Canada with a gay roommate. Since he is between jobs and broke, he shares everything that his roommate has, including the bed. He begins with dating a high-school girl but soon moves on to a mysterious chick with seven evil ex-boyfriends. His life is crazy, Scott’s. And reading about it, awesome fun. The life story of Scott comes in four issues and sadly, I have only three. Issue one, two, and four. You nice soul living in the US, do you not feel like hunting for the third issue in your local bookstores and mailing it to me? Yes, yes? Oh, thank you so much. =)

So I am still undecided about whether I like Mary Jane more than Gwen Stacy and I forever keep oscillating between Superman and Batman, but when it comes to my favorite villain, there is no uncertainty.

Overtime I have grown to like the Marvel world better than DC. The characters are less complicated and the adventures are both more intriguing and credible. Plus there is humor. I am not sure if all comic book fans would agree with me on this one, but I often find humor well knit in the stories in the Marvel world. You know, Peter Parker’s wit can give both Clark and Bruce run for their money any day. And who would even think of comparing the X-Men with JLA?!

But I am digressing from the main point, which is my favorite villain. Despite a very obvious bend towards Marvel, my favorite villain (I would say vamp, but then you’d call me sexist) is from DC.

Who cannot love the most spectacular eco-terrorists in the universe? This lady would rather live in a world of plants than interact with human beings, especially the ones in black cape and on batmobile. This sexy woman in green, with plants for jewelry, spends time creating love potions and potent toxins that trap likes of Supes and Batty.

I like this villain because I believe that she does not really hate human beings but what they stand for. She is obsessed with plants and definitely has a soft corner for children. She has displayed strong maternal instincts on several occasions; she is there for the helpless and harmless. Oh, she is a doctor, ain’t she?

She is smart, she is sensuous, and she is fun. Readers are not really sure of her sexual orientation (You don’t really believe that she loves Batman, do you?); therefore, she is mysterious.

Oh, if you are uninitiated and still reading this post, I am talking about ( Poison Ivy )

Let me tell you a story where the past meets the future.

In not-so-near future, say the year 2517, the earth has deteriorated, completely 'used up,' and a large population has emigrated to the star system. People now live on various planets and their moons. They have multi-generational ships and space shuttles, which are much more tech-savvy and faster than the ones NASA boasts of today. These planets and moons have been terraformed to resemble earth. However, terraforming was feeble and therefore, many outlying moons are dry and grim. Think the surroundings seen in Western movies.

Nations of the earth have fought for the star system and only two super powers remain: America and China. However, the ruler of star system is the Alliance, an organization that has forcibly unified all planets and moons under one government. Now, the central planets are well under control of the Alliance but the outlying moons have little government authority. (Remember 19th century's West America?) People living on the outlying moons enjoy freedom from the Alliance but have no access to the conveniences available to the high-tech central planets and moons.

The future is free of aliens but is an intriguing mix of different cultures. The most illiterate white man can also speak Chinese as it the second language to one and all. The mark of the Alliance is the Chinese flag layered over the American flag.

Malcolm Reynolds was a sergeant in the war of the outlying worlds to resist the Alliance. In this failed attempt, Zoe was his first mate and a very loyal friend. After the war, a disappointed Malcolm bought a Firefly spaceship and named it Serenity, after the battle of Serenity valley that they'd just lost. He may not have his land but with Serenity, he would always have his sky!

( The tale continues... )

As the mercury drops lower than ever before, in my lifetime at least, I decide to stay in and do some catching up on my hoarded comics. And that is how I begin my lonely journey into the world of dying men!

Y – The Last Man

Nope, no super heroes this time around. It is a story of a simple, unmotivated man with very worldly problems (job, parents, girlfriend), who suddenly becomes the most powerful man in the world. What? I said no super heroes. Yes, that I did. And, I stand by it. Because here, it is not the man who alters; the world does.

Struck by a plague of an unknown origin, all the men burst and die. Yes, all of them. All across the world. In fact, not just men but all mammals with Y chromosome are gone. All but one and he is our Last Man. The last hope of the mankind, or rather the womankind!

Life is not a party for our last man as he begins a transcontinental journey, accompanied by his chimp and a US government agent, to hunt for his girlfriend who was in Australia before the plague struck. “Y – The Last Man” is a collection of very engaging adventures of our hero, with cameos by Israeli defense forces, Russian astronauts, ninja women, feminist extremists, and of course, lots and lots of lonely women.

I became a fan of this graphic novel by Brian K. Vaughan after reading the first two issues. Although the line “no one can read just one” kept ringing in my head every time I reached the “to be continued” page, after 15 issues, I decided that I needed to go back to the world of men, so I decided to watch a movie.

28 Days Later

As I rummaged around my “to be watched” set of DVDs, I zeroed on “28 Days Later” because it is a Danny Boyle movie. And, that was about all I knew about the film. Unlike most, I did not become a Boyle fan after watching Trainspotting; superb film, but that was it. However, when I watched Millions, I was floored. A man who could deal with such diverse subjects so brilliantly, deserves fandom. But I digress. So, I sat down to watch this movie and my journey into the world of no men took a new turn.

“28 Days Later” begins with a group of environmental terrorists breaking into a lab and releasing chimps infected with “rage virus.” The disease spreads, and people die. All around the world. No, the fairer sex is not spared in this one. It is a story of a young man who was in comma for 28 days after a road accident. He wakes to see his city deserted. In search of a living soul, he finds infected human beings. And, the zombie movie begins!

The movie is brilliant and leaves very vivid images in your head. The depiction of how humans survive and adjust to the extreme circumstances and what happens when one is reduced to the lowest elements is excellent. Despite being a zombie film with certain very grim parts, it has a happy feel to it. Alternatively, I am weird.

By the time I got over with the movie, I was enjoying my journey into the world of dying. So, I went back to the remaining issues of “Y.”

And, yes, HAPPY 2006.

On one of my random book-browsing expeditions, I found some interesting-looking comic books that began from the last page. Original manga, I was told, reads from right to left. Intrigued by the concept I tried to get a sneak peek into those books but they were neatly wrapped in a cellophane sheet. A novice in the field, I picked the one which had the brightest pictures and the most fascinating write up on the cover. That’s how I found my first ever manga – Negima – Magister Negi Magi.

Already excited about the left-to-right thing, my cup of joy overflowed when I noticed that this book has been adapted to English by Peter David. Nope, I am not a fan, but I know about him. You have to understand that to me, Ken Akamatsu was an alien before I read Negima. I like familiar names. Therefore, I like Peter David.

Another cool thing that Negima brought about was the knowledge of Japanese honorifics. Use of suffixes like san, sensei, and kun with people’s names in Mega Tokyo has always confused me. Now I know.

To conclude, I can say that this saga of a Brit child prodigy, teenage girls, and vampires has gotten me started on manga. I’ll welcome recommendations, though.

Another first time experience is Terry Pratchett. I have been told that my life was worthless for not having read him but I always say, better late than never. Here again, I did not go the usual way. Instead of his much talked about Disc World series, I picked the first Johnny Maxwell title – Only You Can Save Mankind. Oh man, is it hilarious or is it hilarious! Each line, every single line on every single page is a joy to read. I am telling you. =)

I am only seven to eight-months new (old?) to the world of comics. In fact, I am still a toddler in this world. However, toddlers also have a right to voice their opinion. Well, they usually do not know the words, but they definitely have the right!

When I first read about the Indian avatar of Spider-Man, I was thrilled. To me, it seemed like coming of age of Indian comics. You know, besides the awfully juvenile (yet entertaining during my early childhood) Diamond comics, the Indian comic book market has never offered me anything else. I could never warm up to the so-called Indian super- hero comics. (And, thank God for that) Staying in remote lands of East, I had zero access to my then favorites like Dennis, Calvin, Garfield, Archies, Mister T, and Scooby Doo. That’s how the interest died. Oh-o, I am digressing.

The excitement of having the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man on our very own streets dimmed after the first press release. While the names, Pavitr Prabhakar, Mira Jain, Bhim, and Maya, saddened me, I was devastated to see Spider-Man’s attire. It all seemed to have turned into a joke. Nevertheless, in my heart, I was still looking forward to the first issue.

Then, my friend, philosopher, and guide in the world of comics sent me a sneak peak to the first few pages of the comic book. On realizing that Pavitr Prabhakar gets his super-powers in the most super-natural way and uses them to fights daemons, I almost gave up on the comic book.

To me, the strength of Peter Parker’s character is that the readers can relate to his problems. He lives in the world we know. He deals with issues just like ours – his school tests, his job, his girlfriend, his family, his finances. And, he dresses up the way any average American does. Right? Now tell me, have you ever met any kid in school/college (even the ones in the smallest towns of India) who dons a dhoti and carries a laathi to school? Mister Jeevan J.Kang, you have lost me here.

Curiosity is my favorite sin (Hold it! It is not one of the seven sins, is it? Uh-ho, I am never going to see John Constantine.) So, it got better of me and I picked the first issue of Spider-Man India this month, which failed to meet my low expectations. As if the substandard characterization and ordinary art were not enough, it has an extremely feeble script. I am unable to put it down in words, (Yeah, I’ll make a worse story-teller than Kang) but the panel where Spider-Man sees a woman being mugged and Uncle Bhim appears out of thin air, put me off – forever.
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Update: For some unfathomable reason I forgot Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha while talking about the comics I read as a kid. Thanks rileen, for reminding me of those gems.