It took me a while to get into this book but once I sat down to it the story zipped along. It was nice to finally read a book set in my home country. The language and the story had a genuine Israeli flavour unlike so many stories set here written by visitors with a personal agenda who think they know Israel but see only the 'big themes' and miss the real life. (it was a problem I encountered with some reviews of this book)

Although Exit Wounds was a pleasant read it left me a little unsatisfied.
In hindsight the story seemed a little thin and I missed the depth of emotional development that I enjoy in plain prose. This is probably a characteristic of graphic novels in general rather than a failing of this book in particular but as this is my first graphic novel I'm unable to judge.

However my lack of satisfaction was also due in part to the fact that at least one of the main story lines was left unresolved. This is not a totally unknown tactic with Israeli screen writers so I was not completely surprised.
And one of my personal peeves was the constant bad humour of all the protagonists. Hardly a single moment of joy encroached on the storyline and almost every dialog was a curt exchange resulting in hurt feelings.

All in all I'm glad I made the effort to read this book and I would recommend it both to Israelis and those who want to know a little bit more about the real Israel. ( )

Not the most thrilling graphic novel I've read in a while. Basically, this guy never keeps contact with his father - for some fairly good reasons. This girl seeks him out, thinking that he was killed in a bombing, and she is involved with the father. A journey takes them to find out some more not so great things about the dad and the ending kind of stunk. I think I just may not have been in the mood for this type of a story. ( )

Although Modan doesn't have the most refined of drawing styles, I still enjoyed the art in the book. There is so much human drama in the story that it's really calming that the drawings are so uncomplicated. The "mystery" of Koby's father is solved little by little through the book, and although I have a logistics (or maybe just - dare I admit it? - moral) problem with Koby and Numi's relationship, it's still quite heartfelt. I honestly didn't think much of the book while I read it, but the story has really stayed with me and, with the amount of books I read, I have to give it a lot of credit for that - this is a book I will re-read more than once.

http://boklista.livejournal.com/54704... ( )

"Do you think that every time we meet a person we should treat it like it was the last time we were ever going to see them?"This Israeli author tells the story of Koby, a self-involved taxi driver in Tel Aviv who is approached by a female soldier regarding his father - a man she has reason to believe was one of the unidentified victims of a suicide bombing a few weeks back. Their journey of discovery and their ever-changing relationship is handled with impressive subtlety, and Modan's art is at once elegantly simple and extremely detailed. ( )

Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds has been getting a lot of notice this year, and with good cause. Based in Tel-Aviv, she draws in a clean line style about life in Israel. The somewhat foreign quality of the illustration combines nicely with her subject matter to create a novel that is easy to read yet somewhat exotic (for readers outside Israel, at least).

The story revolves around Koby, a young man who drives a taxi in Tel-Aviv, and Numi, a woman his age who happens to have had a relationship with his father, a deadbeat dad named Gabriel. Numi fears Gabriel has been killed in a suicide bombing and involved Koby in her search for answers.

Although the setting and circumstances are not very well explored in contemporary comics, the plot remains steadfastly conventional. A romance blooms between Numi and Koby, destined to be a tortured romance due to their previous relationships with Gabriel.

Modan is clearly a great artist and working with some compelling material. Exit Wounds is an indication that we should be keeping an eye out for her future work, although I will be hoping for her to escape the confines of conventionality. ( )

Tel Aviv cab driver Koby Franco receives a call from an Israeli soldier. She’s not looking for a ride. She wants him to take a blood test to determine if an unidentified victim of a suicide bombing is his father. Since he is estranged from his father, who he hasn’t spoken with in two years, Koby is at first repelled, but becomes intrigued when the tall young soldier reveals that she was his father’s girlfriend.

This subtly crafted graphic novel explores themes of deception and abandonment as it reveals the identity of the bomb victim. It’s a mystery for those who enjoyed Graham Greene's The third man or Dashiell Hammett's The thin man. ( )

http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/2008... ( )

Set in modern-day Tel Aviv, a young man, Koby Franco, receives an urgent phone call from a female soldier. Learning that his estranged father may have been a victim of a suicide bombing in Hadera, Koby reluctantly joins the soldier, a young woman who was intimate with themissing man, in searching for clues. His death would certainly explain his empty apartment and disconnected phone line. As Koby tries to unravel the mystery of his father's death, he finds himself piecing together not only the last few months of his father's life but his entire identity.

In this quietly moving piece of graphic fiction, Modan makes the savvy choice not to introduce the reader to Gabriel, Kody's father. In doing so, she puts the focus squarely on Kody, and on the different strata of Israeli society. Clean, spare artwork nicely complements the still story, where no great revelations are made, and some questions go unanswered. ( )

I had been searching for Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds in the comics shop I frequent and was disappointed to find that they didn't have it. I did, however, find it at the nearest Borders, which I suspected I would since it has a "literary" feel, like most other books published by Drawn and Quarterly. Drawn and Quarterly, btw, is responsible for the lovely English translations of Yoshihiro Tatsumi's work. They're going to publish one book of his annually, two out so far. Tatsumi is amazing. I've reviewed him before and you should go out and read everything he's written. Right now.

I'm normally fairly wary of "literary" comics as I frequently find them purposefully-intellectual and self-important. Rutu Modan, however, is one of the founding members of the Actus Tragicus Comics group which is published by Top Shelf who also publishes Alan Moore and thus enough trust is secured for me to purchase (I feel like Kevin Bacon should fit into that sentence somehow.) Also, the subject matter (suicide bombing, Israel) interests me.

This was a very fast read (a little too fast for $20 retail) and the ending was unsatisfying but in a way that made sense. It definitely took me in different directions than I thought it would, which is something I like. I really need to read more work done by the Actus Tragicus group. ( )

Exit Wounds is a graphic novel about Koby, a taxicab driver in Tel Aviv, Israel who is searching for his missing father in the wake of a suicide bombing. Koby is contacted by Numi, a former army officer who was having a relationship with Koby's father. She hasn't been able to contact Koby's father, and wonders if a blood test could determine the identity of a body at the scene thought to be Koby's father. Together Koby and Numi travel throughout Israel gathering information for witnesses and try to piece the final days of Koby's father together to find closure. This is a very interesting portrayal of contemporary Israel, split along working class and upper class lines and dealing with fractured families and the ever present fear of terrorism. The narrative has its most direct impact as the story of the difficult relationship between Koby and his father is unveiled. The artistic style is direct and unadorned and the story itself is lyrical and pithy. ( )

I picked up Exit Wounds based on a bookstore recommendation, without having any previous familiarity with Rutu Modan and her work. Drawn & Quarterly has done such a fantastic job of packaging this book that is was hard to resist as an impulse purchase!

The good news is that Exit Wounds is very worthwhile, and features an intriguing mix of deceptively simple line work joined with rich colors and well-designed page and panel layouts. Modan is sure enough of her skills to avoid introducing unnecessary visual complexity into her tale, and the resulting emphasis on character development is the real reward of reading Exit Wounds.

Another aspect of this book that deserves mention is the animation-like quality of Modan's artwork, as she often highlights her principal characters with darker lines and bolder colors than she assigns to backgrounds or secondary characters. Combined with the unadorned line work, this gives Modan's panels a feeling of fluidity and movement that is quite an accomplishment for the necessarily "still" world of a the graphic novel. ( )

A mystery story of a son searching for his father, after he meets a young woman who suggests he was killed in a cafe bombing. Koby has a distant relationship with his father. Gabriel left the family after Koby's mother died, and has a history of changing his life radically every few years. Koby's extended family doesn't trust Gabriel, believing him to be dishonest, insincere, and unreliable.

Koby eventually discovers that the Numi, the young woman, was his father's lover. Koby struggles with her affection for Gabriel as they search for answers. What starts as a prickly relationship between Numi and Koby somewhat predictably develops into sexual tension. What is unpredictable is the course of the search; as they continue to hit dead ends, the story becomes much more about these two characters, with the mystery of Gabriel taking a backseat.

The characters' faces are simply drawn--and the characters are physically almost interchangeable--although the perspectives, scenes, and plot are complex. Beautifully and solidly coloured. ( )