Dean Motter

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1275371.html

A graphic novel sequel to The Prisoner, published 20 years later. The Village has been closed for years, but a former Number Two exposes many of its secrets in a Spycatcher-like memoir. Meanwhile Alice Drake, an agent on a sailing holiday from a failing marriage, gets shipwrecked in this place with very weird architecture....

I generally liked Shattered Visage. It is very true to the original TV series visually and psychologically; the characters are show more beautifully drawn and entirely recognisable. I was a bit disappointed with the ending which felt both rushed and inconclusive. But basically this is a worthy addition to Prisoner canon. show less

I really really really wanted to like this book. I mean, come on. The basic premise is that one of the architects of a Metropolis-style city has returned to find it's driving its inhabitants mad. And that architect is mostly mad himself, reduced to taking drugs to never sleep and constantly saying, "So much work to do...so little time to do it..."

How do you fuck that up?

Well, you fuck it up by devoting something like two or three panels on a single page in an almost 350 page book to that show more architect actually attacking the problem, but you spend the bulk of the time having people run around trying to solve one boring mystery after another, including whether the architect, known as Mr. X, is really Santos, or Walter, or Eichmann, or... yeah, don't care. So, the writing, while having the odd flash of brilliance, was mostly banal.

And then there's the art. It started off extremely strong with the talented Hernandez brothers, then got progressively worse until it hit rock bottom with artist Seth.

There was a constant thought going through my head as I struggled through two-thirds of the book before the apathy came to stay. And that thought was...

Mister X.
Misdirects.

I think that's the more accurate title. Don't call it Mister X. Call the the phonetically similar Misdirects. Because that's all this book seemed to do. It misdirected you from the main story of what Mr. X could have done to save the people of Radiant City, and instead involved you in the small, boring stories of some of the city's most boring leaders.

Not worth the time. show less

Half are great and half are weak with obvious plots, tissue thin characters, and passable artwork. It seemed like a lot of the writers thought it was noir just to write about crime and put in a twist, but noir is really a mood and an evocation, not just shadowy panels and dames with obscure motives. Many feel like snippets of a bigger whole but the few pieces that sing really go to town. Lime I said about six or so on here that really get what noir means.

This is a collection of short, twisted (some more than others) crime stories. I’m unsure what boundaries we should give to noir, so I’m not going to worry about whether they are truly noir. They do have the atmosphere and the despondency. And I think the graphic novel format is well suited for conveying those things.

It’s a quick read, about an hour. The art is clear and bright in black and white — none of that “what the heck is going on in that frame” thing that modern comics so show more often fall into. The storylines are pretty easy to follow, although some are heavier on atmosphere and feel than plot, especially the skewish but well-done Fracture by Alex de Campi and Hugo Petrus.

Like I said, the stories are short — 11 stories in about 100 pages. So there’s a kind of economy of impact. The stories provide a punch, and that’s it. Very little complication, although of course at the cost of developing involved plots.

But, for what they are, they are entertaining and sometimes provocative. This, along with what I’ve read of Velvet and the classic EC Archives Crime SuspenStories, inspires me to what to get more into the genre. show less