Gipi

Garage Band showcases Gipi's elegant sequential art style. The words in garage band merely compliment the experience that Gipi delivers to the reader though his emotional linework, watercolors, and panel arrangements. I call Garage Band an experience instead of a story because the story is secondary to the feelings that Gipi invokes with his quiet panels and intense depictions of the band in action. Garage band doesn't just tell a story about a group of adolescents coming of age and playing show more music, it tranports you into the souls of the character and beautifully conveys the escapism and theraputic qualities of getting together and rocking out. show less

Garage Band is a graphic novel about a group of 4 teenagers who are in a band together. They are an odd bunch, from the drummer who collects Nazi propaganda posters to the vocalist whose just plain crazy, they are definitely unique individuals. The adventure begins when they get their first garage to practice in, and the book starts from there.

To be honest, there is very little story to tell. I could give it all away in a couple sentences, if I were to try to describe it. The book is only show more just over 100 pages, with numerous full page, textless art. But within this tiny little comic is a strangely memorable tale, of 4 awkward and slightly strange kids trying to create music and discover themselves, and it's unexpectedly captivating.

The art is also very odd. It starts out with a pen-and-pencil appearance, like someone sketched it on a sheet of paper in high school. But then it is filled in with watercolor, which gives it this almost surreal, dreamy look. The art is relatively simple, and deceptively beautiful, and I found myself gazing at it quite a bit when I should have been reading on.

Maybe this one isn't for everyone, but if it sounds remotely interesting then please give it a shot. It's very small, and can be read in an hour or so if you can manage to not stare at the art, so it's not much of a risk to check it out from the local library. 4 stars. show less

Gipi is definitely shaping up as one of the most interesting of the current crop of European comics artists who are invading North America, which his enigmatic storylines and rough-but-controlled line work.

Garage Band is more straightforward (in terms of plot) than other Gipi works that I have read, but his characteristic use of a subtle watercolor palette is on full display. The story here is nothing deep or highly inventive, but it's told with an attention to detail and to character that show more is sometimes missing in comics. Gipi's protagonists are certainly not perfect, but they feel authentic and their story is an engaging one. show less

Soooooo, I guess the author watched the M*A*S*H finale. Yep. A lot of us did.

Anyhow, the story is set in two separate time periods. In the present day, a man named Silvano "Hawkeye" Landi is having a crisis in a mental health facility. In the past, a World War I soldier is stranded in No Man's Land with a wounded compatriot whose anguished cries are attracting the interest of enemy troops.

Since Sidney Freeman is not available, a couple Italian doctors talk to the patient and treat him show more heavily with drugs. We find out gradually he is a successful 49-year-old writer who is in an extreme midlife crisis, obsessed with mortality due to his looming 50th birthday, but also suffering relationship problems and impostor syndrome. He is also appropriating the war trauma of his great-grandfather, because there are so many parallels between being an author and a soldier. Sure.

Overall, the story is told in a frustrating manner with lots of stuff left vague, frequent and confusing jumps between multiple timelines for each character, and pointless detours to other characters, like the machine gun inventor graphically masturbating while spouting misogynistic crap about a woman who has embarrassed him.

There are some striking images in the art, but it's not enough to offset the derivative and annoying story. show less