Celeste

‘Celeste’ is a graphic novel by I.N.J. Culbard whose graphics I have enjoyed on the ‘Brass Sun: The Wheel Of Worlds’ mini-series. His art is equally good on ‘Celeste’ and he has more space here to indulge in slow-paced storytelling which he does to good effect.

There’s a very cinematic opening few pages in which the view pans from a distant shot of the Milky Way galaxy right up to our own lovely planet. Then it focuses on three objects that look like rose petals which drift down from the sky and land on three different people. These are an albino young lady in London just getting up for work, a man in the USA driving to work and a man in Japan about to hang himself. In the blink of an eye, it appears that all the people show more around them vanish and they are left alone. Then the albino girl finds another girl, the man in the US finds a fellow trapped in the boot of a car, hands bound, and the man in Japan finds odd looking shape-changers who attack him in various ways. There is some nudity and not very gory violence.

The storytelling was excellent throughout and it was perfectly simple to follow even though there were many pages with neither dialogue nor captions. It was easy to see what was going on. Making sense of it was a different matter, unfortunately. I very much enjoyed the developments in the first half which built up a great sense of expectation of something brilliant about to be revealed but the concluding part was, to me, disappointing. This sort of obscure story always passes my understanding, however, and people who like experimental fiction will probably enjoy the whole thing.

I’m glad that the medium of comics is being stretched in this way and used for something other than super-heroes, monsters and Science Fiction. This was a fantasy or maybe magic realism. I certainly appreciate the tremendous amount of work that I.N.J Culbard put into this project and I emphasise again that the graphics are lovely. However, the meaning of it all was lost on me. I have reviewed similar experimental works in this manner and among the creators, my name will surely be infamous as a blockhead best left reading simple super-hero adventures. Sorry.

Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/ show less

I didn't expect to love this book, but even so, I found it singularly disappointing.

My experience is partly the result of poor jacket copy - I quickly figured out that Celeste is a trippy dream sequence with pretty art, not a speculative comic about the disappearance of humankind. However, I'd argue this was a structural failing as well. The art is the only success here; I found the three parallel narratives shallow and disappointing.

Suddenly several people around the world find themselves alone, the world has gone and they're alone, what they do and how they react is interesting.

One minute Ray is talking to a policeman about his wife in LA, two commuters meet each other's eyes in a crowded underground in London and in Japan, comic artist Yoshi who has some to the Aokigahara Forest in Japan, fails to hang himself when suddenly there's no-one else around them. Ray is surrounded by cars, Aaron and Lilly talk about everything and nothing and it's very sweet and Yoshi is chased by demons.

I cared about the different characters and what was going on with them

This graphic novel is just plain beautiful. The story of an event in which most of the people on the earth instantly disappear follows the thread of three people in different parts of the world that remain. The story is pretty simple and there isn't a ton of dialogue, but enough for a plot in each of the threads of story line. And the art is stunningly gorgeous.