19 November 2009

DOMU: A Child's Dream

Katsuhiro Otomo's Domu is haunting. Based on a true story of a series of unresolved deaths, most likely suicides, in a Japanese apartment complex, Otomo lends his own interpretation of the tale, which unsurprisingly includes children with telekenesis -- a staple of his work.

Domu reads like a mystery. The reader gets a good sense of the housing complex, a community unto itself, through the seemingly mundane action that Otomo records therein. This is primarily acheived through second hand accounts of the suicides, provided by residents -- ancillary characters to the main narrative. In this way, the audience is able to develop a multidimensional perspective of the story as it is not only seen through the eyes of the victim, the killer or the police -- as is so often the case in a mystery, but the passerby as well.

And perhaps this is why Domu works so well. One of these passersby, seemingly the most benign of all the characters -- an old man who seems lost in a world of his own senility is actually the source of the malevolence. The old man, completely insane and actually possessing the intellect of a small child, is in reality a powerful psychic who compels random victims to end their own lives. This theme, tele or psychokinesis as Otomo likes to call it, is a key feature of his work, most notably his Akira series.

This theme is not only explored by the old man, the story's antagonist, but by it protagonist as well, a young girl who is a new resident of the complex and secretly a powerful psychokinetic herself. Ultimately she defeats the old man and restores order to the housing complex, but the artfulness of this battle: an old man with the intellect of a child versus an actual child does not escape Otomo and makes for a truly amazing reading experience.

05 November 2009

From Hell

From Hell is one of the finest pieces of illustrated literature ever created. Alan Moore weaves a truly masterful tale, musing on one possible back-story for Jack the Ripper deeply immersed in the occult, supported by Eddie Campbell's art which moves seamlessly between hyper detailed and completely abstract.

One of the most enjoyable facets of From Hell is the way it reads. Unlike most comics, which tend to be heavily action oriented and driven, From Hell is more reminiscent of a novel. Rather than relying on wordless action panels, From Hell is almost more akin to a novel in its dense dialogue. It is through these intense interactions that the characters are fleshed out: by their words rather than their actions.

But the most interesting piece of this book is Sir William Gull's practice of the occult. Charged by the Queen of England to eliminate all evidence of the birth of an illegitimate child by the Prince, William Gull strategically murders all involved in order to fulfill a powerful occult ritual tied to Free Masonry, architecture, Druids and the ancient culture of England. This portion of the novel is truly fantastic. While the story progresses and the reader follows the murders and wonders how this man is going to commit these murders successfully, he is secretly engaged in something infinitely more significant -- namely communicating with the devil.

Again, Alan Moore asserts himself as the foremost author in the field of illustrated literature and in my humble opinion, this piece would have to be his master stroke.