Comicsgirl

Archive for November, 2007

New Hampshire’s Small Pond Productions will present a new musical based on Jimmy Gownley’s awesome Amelia Rules! next weekend. I am jealous and I hope reviews/photos show up online afterwards (or even closer to the opening day).

I’ve wondered why there’s not more crossover between comics and stage. Certainly, there is some, like Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who writes for both. I just think, despite appearances, the two mediums have a lot in common — both play with language and pacing and do a little with a lot (and often, more with what isn’t there than what is).

But then, I was an English major so it’s in my nature to think about these things.

I’ve linked to Project Rooftop several times in the past (but it’s so much fun!) but the site’s recent Wonder Woman Wardrobe War contest winners are so much fun.

I was never really a Wonder Woman fan — when I read superhero comics, I was mostly reading Marvel stuff — but the character is unquestionably an icon. Even when they stray from the traditional, these designs show how thrilling and creative costumes for her can be. With all the bad costumes for female characters (too scanty and revealing or sometimes just plain ugly) that comic book fans have suffered through, it’s delightful to see things like this.

Now only if some of these concepts would make it into the actual comics …

I didn’t mean to vanish for so long, I had some things in every day life to catch up with.

I didn’t watch The Simpsons comic book episode because I gave up on The Simpsons years ago and I work nights so no prime-time TV for me. The AV Club offers a nice recap which makes me think I didn’t miss much.

Year’s best for comics lists are popping up (nevermind the year isn’t over yet). Publishers Weekly has one (about a third of the way down the page) and it’s a good list, although if I have to read anything else about Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings, I’m going to end up throwing something. I know there are others (I thought Amazon had one) but I don’t remember them right now. Ooops.

There is a great interview with Marjane Satrapi in the most recent issue of Bust magazine (who awesomely gives a lot of coverage to women making comics, it seems). I am quite excited to see the film version of Persepolis, but sadly, it’s probably going to be next year before I see it.

I’m sure there are more things I meant to discuss. Maybe I will remember them when life gets less hectic.

In response to the third question here (second page), advice columnist Amy Dickinson recommends Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese to a mother wanting to know how to balance her Chinese heritage with raising her son in the U.S. While the book has received plenty of press from all over, it’s still fun to see it mentioned normal, run-of-the-mill context as an advice column.

Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware will be discussing graphic novels Friday, Nov. 9, as a part of the PEN/Faulkner Reading Series in Washington, D.C. Tickets are $15. Sounds like a good time to me.

(Part of me wants to keep writing this, adding more to it, but I’m going out of town for a few days and I wanted to post it before the anniversary.)

Fifty years ago on Nov. 3, a formerly stray dog the Russians called Laika became the first earth creature in space. Despite the official claims at the time, Laika died about five hours into her flight.

Nick Abadzis‘ Laika (First Second) expands on the dog’s story, as well as telling story of the humans around her. It remains a sad dog story, sure, but it’s also a sad human story – it’s about the choices we face to serve our own ambitions, the sacrifices we make for what we believe in. Told through Abadzis’ roughly graceful art, it’s a tale made all the more moving through the comic format.

After initially introducing Sergei Korolev, who has just been released from prison to aid the Soviet space program, the first few chapters are lead by Laika, initially dubbed Kudryavka (“curly” in Russian), as she weathers one cruelty after another – from an uncaring first owner to the harsh reality of life as a Moscow street dog. Abadzis never anthropomorphizes Laika even when she’s the center of the action. She’s always just a dog.

The book shifts toward the human characters after Laika is caught and picked to be part of the space program. Hired as an assistant dog trainer, Yelena, an invention of Abadzis, quickly becomes the reader’s surrogate. She loves Laika and the other dogs under her care, but her excitement quickly fades as she realizes this job will quite often mean losing the animals she loves. Sworn to secrecy about her position, Yelena is forced to be alone in her pain as she faces Laika’s fate and sweetly cares for the dog until the launch.

While Abadzis’ sympathies are clearly on Laika’s side – she is the title character, after all, and the one we follow from life to death – none of the human characters are presented as villains. Even Sergei Korolev, perhaps the coldest character in the book, is merely doing what he feels he must. When he chooses Laika to be the dog to go into space, he sees it as an honor for her. One of the leading scientists in the space program, Oleg Gazenko, provides the conscience of the book, expressing the conflict of the heart science too often brings.

Although based on reality, Abadzis inserts magical touches throughout, such as Laika’s dreams of flying, several people naming her Kurdryavka due to her curly tail, and even Yelena being neighbors with Laika’s original owners. The effect is subtle, but all these things point toward the bigger idea that Laika was fulfilling her destiny of becoming the first animal in space.

Abadzis’ ability to tailor his page layouts to suit the action is masterful. Dream sequences have a gentle fluidity while tense moments of drama are created with rigid, small panels. Also inescapable is that Laika is an adorable dog. Abadzis doesn’t draw her in a overtly cutesy or cartoony way, but even through his stylized realism, Laika’s personality comes through. This makes the story all the more powerful and painful as readers are constantly reminded of just who this dog was and what she looked like.

It’s a heartbreaking story, but Nick Abadzis tells it with beauty. Laika is a wonderful tribute to a little stray dog that changed the world.