Maids

Maids is a crime tale based on the Papin sisters, Christine and Léa, who worked together as maids until they murdered their employer's wife and daughter. This is a slow burn of a book, only six chapters long, with the first five establishing background and subtly ramping up tension. The events occur mostly in the Lancelin residence, where Christine began work as a maids. She advocated for her younger sister Léa to be hired on as  cook, and the two were reunited in service.

Over the course of the book, we get insights into the young women's lives, from their troubled upbringing to their years in a convent. They were unusually close and frequently got into trouble. As maids, they often were up to some form of chicanery, pilfering items, messing with food, and trying to enjoy some of their employers' finery for themselves. They worked everyday from 6 AM to 7 PM and were also treated shabbily by the Mrs. Lancelin and their spoiled daughter Genevieve. On February 2, 1933 after being blamed for a power outage in the house due to a faulty iron, the sisters brutally murdered Mrs. and Miss Lancelin.

The artwork in this book is spare but masterfully laid out in ways that build suspense to a crescendo. The color palette is warm, which contributes to a muted, dark ambience that lend a drabness to scenes of everyday life and also a sinister edge to the violence. It's a beautifully affecting book, and Skelly gets every ounce of nuance and feeling from her economical imagery. This book is gorgeous and horrible as well as a clinic in storytelling.

And what an opening page!

 This book is the creation of Katie Skelly whose prior comics include My Pretty Vampire, Operation Margarine, Nurse Nurse, and The Agency (NSFW). She speaks extensively about her work on Maids in this interview.

The reviews I have read of this book have been positive. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly summed up, "This subversive horror story will satisfy readers who like their crime stories served with gender and class analysis and a pretty whipped topping." Writing about Skelly's art, Etelka Lehoczky opined, "It's a style that invites you to take it at face value while mocking your inclination to do any such thing. The theme Skelly expresses in every layer of this book is our tendency — or need, really — to underestimate anyone and anything we can't immediately assimilate: maids, girls, comics, comics about girls." Tom Murphy had a different take on the visuals, writing, "Its strong structure and narrative get as close as possible to the bond of blood between the sisters, but the bubblegum realisation on the page creates an uneasy dissonance."

Maids was published by Fantagraphics, and they offer a preview and more information about it here. Due to violence and adult subject matter, I suggest this book for mature readers.

My Pretty Vampire

My Pretty Vampire is a bloody, sexy book.It focuses on the tale of Clover, a gorgeous vampire who is easy to take for an ingenue. On the onset of the book she is struggling for freedom from the machinations of her brother, who seems controlling and obsessed with her in an incestuous manner.

Soon afterward, however, her powers of manipulation and murder come to bear as she orchestrates her escape and leaves a trail of bodies in her wake.What follows is a series of plot twists and turns as well as seductions, and if I had one criticism of the book it's that it is too short. I loved reading it and wallowing in the horrors its pages contain. I feel it is a wonderful choice for a horror fan who is into comics.

This book is the creation of Katie Skelly whose prior comics works include Operation Margarine, Nurse Nurse, and various Agent webcomics (NSFW) that were recently collected into hard copy. My Pretty Vampire is striking in her works because it is so much larger than her digest-sized books I have read in the past. The album-sized pages here feature the artwork quite nicely, and it is striking just how much they pop off the page. I hope to see more of Clover's (mis)adventures sometime in the future.

Most of the reviews I have read for this book have been positive. Publishers Weekly offered a mixed review, writing, "When the tension between Clover’s beauty and the violence that fuels her actions is the focus, the book is at its best. That said, it often feels like a first draft: certain page and panel transitions are clumsy, angles are often awkward, and the simplicity of Skelly’s visuals sometimes makes it difficult to discern what’s going on." Rob Clough called it "a book that matches up her exquisite color sense, delightfully lurid sense of humor, eye for style and aesthetics and acidly satirical, feminist take on gothic/horror tropes." Andy Oliver noted that it was "her most accomplished work to date."

My Pretty Vampire was published by Fantagraphics, and they offer a preview and more here. It features horror, violence, profanity, and sexual situations and is suggested for readers mature enough to handle those things.

Happy Will Eisner Week, Day 4: Nurse Nurse

Will Eisner Week day 4 has me looking at a graphic novel that is a compilation of mini-comics.

Nurse Nurse's creator Katie Skelly published 7 separate mini-comics, which are collected here along with the never before published 8th chapter that wraps the story up. On her website she called the book "Psychedelic Nurses in Outer Space," and I have to say that's a pretty apt description. The set-up is as follows:

A handy expository page!

The main character is Gemma, a nurse in training who has to deal with some pretty competitive fellow nurses. She starts out on Venus, but ends up on Mars and beyond. She has so many episodes but they are all pretty light and fluffy. Additionally, her adventures are dreamlike and random, but there are lots of fantastical features, such as deer wearing space helmets, space pirates (one who dresses like a panda), a cosmic band of musicians, an evil ex-boyfriend, weird television commercials, a mischievous three-eyed squirrel critter, and butterflies that pack an aphrodisiac punch. I was impressed with the imaginative range of character design and world building throughout. And although I enjoy the narrative jaunts, for the most part they are pretty loosely tied together. The real star for me here is the pictures. I very much enjoy Skelly's art style, with its 1960s psychedelia, flourishes in lettering, tiny details, eruptive images, and clean, flowing linework. The whole book crackles with a fun, exciting energy.

 

Reviews I have read of the book have been mostly positive, though some offer reservations. Rob Clough wrote of it, "The overall effect is a breezy, lighthearted, relentlessly strange and amusing narrative that must be accepted by the reader on its own terms." Suzette Smith called it "an amazing exploration of the experience of a modern liberated woman in space." Sean T. Collins marveled at the "endearing cartooning style" and strong character designs but in the end felt let down by the incomplete, somewhat rushed story.

If you like Skelly's comics here, you might also want to check out her other mini-comics collection Operation Margarine.

Nurse Nurse is available from Sparkplug Books.