Russian Olive to Red King

The last book I read by these creators, Moving Pictures, was a very mature and serious look at art, life, and the lengths that people will go to preserve both. Russian Olive to Red King takes on a different set of themes, those of love and loss, but it does so in a similarly complex and nuanced manner. This is not really a book for younger readers, not because it is full of sex or violence but because it tackles legitimately mature themes about major life events.

The story follows a couple, Olive and Red. Olive leaves for a business trip to a remote spot in the Russian wilderness when there is an accident. From there, we see how she tries to deal with it as a survival tale. But we simultaneously see how Red is dealing with it at home. As he struggles to get out of bed, do any work, or even walk their dog Pasha, dribs and drabs about him and their life start to emerge and give a larger picture of their relationship.

In an interesting twist, there are also some major indications that at least one of the main storylines is not as it seems. It is that conundrum that really sells the book for me, making for excellent drama and also commentary about the power of will and hope. I do not want to spoil things, so I won't get much more into the plot but will say that the final chapter is an emotional roller coaster ride that is revelatory in multiple senses of the word. Not only is it an essay about life and eventually hope, but it sheds a new light on the entire enterprise.

I was especially taken with the artwork in this book, and how it shifts between minimalist panels and more detailed splash pages. It contains a great range of emotion as well some beautiful wilderness vistas as the story shifts back and forth between locales. This deft combination of images helps to drive the story and create a strong atmosphere, a feature that comes to the foreground even when the time comes in the final chapter when words dominate its pages.

ROtRK is a beautiful and heart-breaking book that is one of the best I have read all year. It is the latest creation of Kathryn and Stuart Immonen, a wife and husband who have worked on many comics over the years. Kathryn has also written multiple series for Marvel Comics, most notably Patsy Walker: Hellcat and Journey into Mystery. The Joe Shuster Award winning Stuart has drawn multiple series for both major comics companies and is the artist for the latest batch of Star Wars comic books. The Immonens speak more about their collaboration on ROtRK in this interview. and also this interview.

All of the reviews I have read about this book have been full of praise. Jason Wilkins extolled its virtues, "Evocative and enthralling, this is easily one of the best, most accomplished books I’ve read this or any year." Seth T. Hahne had some great points about its  experimental storytelling, and he expected the book to be "divisive" but still admitted that it "makes for a peach book club discussion." Johanna Draper Carlson wrote, "It’s beautifully illustrated, which makes the harsh story all the more powerful, particularly with the contrast with the warm, often orange coloring." Caitlin Rosberg called it "an excellent read."

Russian Olive to Red King was published by Adhouse Books, and they provided a preview and much more here.

Omaha Beach on D-Day

This book is a unique one, an auspicious beginning of a series of books that are part graphic novel, part photo-essays, and part historical commentary about great moments of World War II. Omaha Beach on D-Day focuses on the life and work of Robert Capa, whose internationally famous photos of the June 6, 1944 battle captured the horror and brutality of war in an intimate way. Amazingly, he lost many of those photos due to wear and tear in the ocean as well as a chemical accident during development, but the ones that survived made quite an impact. Here, we see how he prepared for that day when he bravely rode in with the troops on a seafaring transport.

 

Capa's photos were the inspiration for the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, and the war sequences in this book are equally harrowing. The rest of the tale depicted here is fascinating, though, and I was very taken with its attention to detail and historicity. Following the comics story is a gallery of his WWII pictures, and following those were a series of articles about Capa's life, career, artistry, and technical take on photography. I found myself fascinated by the entire package, and I love how the whole work coalesced into a pretty complete reading experience.

Writers Jean-David Morvan and Séverine Tréfouel collaborated with artist Dominique Bertail to create the comics in this book. Morvan is an award winning writer for his work on youth comics, and he and Tréfouel  also write a comic series called Ocelot. Bertail is a prolific illustrator who has been making comics for two decades.

I was not able to find many reviews for this book, but the ones I read were glowing. The reviewer at Coverless Review simply stated that "Writer, Jean-David Morvan and artist Séverine Tréfouel do an amazing job with this book." Kelly Fineman summed up, "This book, through its combined story-telling methodologies, makes these images accessible today in a powerful and gripping way." And I agree with Nick Smith who wrote, "This book will appeal to fans of serious graphic non-fiction, but also to World War II buffs and students of photography."

Omaha Beach on D-Day was published by First Second in collaboration with Magnum Photos, and they have a preview and much more available here.

Thank you, Gina, for the review copy!

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout

Not Quite a Graphic Novel Month shines on!

I am not going to lie. I was geared up to hate this book. I saw it first in an airport in the graphic novels section but did not preview it. Always on the lookout for science graphic novels, I ordered it sight unseen from Amazon. When I got it, I opened it up and immediately thought, "Oh man, it's a picture book. What a ripoff!" So I set it aside for a few months. Now reading it, I see why it was put in with the graphic novels even though it really is not one. This book defies easy categorization, but I can tell you it's beautiful, informative, moving, and wonderfully strange. It is like a pictorial Moby Dick, a collection of disparate items and styles that hang together to give different aspects to complex narrative.

Ostensibly, this book is about two things: the lives and love of Marie and Pierre Curie, which act as the narrative thread connecting the second topic, the history of radioactivity. The Curies discovered polonium and radium, pioneering study of the elements and radioactivity. For their efforts they won Nobel Prizes, but they also fell victim to health problems from being exposed to radiation over long periods of time. They were titans of the field, lending their name to an elementary unit and beginning study of a phenomenon that has transformed the world, leading to medical advances, renewable energy, terrible disasters, and the most destructive weapons on the face of the planet. This book touches on all of these areas, and more. Today, Marie Curie is sometimes unfairly regarded as a token female scientist, and Pierre as her husband/collaborator, but as this books shows, such slight regard is unfounded and insulting. This book reanimates their stories and celebrates their lives and achievements in appropriate fashion.

Lauren Redniss, this book's creator, is an author and artist who has been published regularly in The New York Times. She also is the author of the book Century Girl: 100 years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis, Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies. From 2008-2009 she was a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers at the New York Public Library, and she became a New York Institute for the Humanities fellow in 2010. Redniss speaks extensively about her impetus for creating this book here.

Redniss's artwork is beautiful and haunting. Much of the artwork is cyanotype, a photographic printing process that produces a ghostly effect meant to echo the glow of radium or an x-ray. She also makes good use of collage to portray historic and informational text pieces. From the artwork, her account of the artistic process, and the copious footnotes in the end pages of the book, Radioactive is an obvious labor of love for her.

This book has garnered some impressive praise. It was a 2011 National Book Award Finalist. Dwight Garner raved that "the word 'luminous' is a critic’s cliché, to be avoided at all costs, but it fits Ms. Redniss’s book pretty snugly. This is a story with a hefty half-life." Dr. Mary Jo Nye called it "a book that truly is out of the ordinary, and it is well worth reading and contemplating." Marcia Bartusiak added, "Finishing the book, I went back to the beginning and read it again. Just as I did with my favorite picture books as a child." Kathy Ceceri called Radioactive "a rich and complex story of life, love, and science told through narrative and imagery. It is a powerful and beautiful book."

Some preview pages are available from the author here. The book's publisher HarperCollins provides numerous links here.

Why it's not quite a graphic novel: Radioactive is not a graphic novel, but it is not quite a picture book either. It is a collection of beautifully rendered art that tells a story by itself but not necessary in sequential order. There are also substantial text pieces that could stand alone. All together, this book provides a unique experience as a well researched piece of nonfiction, an affecting love story, and an evocative series of images.