Of my five favourite graphic novels of the year, two (Stitches by David Small and Grandville by Bryan Talbot) were recently reviewed, leaving three to particularly recommend here. The first is Logicomix (Bloomsbury, £16.99; Buy this book), written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou and sensationally drawn by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna. It is being described as a book on the foundational quest, in the first three decades of the 20th century, for logically impeccable rules of mathematics. Well, it is that, but only as a sidebar to the main story of the life of Bertrand Russell, the man who wanted to secure the foundations of mathematics for once and for all. While he counted himself a failure in this particular aim, his collaborative work with A. N. Whitehead, the Principia Mathematica, created the platform for geniuses such as Wittgenstein, G?del, John von Neumann and Turing, who were to bring about epistemic breaks in mathematics, philosophy and computers. A self-referential work that dramatises the process of its own formation, Logicomix ends up working out a wonderful synthesis between logic and passion, what’s provable and what lies outside meaning. Beautifully illustrated, immensely intelligent and written with clarity, style, verve and great intellectual honesty, it sets a benchmark for graphic novels. If we had had books such as this when we were at school, mathematics would have been a delight rather than the fearsome spectre that it is for most.
The second is Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia (Templar, £12.99; Buy this book). This is not a graphic novel in the strictest sense, rather, an exuberantly illustrated collection of 14 short stories written by the artist himself. Circling around the theme of journey, this book, about transformation, is itself a transformative reading and visual experience. Intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have fallen into disuse, become brightly coloured garden installations that house tropical birds. A student is a two-dimensional collection of lines with a leaf for a head. A blind reindeer appears on the roofs of houses on Christmas night to collect objects precious to people’s hearts. Fragments of paper, containing private, unpublished poetry, begin to come together as a huge ball, which then becomes a giant cloud over a town and releases itself as paper rain, bringing an unexpected discovery to each of the townspeople: scraps of paper containing “various faded words pressed into accidental verse”. And to each reader they “whisper something different”, touching his life with a “strange feeling of weightlessness”. Tan’s writing is as beautiful as his art and his mind produces ideas and images as if from a sea of magic. This is one of the most wondrous books to be published in recent times.
The final one is Harvey Pekar’s adaptation of Pulitzer prize-winner Studs Terkel’s astonishing compendium of ordinary lives, Working (The New Press, £16.99; Buy this book), a monument of American oral history first published in 1974. The world’s biggest economy may well be one of the most unequal, high capitalism and redistribution being as immiscible as oil and water, and here is an eye-opening account of the have-nots in the richest country, of gravediggers, stonecutters, garbage men, bar pianists, barbers, proofreaders, mail carriers, supermarket box-boys, hookers, miners. Reading these first-person accounts of how they make a living, I was reminded repeatedly of the Old Testament words, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground”. A fleet of illustrators completed the artwork; each is distinctive and honours the person/profession illustrated. Heartbreaking, revelatory, impassioned and at times shockingly frank, it contains a dignity that borders on the noble and is a work of focused moral energy.
Dignity is also a word that comes to mind when faced with Jason’s expressionless characters. Low Moon (Fantagraphics, £17.99; Buy this book), his latest, a collection of five stories, is a book that can easily be counted as one of his finest. Emily Says Hello is a devastating story of the mismatch of two types of desires — sexual and vengeful. The title story is a deadpan take on the western, complicated by chess, revenge and, once again, love — and another brings together, wittily, punningly, two separate, melancholy tales right at the end. The final story, You Are Here, is a heartbreaking one of love and loss but, unsurprisingly for a Jason book, involves alien abduction, space travel and a sting in the tail. Laconic, sad and eloquent without the use of words, Jason’s work continues to mine the depths of the heart in the way of Keaton and Chaplin.
Deadpan, too, is Joe Daly’s hilarious and far-out, stoner-cool graphic novel The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book (Fantagraphics, £16.99; Buy this book). There are two stories, both featuring two dope-smoking, hippy losers, the monkey-footed graphic artist, Dave, and his didgeridoo-maker friend, Paul. The first, The Leaking Cello Case, has the duo exposing dodgy drug-dealing in Cape Town, while the second, longer piece, John Wesley Harding (yes, named after the 1967 Bob Dylan album), finds the two of them in a wetlands nature reserve, looking for an escaped capybara (named John Wesley Harding). Soon they stumble upon a top-secret, dangerous plot to drain the wetlands so that they can be sold off as real estate; it is up to Dave and Paul to foil the evil-doers. But are they sure they’re not imagining it? Twist follows twist in this insanely funny caper and the comic tone is pitch-perfect throughout. The drawing is pin-sharp, the textures sumptuous and the writing uproarious and spot-on. Double happiness indeed.
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While we’re on the topic of pin-sharp drawing, how could I not mention Paul Hornschemeier’s All and Sundry (Fantagraphics, £22.99; Buy this book)? You know you’ve arrived when your bottom-drawer doodles are published in a swish hardcover edition, except that this assortment of stuff from flat-file drawers is a visual feast, comprising short stories, serialised strips, posters and book covers. An endlessly browsable book, designed to be dipped into and savoured in short sessions, it will put a blissful smile on your face before you turn the lights out for bedtime.
A different kind of smile, nostalgic, melancholy, affection-filled, will break out on your face while reading Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock’n’Roll Life (Fantagraphics, £14.99; Buy this book), the memoir by Bruce Paley, illustrated by Carol Swain. A series of intimate snapshots of a lost era, the book gives us a front-seat view of the wild, idealistic, drug-fuelled optimism of the Sixties and Seventies, with all the period’s highs and lows: Kerouac, the summer of love, road trips, hippy communality, antiestablishment activism, a (literally) mind-boggling assortment of drugs, overdoses, The Who and T. Rex, Nixon, Vietnam, brutal American police. There is a failed attempt to get into Disneyland after dropping acid, and a bleakly hilarious account of successfully dodging the draft. There is a sad and tender account of an unsuccessful marriage with some of the most beautiful lines I’ve read in recent times about an oasis found unexpectedly in an aimless, rackety, chaotic life: “At night, Daphne and I would sit on the porch swing and listen to the trains go by. Was there ever a more beautiful sound than a lonesome train whistle cutting through the Mississippi night?”
Nate Powell’s Swallow Me Whole (Top Shelf, £14.99; Buy this book), a disturbed, haunting book, is impossible to describe. Dispensing with the configuration of story and art within panels, Powell creates a fluid, swirling world, perfectly capturing the afflicted subjectivities of its two adolescent protagonists, Ruth and Perry, stepsiblings who are schizophrenic and tormented by hallucinations and inner demons. Black has never seemed blacker and more shadowy than in Powell’s stark palette. It’s not an easy book, but its dark brilliance marks its creator as a writer-artist of genius.