Not enough to turn me into a fan

Still on a graphic novel reading spree. Haven't felt reading anything heavy on text because of all the things happening around lately. Proust's Swann's Way would still have to wait. Although I've given myself this month to finish that. But for now, Batman.

Now I must admit that I'm not really big on the Caped Crusader. I found the movies (the Burton, the Schumacher, the Nolan) just fairly enjoyable. The vintage TV series was campy at best. When you say Batman, I just think of the costumes. Tight costumes. As in really tight. So tight that they'll show nipples and abs. Nipples so perky that you think, gee, it's really cold outside.

I found Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth at a bookstore. I thought, what better way for my Batman-ignorant self to be acquainted with this superhero than this stand-alone graphic novel. It's the 15th anniversary edition no less. Besides, the story's written by Grant Morrison and the artworks by Dave McKean. The latter is of The Sandman series fame. Sold.

Okay, the story. Now I know why I've never been fond of Batman. The guy's got so many issues. Prick him and he bleeds paternity, identity, and security issues. Slap him and your hand would feel numb by his intense coldness. I never got into Batman's brooding nature. If I were a millionaire, brooding would be the last personality I would have. Anyway, the story concerns with the inmates taking hostage the staff of Arkham Asylum. Their demand is simple: Have Batman go to the asylum and make him be one of them. The asylum residents are of a different breed altogether. They're all the enemies of Batman including Joker, Two-Face, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, Croc, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Then I was quite disappointed that there isn't much action in Arkham Asylum. There is plenty of talking though. And lots of panels showing the dark history of Arkham house and how Batman was lured into going there. Blah blah blah blah. And how is Batman released from the asylum? Well, by a simple coin toss. Yes, a coin toss that was probably rigged by Two-Face. Oh, Two-Face, you spoil all the fun. To think you were my favorite villain! You should've been more villain-y.

What I really liked about the graphic novel is the beautiful panels, which were paintings done by McKean. The panels were very gritty. And they did effectively show the themes of horror and psychological suspense. Even the typeface used for Joker's dialogue was very artistic. Just look at some of the panels below.

I'm not really sure if I'll be reading another Batman graphic novel soon. Perhaps I'll just wait for that Batman vs. Superman movie. Ben Affleck vs. Henry Cavill! If only they'd do away with the costumes, no?

Read this book if:

1. You fall for these brooding characters.
2. You love a guy in tight outfits.
3. You have this crazy idea of putting all your ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends in one house and then just seeing what happens.

Spoof-y

Daniel O'Malley's debut novel, The Rook, took me by surprise. I wasn't expecting to like it that much, considering that I'm not really into the fantasy-action-supernatural genre. This was an impulse purchase. Normally, I Google the books that I've been meaning to buy, checking out what other people say about them. However, The Rook floored me. I was extremely entertained by it.

O'Malley, in the opening chapter of the novel, presents us his heroine, one Myfanwy Thomas. (The w is silent and the f hard, rhyming with Tiffany.) Myfanwy awakes with no recollection of her own self and with dead bodies in latex gloves lying around her. The opening statement is enough to arrest you:

Dear You,

The body you are wearing used to be mine. [page 1]

It turns out that Myfanwy's former self was anticipating this memory loss and has decided to write letters to her new self to explain what she is and what she does for a living. Through these letters she discovers that her official title is Rook Thomas and that she's part of an ultra-secret organization called the Checquy Group, which is made up of retainers, pawns, and the Court. The Checquy apprently handles troublesome supernatural cases. She also learns that she has powers to control the people around her, and that her touch can be fatal if she wills it. Nevertheless, the new Mywanwy is peeved to find out that, despite these powers, her old self was a meek persona who was more comfortable dealing the Court's administrative functions instead of doing 'field work'.

The concept of the Court is particularly intriguing, as it is rooted in the game of chess. We have pawns who do the dirty work under the supervision of the Court. The Court itself is made of 8 individuals with supernatural abilities: 2 rooks, 2 chevaliers, 2 bishops, 1 lady, and 1 lord. Reading each of the characters that make up the Court is a delight. Rook Thomas's counterpart, Gestalt, is 1 individual that commands 4 bodies. One bishop is a vampire. And the Court's very regal lady can enter your dreams.

As I was reading The Rook, I realized that it reminded me of many pop cultural references. The varied abilities of the Court alludes to the X-Men. The school were students are trained call to mind Professor Xavier's School or, at the very least, Harry Potter's Hogwarts. The cases that Rook Thomas gets involved in, with the many instances of slime and ectoplasm appearances, is like The Ghostbusters. Add to that the bureaucracy and the efficiency of the organization, and you also get James Bond or Mission Impossible. The apparent 'spoofiness' of the novel never goes overboard. It's a fun read, I tell you.

So back to Rook Thomas. It appears that the Court has been infiltrated and that the former Rook Thomas has unearthed it. It is this mystery, this unravelling of the conspiracy if you will, that propels the story. It's a wonder to read the various letters that the old Mywanwy wrote for her new self, which are interspersed into the main storyline. O'Malley's novel is also very funny. If you like wry British humor, you'll be hooked with The Rook.

I was initially turned off by the book's length. (The hardback is close to 500 pages!) But The Rook's taxi-meter pace works to the reader's advantage. It's hard to put down a novel when each chapter has an action scene involving a flesh-eating blob, a hatching of a dragon gone wrong, a house overran by a religious cult which is in turn overran by ectoplasm, among other things. Oh, the wonders never cease.

A caveat: The Rook might just be the first in a trilogy or a series. While the main story does come to a close, it isn't as clean and complete as some people would have it. It seems O'Malley has set the stage for the next novel. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it would be as enjoyable as his first.

Read this book if:

1. You know that there just might really be an organization that protects us from supernatural creatures.
2. You can suspend your disbelief for extremely outrageous stuff.
3. You like chess.
   

We wanna watch Watchmen

Thanks to a very dear friend, I've been introduced to the world of comics, now more popularly known as graphic novels. I haven't read that many though, since graphic novels are quite pricey and I realized that I don't pay much attention to the illustrations. Nevertheless, I've read THE graphic novel -- Watchmen by Alan Moore.

Graphic novel readers in their teens and early20s probably would not like the book's pace. Nothing much happens in the first few pages of the book, and the story only fully reveals itself in the second half of the book. This book has been described as "groundbreaking," and frankly I'm confused by this label. I think probably it's because Watchmen was one of the first graphic novels to have a well-written plot and well-developed characters that do not rely on their superpowers to propel the story. In the world of Watchmen, superpowers are an afterthought. I did enjoy reading it though; the suspense builds up effectively and the ending is very satisfying.

And speaking of superheroes, click here to make your own. I managed to come up with this:

I don't need a hero

Perry Moore's novel, Hero, has this dedication: For everyone. Apparently, I'm not part of everyone. Moore's novel, which is geared primarily toward young adults, falls short of expectations considering that it does have an atypical main character -- a gay teenager with superpowers. Having this protagonist, who is named Thom Creed, does not provide enough fuel to the plot of the novel.

Thom hides the fact that he has superpowers and that he daydreams of Uberman's strong and hairy thighs. He applies to the League of Superheroes and gets accepted as a probationary hero, being lumped with other superheroes-in-training (a boy who can make people sick, a girl who can make fire, an old woman who can see the future, and a man with super-speed powers). Unfortunately for Thom, this does not sit well with his father, a disgraced superhero himself who has shunned the League completely. A murder of a superhero becomes the pivotal point of the novel. Typical of superheroes, they band together to capture the murderers, and it is Thom's group that gets the suspect. Unfortunately, during the press conference, Thom announces that they've got the wrong suspect because Thom was "with him" that night. This confession outs Thom to the whole world and, more significantly, to his father.

Moore tries too hard to veer away from the conventions of a young adult novel and also from the stereotypes of a gay character. Thom is a star basketball player and has no mother figure at home. In fact, his mother's non-presence in Thom's life is due to two reasons. One, she left them without word one day, and, second, she's Invisible Lass, also a superhero. There are also cringe-inducing moments such as when father and son share cold beers every now and then.

What's paradoxical about these attempts to be a non-traditional YA novel is that Moore's Hero is a book of cliches used ineffectively. In a death scene, for example, the old woman whispers her enigmatic message to those around her; in her funeral, they bid their farewell to the dead woman one by one and then go their separate ways. Even the love angle is so contrived. When Thom and another boy are about to kiss, they hear an explosion cutting their brief romantic moment. Enough already! Even Thom's powers is a cliche: he can heal people.

Of course, one would argue that the flaws in Moore's novel can be attributed to the fact this is his first novel. His uses of allusions would probably get better with time. In Hero, Moore shamelessly makes parodies of the superheroes we've come to love. Justice, the symbolic head of the league, is from another planet, sent by his parents when his planet was about to explore. Warrior Woman, a minor character probably best left out of the book, is a demi-god from an island, and she has a magic lasso too.

In short, Hero is all over the place. And that is never a good thing since the plot is spread too thinly. You'd definitely be better off if you read graphic novels if you want to get your superhero fix. Gay readers would find little to relate to in this book. It's neither campy nor witty.

Read this book only if:

1. You like your characters in spandex.
2. You have an affinity for one-dimensional characters.
3. You're partial to names like Major Might, Justice, Typhoid Larry, Golden Boy, and Silver Bullet.