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he damage that chuck unknowingly causes to his wife and children throughout the first volume a good and decent man tyler makes a point of noting that her father lives up to that subtitle and refuses to blame him for her own mistakes with men the second volume begins with her frantically driving to indiana to see her parents and to make sure that her mom s ok unsurprisingly for a couple that made a habit of bottling up emotions only to have them explode from time to time both pretty much act as though nothing has happened carol sees a house and a couple in bad shape with mice having eaten through their pantry her mother s stroke diminished her activity and mental capacity while her father always expected this sort of work to be done by his wife an unbelievably harsh dismissal from her father comes on the heels of the true reason why he called her and started talking about the war his belief that the army owed him disability money her failure to prove this for him brought about all sorts of unkind cuts and brought carol to one of several crises points in the book that particular crisis brings a lot of unpleasant feelings about her father to the surface tyler admits the resentment she feels for her father s distance cutting comments disinterest in taking care of her crazy mood swings and most damning never showing or expressing love in any tangible fashion this is one of several emotionally brutal sections of the book as tyler condemns herself for her own dumb choices made once free of her parents as she became a self fulfilling prophecy of what her father feared a wild child it s almost a relief for the reader when tyler turns back to the sepia and olive drab tones of the photo scrapbook section of the book depicting his tour of duty the high spirits and tomfoolery of the first book are replaced with hellish depictions of not just combat but being placed in a position where his men have to destroy the lives and livelihoods of civilians a seemingly innocuous scene of chatter with her cheery teenage daughter is a portent of something far heavier later in the book as tyler recalls how she came to leave california after her husband left her for another woman a full page light hearted drawing of the pair floating outside their apartment building as they head downstairs takes on a double meaning considering that later section of the book in a narrative sense the interlude reminds readers that carol at this time in the early 2000s is still holding out hope that her ex will return to her as much as for the sake of her daughter as herself it s a crucial scene for a book that up until this point is much more fractured and all over the place than the first volume the next section of the book is a long account of when tyler stayed with her parents when his father battled cancer but somehow built a house from scratch out in the woods it fills in some blanks in terms of their personal narrative especially in the way it fills in the picture regarding the true state of her mother s health but otherwise merely serves to support and amplify the points she makes earlier in the book regarding her father the next segment of the scrapbook ends with chuck thinking that the war was nearly over after d day being mustered into fighting the brutal battle of the bulge that segment ends with tyler getting a fateful phone call the last two sections of the book are a devastating one two punch especially to any reader with children much of this book falls into a holding pattern going back and forth about tyler s mixed feelings about a complicated man it s an assessment of the collateral damage that she took on as a consequence of his experiences as well as what her mother went through forget about getting her father to say that he loved her tyler would have accepted a simple i m sorry for his failures as a parental figure that said even a complicated relationship is better than no relationship as the chapter regarding cancer underlines when a parent is faced with the prospect of their child having a serious illness it s a devastating feeling when it s mental illness it s an even more helpless sensation in a section marked by red panel borders tyler talks about the time her daughter was first caught violating school rules and then finding drugs alcohol and razor blades in her backpack much more disturbing was her daughter trying to jump out of a window claiming the bird man told her she could suck in air by jumping carol literally had to tackle her daughter to bring her back inside before she took her to the er that experience causes carol to think of her mother s own tragedy the death of her young daughter this is where tyler reprints the hannah story which is simply one of the greatest comics short stories of all time it s about her mother living with chuck s family during wartime and it was not exactly a cozy set up chuck s mother was a hateful woman who had it in for hannah and even pronounced a curse on ann their first child two years later ann died in a hospital after scalding herself by accident it s the way the story is structured that makes it so brilliant as it s staged as a conversation in a garage between carol hannah and carol s sister virginia a long buried pain finally spills out as hannah finally talks about the burden she had been trying to forget all these years but pain can t be forgotten and emotions can only be tamped down for so long they always emerge somehow there s another bit of collateral damage reported here as chuck slaps hannah until she stops crying about ann unburdening herself of the pain allowed her to remember the brief but beautiful moments she spent with her daughter a moment she managed to achieve when she saw carol give birth asking don t i have a right to the good parts of her life beyond the pain i feel the final image of the story featuring an oriental rug with the features of all the tyler children is bright and hopeful and the final line hannah whose name will forever cradle her daughter s is drawn with a heart around ann tyler s light and expressive touch makes this moment powerful and resonant without being mawkish thinking of the story makes tyler realize that her daughter is still alive and in need of her back at the apartment building to change her clothes she catches sight of the window she almost jumped out of and is horrified at the end of the first volume tyler used hitler as a character designed to represent the toll of war itself at the end of this volume hitler returns in the person of the bird man in the person of the eagle of the third reich gloating over julia s near death experience if there was a sense of feeling overwhelmed at the end of the first volume the second ends in anger tyler took the time to process her grief over her childhood in this book but its real power is in how she comes to terms with that quickly when the life of her daughter is concerned there s a certain hokeyness in the way hitler is used here so literally but tyler earns that on the nose metaphor with the wringer she puts herself and the reader through in the course of the book more than anything this segment once again circles around to the book s title she didn t know her daughter was having these suicidal psychotic thoughts and there was no way she could have known visually tyler s style is unique in the comics world only vanessa davis comes close to doing the sort of thing she does in terms of using a painter s sensibility while drawing comics the scrapbook design of the book is just one of many remarkable decorative touches she adds color is tremendously important both in a narrative sense identifying key times and characters and an emotional sense modulating feelings felt on a page in an expressive style the complexity of her page design changing formats on an almost page to page basis is brought to earth by the simplicity of her character design the result is what feels like an ornate powerful and cohesive sketchbook journal even when the story goes off an a tangent tyler always manages to tie things back into the main narrative jumps forward and backward into time never obscure the main narrative through line visual call backs abound in the book both to the first volume and to key sequences in the book most impressively tyler manages to bring a static kind of craft a sketchbook to life with panels that crackle with energy and movement there are no easy outs or answers in tyler s attempts to create maintain and understand connections with her loved ones so i ll be curious to see what kind of conclusions she winds up with in the last book of the trilogy posted by rob clough at 4 51 am no comments labels carol tyler fantagraphics monday july 25 2011 talking tardi let s examine the recent and welcome spate of english translations of books by the great french artist jacques tardi thanks to translator kim thompson s tireless efforts and an american audience that may finally be opening up to french comics there have been five fantagraphics translations released to date with two more due for imminent release and others in the pipeline tardi is an interesting figure because he felt comfortable writing mainstream material like detective stories mysteries fantasy and even science fiction though usually of a period nature the arctic marauder for example is a steampunk book as well as more experimental and mature fare no matter what the subject his books always have a density and meatiness to them that rewards multiple readings i ll briefly examine each book roughly in order of narrative complexity here s a link to my review of the other tardi book that s been released in the last year or so by fantagraphics west coast blues the arctic marauder this was tardi s third graphic novel done back in 1974 this was a bewildering read combining elements of jules verne g k chesterton and a feverishly rendered scratchboard style in contrast to tardi s more rubbery visceral style the images in the arctic marauder look carved out of a page the density of the inking and hatchwork and the moodiness of the grays conjures up a forbidding dangerous world of instant death at sea after a while it felt like tardi cared less about his story than the opportunity to draw incredibly cool looking ships machines and battles at sea in a book that s already pretty short just 63 pages the arctic marauder feels quite padded the book s saving grace is that tardi doesn t seem to take much of it that seriously indeed his narration is so over the top that it spills over into being straight up purple prose the plot such as it is is paper thin what isn t immediately obvious comes out of nowhere and the characterizations and their reversals are frequently baffling that said the ending featuring the villains making a daring get away in their quest to menace the world was a bit unexpected and the narrator s final statements add to the tongue in cheek nature of the story fans of tardi s more mature works might be disappointed in the story but will certainly be taken aback by the sheer beauty of its images on page after page the extraordinary adventures of adele blanc sec volume 1 pterror over paris and the eiffel tower demon this book collecting the first two volumes in the series was previously translated and published by nbm dark horse in the 1980s thanks to tom spurgeon for that particular tidbit like all of the previous attempts to translate and publish tardi for the american market it was met with indifference in an interview with spurgeon kim thompson offered a few theories as to why he thought this was essentially the most mainstream of french novels were too genre oriented to draw in american art comics audiences but were too weird for the average american mainstream comics fan that weirdness in my view has to do with a visual approach that s taken for granted in europe but is jarring for american audiences there s a tradition of bigfoot and even slightly grotesque character design paired with rock solid naturalism in terms of the action and backgrounds in european comics that starts with comics aimed at kids and is not unusual to see even in comics aimed at adults art comics audiences might dismiss the cutesiness of the bigfoot drawing while mainstream audiences have never been kind to that sort of art crossing over into their genre stories what s changed is the rise of manga s popularity in the us cutesiness as interpreted by an american in serious stories is a given for many such comics at the same time the reputation of artists like jack cole a classic bigfoot stylist has risen in the past two decades in the art comics crowd the proliferation of artists fusing art comics sensibilities with genre stories has no doubt made tardi more palatable for american audiences especially with lewis trondheim finally breaking through in the us tardi s cranky female adventurer adele blanc sec has starred in nine albums written drawn by the artist and they ve been his most popular creation in france the books are period pieces set in early 20th century paris and while there s much about them that s predictable and formulaic tardi throws in bizarre narrative monkey wrenches at unexpected times for example the first story in this volume pterror over paris quickly establishes the book as a sci fi mystery with conspiracy and murder thrown in as well however we don t meet the series titular character until page ten and don t learn her real identity for another ten pages even at that the reader is given little information as to who she is what her motivations are or even if we should be rooting for her this first story concerning a pterodactyl hatched mentally controlled by a man s mental powers and a murder subplot that attaches itself to the main narrative is dizzying to the point of incomprehensibility at times the reader is introduced to nearly two dozen characters in quick succession many of whom prove to be turncoats within a page or two of their introduction major characters continue to be introduced up until nearly the end of the story as an american reader the slightly goofy grotesque character design lots of funny looking facial hair and eyes for example make identifying the many characters a chore that said the pluck and cantankerousness of adele herself make her a compelling hero the second story the eiffel tower demon is far more assured than the first of course one must bear in mind that these stories were originally published in the mid 1970s and thus were some of his early work this story was a lot clearer and sharper in terms of its narrative than the first without eschewing any twists and turns this story of a lost babylonian idol eventually turned into a plot to wipe out the populace of paris using the plague once again touching on anarchist conspiracies like chesterton might have characters from the first story weave their way in and out of this one adding additional color and complexity without cluttering up the plot tardi even has characters lik...