GNG Discusses The Road, as Well as New Instalment of Crimson Fall
By Dan Brown SPOILER WARNING: This column contains plot details about the graphic-novel adaptation of The Road, so if you value surprise, stop reading now. It also contains information about Derek Laufman’s The Shore Tower, so the same warning applies. Here’s the rundown on the latest meeting of the L.A. Mood Graphic-Novel Group, which took place Saturday, April 12. The books: Manu Larcenet’s adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road. Later, Byron graphic novelist Derek Laufman joined us to discuss his latest book, Crimson Fall: The Shore Tower. The Road is a post-apocalyptic tale of a father and son eking out a bleak existence in a shattered American landscape choked with clouds of ash. The Shore Tower continues the monster-hunter adventures of an unlikely duo in a medieval world. The discussion: We begin our meetings with a lighting round. Each person around the table has two minutes to outline their initial thoughts. Then we follow up with a deeper discussion of the ideas raised at the outset. I kicked off the meeting by saying if the point of The Road was to depress the reader, then it worked on me. I appreciate the detailed art by French cartoonist Larcenet, however I could not get past such a dark depiction of human nature. The story takes place after some kind of apocalypse. The survivors must scrounge to live, so this is a society devouring itself. Literally. The bad guys become cannibals to survive. At one point in their journey, the father and son discover a kind of storehouse full of living humans with parts missing – they are being kept as a source of food. So if you’re looking for an uplifting story, a fable about the human spirit overcoming adversity, this isn’t it. There is a slight note of hopefulness at the end of the book, but not every member of the group read the conclusion the way I did. We also discussed the symbolism of the road itself, which is a relic from the previous civilization that looms large in the story. The father character is compelled to keep himself and his son walking, never settling in any safe haven for long. Even though Larcenet’s illustrations are amazingly detailed, the art couldn’t save the book for me. It’s too far from my own view of human nature. Halfway through our hour-long meeting, Byron comic creator Derek Laufman, who has worked with such companies as Marvel and Hasbro, sat down with us to talk about his latest project, Crimson Fall: The Shore Tower. It shows what happens when a knight and priest, at the behest of a local ruler, head to an island cloaked in mystery to find out why the lighthouse isn’t working. The book is pretty straightforward, although there is at least one big twist. Laufman described how, even though the finished product follows a straight line, he spent months trying to make a more complicated version of the story work in his imagination. After months of thinking, he couldn’t pull it off, so he went with a streamlined premise – although some of the elements from that earlier version are still present. Laufman talked about the joys of working on his own intellectual property, as opposed to illustrating characters like Spider-Man (one time, Laufman even designed the Marvel Christmas card!). He also explained how the leads in Crimson Fall are really the two halves of one persona – half is wise and thoughtful, the other impatient and action-driven. Further reading; I don’t think I’ll be picking up the original novel version of The Road, or checking out the motion picture starring Viggo Mortensen. But I do recommend the prose novel Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle – like The Road, it takes place in a crumbling post-apocalyptic society in which some people have reverted to cannibalism, but there’s an equally powerful group of survivors fighting to restore order and technology. That’s more like it. As far as Laufman’s work goes, he has several other titles worth ordering: RuinWorld, the Witch of Wickerson, Bot 9. I would recommend any of these if you are a parent whose child is interested in fun adventure stories. The language used in his Crimson Fall books, on the other hand, is decidedly adult. L.A. Mood’s Graphic-Novel Group meets the second Saturday of each month. Next month’s selection is Maurice Vellekoop’s memoir of growing up gay in Toronto as part of a strict Dutch family, I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together. We’ll be meeting May 10 at the gaming tables in the store at 11 a.m. All are welcome to join the discussion! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
GNG Discusses the Morality of Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees
By Dan Brown SPOILER WARNING: This column contains plot details about Patrick Horvath’s Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, so if you value surprise, stop reading now. Here’s the rundown on the latest meeting of the L.A. Mood Graphic-Novel Group, which took place on Saturday, March 8. The book: Patrick Horvath’s Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, which publishing house IDW describes as Dexter meets Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town. It’s set in Woodbrook, a community of anthropomorphic animals who do all the things humans do, including serial killing. The main character is Sam, a bear who runs a hardware store and is hiding a dark secret about what she does on visits to a nearby big city. Her double life is threatened when one of Woodbrook’s residents meets a grisly end. The discussion: Most members of the group liked the book, although some had reservations about its morality. I was heartened that Beneath the Trees does not portray Sam as a genius because I’m sick of the “charming serial killer with a high IQ” trope that happens in so much pop culture when the reality is many of them are of average intelligence. Hannibal Lecter is not your typical serial slayer, yet that idea is pervasive. Some of the members of GNG were unsettled with the juxtaposition of cute animals doing human things while also being savage to their fellow creatures. This is definitely not a story for kids! The cuddly animals are tool users, with some of those tools being instruments of bloody death. One of the main points of our discussion was how Horvath has animal characters who are like humans, but additional animal characters who are animalistic animals. For example, near the climax of the story Sam, who walks on two legs and wears clothes, meets two “wild” bears in a forest who are fighting over a deer. She attempts to communicate with one of them. Is Horvath saying human beings are nothing more than animals? Is he saying some people Mccan use their reasoning faculty, but not others? We pondered those questions.In another part of the graphic novel, a pig character peers into a butcher-shop window, where a pig’s head is displayed. On a subway, an upright dog holds another dog on all fours on a leash Horvath inserts these images but leaves the reader to interpret their meaning.We also discussed the degree to which order, or rules, can be placed on savagery. The wartime treaty the Geneva Convention came up – is there a point to putting a moral structure on war, when the whole goal is to impose cruelty on the enemy until they submit? One thing we didn’t spend much time on was the difference between the rural and urban settings in Beneath the Trees. The ending of Beneath the Trees is also challenging because the reader sees that order is restored to Woodbrook. But is that a good thing? Is it really a storybook “happy ending,” or does the conclusion promote a nihilistic view of morality? We agreed the book was a good pick for GNG. Further reading; If you’re interested in reading a graphic novel about a real serial killer, GNG covered the Jeff Jensen and Jonathan Case book Green River Killer: A True Detective Story a number of years ago. It’s about Gary Ridgway, a man of average IQ who has the most confirmed murders of any real-life serial killer. L.A. Mood’s Graphic-Novel Group meets the second Saturday of each month. Next month’s book is the graphic-novel adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road, with illustrations by Manu Larcenet. We’ll be meeting April 12 at the gaming tables in the store at 11 a.m. At 11:30 a.m., Byron graphic novelist Derek Laufman will be coming for a visit to talk about his new project, Crimson Fall. All are welcome to join the discussion! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
