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joshuavrysen's review against another edition
5.0
A collection of four panel comic strips, created by painter/designer/musician Gary Panter, which ran sporadically from the early 80s to the mid 00s in a Japanese reggae magazine. The beginning plot involves drag racers, monsters/mutants, freelance photographers, strange hospitals, etc. on a terra-formed future Mars that is an amalgamation of Texas and Japan. This quickly devolves into a series of strips that do very little in the form of traditional story-telling (flipping through a few pages half way through: there are landscape vistas, anthropomorphic animals riding wolf/robot/spider hybrids, 9/11 emotional processing, and haiku-like depictions of loneliness), but everything obviously still exists in the realm that has been laid out - Panter's artwork is otherworldly, so he has built a world where his artwork can exist! Though firmly rooted in the history and language of comic strip art, Panter is somehow able to transcend the form to create a singular experience in which the pacing of a comic is used almost purely for poetic purposes. His distinctive scratchy line work is complemented by the disjointed text, and the outcome creates a piece of art which, surprisingly, due to its purposefully messy starting components, is wholly complete and staggering in its complexity.
This book is a heavy read in one go, and is probably better digested a bit at a time. It is wonderful to have everything together in one place, but the original forced pacing of once a month or so would probably have made for a more illuminating experience. A glimpse into the Sun is only so great every once in a while, but of course damaging for extended periods of time. I am immensely grateful this book exists, but must be careful not to let it burn and blind me! It is a STAR!
This book is a heavy read in one go, and is probably better digested a bit at a time. It is wonderful to have everything together in one place, but the original forced pacing of once a month or so would probably have made for a more illuminating experience. A glimpse into the Sun is only so great every once in a while, but of course damaging for extended periods of time. I am immensely grateful this book exists, but must be careful not to let it burn and blind me! It is a STAR!
chelseamartinez's review against another edition
3.0
The strips in this book span decades: they start out very roughly drawn and it is cool to see the style refined into Panter's often more bubbly look, but I was startled when suddenly mid-book there were images of the Twin Towers and a 9/11 message.
Note: This book is unwieldy! (short and wide to fit the original strip's three-panel format)
Note: This book is unwieldy! (short and wide to fit the original strip's three-panel format)
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