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neven's review against another edition
3.0
A fun little bit of British lower-middle-class comedy mixed with Lovecraft and The Addams Family. Too brief and joke-based to have much lasting power, but cute nonetheless.
tasadion's review
2.0
I am a supporter of WorldBuilders, a lovely Science Fiction and Fantasy charity, which along with helping poorer people get ahead in the world also occasionally provide me with random comics/books/games. This was how I ended up with a copy of The Bojeffries Saga.
The first thing that you notice about this book is the author, the great Alan Moore, and the next thing is the fantastic artwork, well suited to the bleak English setting, but from there on in... Well.
This is a strange and somewhat uneven (in several senses) set of comics that explore lower class Northern English society via a family of strange and powerful individuals who turn out to be as messed up as the rest of us. Occasionally poignant, regularly strange, and often a bit random, this may well be exactly what Alan Moore was aiming for, but for me it misses the mark a little more than it hits.
The first thing that you notice about this book is the author, the great Alan Moore, and the next thing is the fantastic artwork, well suited to the bleak English setting, but from there on in... Well.
This is a strange and somewhat uneven (in several senses) set of comics that explore lower class Northern English society via a family of strange and powerful individuals who turn out to be as messed up as the rest of us. Occasionally poignant, regularly strange, and often a bit random, this may well be exactly what Alan Moore was aiming for, but for me it misses the mark a little more than it hits.
amalelmohtar's review
4.0
So, so clever. There were bits where it lagged a little but mostly I thought it was genius.
neven's review
3.0
A fun little bit of British lower-middle-class comedy mixed with Lovecraft and The Addams Family. Too brief and joke-based to have much lasting power, but cute nonetheless.
jonh's review
5.0
Previously read; currently playing catch-up.
Beyond Watchmen and The Killing Joke, I haven't read much Alan Moore. Mostly, I was turned off by his artistic partners. Previously, I liked really cartoony, bouncy comic styles, and the more "realistic" style in which Moore's partners drew bored me for a good long while.
I'm trying to educate myself about Alan Moore because--regardless of the art--his writing is damn, DAMN good. So I have a good portion of his work checked out. I decided to start, however, with The Bojeffries Saga: to my understanding, a more cartoony and fanciful adventure than the rest.
I don't even know how to adequately describe this work. "Bizarre" is probably the best way to go about it. One chapter is a light opera, one chapter is more like a children's book and less like a comic. It's all over the place, and every inch of it is an absolute delight.
The story centers on a family of dysfunctional creatures: mean-spirited, cruel, trying to make their way in the human world. Their depravity is reflective of our own. Even at his goofiest, Moore still manages to teach us harsh lessons about reality.
Beyond Watchmen and The Killing Joke, I haven't read much Alan Moore. Mostly, I was turned off by his artistic partners. Previously, I liked really cartoony, bouncy comic styles, and the more "realistic" style in which Moore's partners drew bored me for a good long while.
I'm trying to educate myself about Alan Moore because--regardless of the art--his writing is damn, DAMN good. So I have a good portion of his work checked out. I decided to start, however, with The Bojeffries Saga: to my understanding, a more cartoony and fanciful adventure than the rest.
I don't even know how to adequately describe this work. "Bizarre" is probably the best way to go about it. One chapter is a light opera, one chapter is more like a children's book and less like a comic. It's all over the place, and every inch of it is an absolute delight.
The story centers on a family of dysfunctional creatures: mean-spirited, cruel, trying to make their way in the human world. Their depravity is reflective of our own. Even at his goofiest, Moore still manages to teach us harsh lessons about reality.
rosseroo's review
3.0
I'm not a huge comics person or particular fan of Alan Moore's, but the artwork caught my eye, so took it home to see what it was all about. As far as I can tell, the stories collected in this nice trade paperback were originally produced from the early-1980s to around 2010. It's clearly a labor of love and a bit of satire, although as an American, it's hard to say if I clued into the majority of the inside jokes.
Somewhere in the Midlands, there is a council house of misfits that's a blend of Adams Family, Monty Python, and Lovecraft. There's a typically put-upon dad, with a dumb teenage son, a daughter who both looks like an ogre and has the strength of one, a werewolf uncle who has a penchant for eating the neighborhood dogs, another vampirish uncle, and perhaps best of all, the grandfather who lives out back is Cthulu-inspired all-powerful blob of organic material who spews hilarious archaic dialogue.
Each story is it's own small gem of sorts (there's one about the council rent collector that's genius, so is another written as light verse), and the whole enterprise just barely hangs together. Ultimately, I enjoyed it more for Parkhurst's amazing artwork than Moore's madcap stories. Probably a must-read for Moore fans, and more of a curiosity for others.
Somewhere in the Midlands, there is a council house of misfits that's a blend of Adams Family, Monty Python, and Lovecraft. There's a typically put-upon dad, with a dumb teenage son, a daughter who both looks like an ogre and has the strength of one, a werewolf uncle who has a penchant for eating the neighborhood dogs, another vampirish uncle, and perhaps best of all, the grandfather who lives out back is Cthulu-inspired all-powerful blob of organic material who spews hilarious archaic dialogue.
Each story is it's own small gem of sorts (there's one about the council rent collector that's genius, so is another written as light verse), and the whole enterprise just barely hangs together. Ultimately, I enjoyed it more for Parkhurst's amazing artwork than Moore's madcap stories. Probably a must-read for Moore fans, and more of a curiosity for others.
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