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A review by saidtheraina
Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot
5.0
I give this five stars not because I loved the book.
I gave this five stars because I admire (and was amazed by) the innovation in the medium and form.
It feels like an annotated Alice in Wonderland, without the original text, in comic form. Plus all kinds of historical background on the region and context for the story. Basically a big lovesong to Sunderland, a region in England.
One quibble I have is that the author occasionally uses the term "the East End" to refer to the place, and that made me think (in my ignorance of English geography) that it might be the same thing as the East End of London. Which, after a quick Google map search, it definitely is not. A little bit of orientation might have helped with that.
Talbot collages together photographs, illustrations, and his own comic illustrations to give us access to primary sources as well as his accessible comic form. For a history geek, it was totally fascinating, though not always easy to follow. I think it would have helped to have foldout pages (I keep finding myself referring back to [a:Dash Shaw|596378|Dash Shaw|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1314252872p2/596378.jpg]'s [b:Bodyworld|6324785|BodyWorld|Dash Shaw|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330686178s/6324785.jpg|6510333]) or end papers with a map on one side and a timeline on the other, as it was hard to keep track of how the incidents related to each other.
But I just went with it, and was amazed.
I gave this five stars because I admire (and was amazed by) the innovation in the medium and form.
It feels like an annotated Alice in Wonderland, without the original text, in comic form. Plus all kinds of historical background on the region and context for the story. Basically a big lovesong to Sunderland, a region in England.
One quibble I have is that the author occasionally uses the term "the East End" to refer to the place, and that made me think (in my ignorance of English geography) that it might be the same thing as the East End of London. Which, after a quick Google map search, it definitely is not. A little bit of orientation might have helped with that.
Talbot collages together photographs, illustrations, and his own comic illustrations to give us access to primary sources as well as his accessible comic form. For a history geek, it was totally fascinating, though not always easy to follow. I think it would have helped to have foldout pages (I keep finding myself referring back to [a:Dash Shaw|596378|Dash Shaw|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1314252872p2/596378.jpg]'s [b:Bodyworld|6324785|BodyWorld|Dash Shaw|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330686178s/6324785.jpg|6510333]) or end papers with a map on one side and a timeline on the other, as it was hard to keep track of how the incidents related to each other.
But I just went with it, and was amazed.