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DRAWN & QUARTERLY SHOWCASE Book 1
by Kevin Huizenga and Nicolas Robel
($14.95,
Drawn & Quarterly)
Review by Sean McGurr
To highlight up-and-coming cartoonists, cool indy-publisher Drawn & Quarterly has started a new annual series that features lengthy stories presented in a sharp package. The not so originally titled
Drawn & Quarterly Showcase Book 1 features work by Kevin Huizenga and Nicolas Robel and is definitely worth picking up.
Based solely on a single reading of Huizenga's "Glenn Ganges," he has become a new favorite indy cartoonist. Known for his work in mini-comics, Huizenga's work shines on the large pages of this collection. His art is clean and confident. There is a definite influence of European artists, particularly Hergé (Tintin), apparent in his characters and their expressions. His layouts and the detail work in some panels is outstanding.
Unlike some great artists, Huizenga's writing is just as good. This piece is actually three related stories featuring Glenn Ganges, an average married man living in Michigan. In the first story, Ganges comments on the "Have You Seen Us?" cards featuring missing children that he receives in the mail each week. This results in a wonderfully-illustrated scene in which Huizenga shows the square pictures from the flyer on top of bodies that he has drawn in everyday scenes. Ganges relates these missing children with the Lost Boys, Sudanese refugees who have sought asylum in his town. It is made more poignant by the fact that Ganges and his wife, Wendy, are unable to have children.
Huizenga's next piece employs magic realism as Ganges embarks on a quest through the strip malls and shopping centers of his suburban town to find a feathered ogre that may have a way for he and Wendy to get pregnant. Although Ganges' journey is humorous, the underlying emotions behind it make for a great story. Once the monster is defeated and is turned into a flock of birds, Glenn and Wendy are able to have a child. The birds that the monster has released curse Glenn though and is the basis for the final story. In it, Huizenga deftly mixes an ornithological history of the starling with the raising of a newborn. All in all, the work is superb.
After Huizenga's brilliant piece, it only makes sense that Robel's "87 blvd des Capucines" didn't strike me with the same excitement. The French-Canadian Robel (the work is translated into English) tells a story of a young couple looking for an apartment. There are hints early on that the relationship isn't perfect and that the man isn't thoughtful of the woman's feelings. The first apartment they look at is a mammoth space on the fifth floor of a building that sends the woman into a reverie about her childhood.
There are a number of strange dream-like sequences that don't always click and at times I thought the story was unnecessarily obtuse. Robel's art has a distinct quality that will be unusual to mainstream American readers. The inclusions of subtle green, reds and pinks into the story gives it some anxiety as the colors shift and the apartment seems more than just empty. Although it doesn't quite succeed like Huizenga's work, Robel's story has some nice moments.
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