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A FEW PERFECT HOURS (AND OTHER STORIES FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA & CENTRAL EUROPE)by Josh Neufeld
BARAKA AND BLACK MAGIC IN MOROCCO by Rick Smith
($12.95 and $14.95, respectively;
Alternative Comics,
Josh Neufeld,
Rick Smith)
Reviewed by Tim O'NeilThe travel narrative holds a place of honor and distinction in the history of literature, not only as a forerunner of the modern novel but as a significant historical phenomena in its own right. Travel stories, regardless of their factual content (or lack thereof), have long been one of the primary vehicles by which distant cultures and countries have communicated. If the immediacy of their appeal has lessened somewhat in an era of instantaneous communication and international travel, they still retain the unique potential to accomodate cultural rapprochement through a more lengthy and thoughtful explication of mores than is allowed by most abreviated forms of modern communication.
The fact that this venerable genre is gaining traction in the field of comics is yet another signal that the medium is slowly but surely reaching the kind of artistic maturity that has been long heralded but less often fulfilled. In theory, graphic storytelling would seem a perfect vehicle for the exploration of alien cultures, but in practice the somewhat self-obsessed nature of alternative cartooning imposes its own restrictions on the degree of empathetic rapport made possible.
Neither
A Few Perfect Hours or
Baraka and Black Magic in Morocco are perfect works. The latter is actually a poor travelogue, and while the former is much stronger it is still flawed. The problem with both is the extent to which the cartoonists' personal perceptions inhibit their expression.
I have to wonder how much of my reaction to
Baraka is influenced by the fact that Rick Smith is a very poor cartoonist. His grasp of spacial relations is not good, and illustrations of distinctive architectural and geographical attributes – so vital to the travelogue in prose or pictures – are often indistinct and vague. His figures are loose and inconsistent, with indistinct proportions and constantly changing facial features. The book looks a bit like what I imagine Chester Brown aping 1940s-era Jack Kirby would seem like.
But the drawings are only a part of why the book is ultimately unfulfilling. There are many pitfalls which the modern travelogue would do best to avoid, and the most prevalent one would be the fallacy of presenting one's reaction to a foreign culture as the actual content of said culture. Smith's perceptions of Morocco are monotonously paranoid and unflattering, with brief flashes of perspicacity placed throughout at random intervals. Smith seems like the living embodiment of a jaded and cynical American tourist – which is probably an unfair assessment, but it is definitely borne out by his unconscious insistence on chronicling every scrap of his own ennui and misapprehension, along with those of his wife and the unsavory fellow tourists they meet on their travels. Empathy is hardly required, but the opacity with which Smith portrays the cultures he visits is ugly.
A Few Perfect Hours presents a more balanced, and therefore more interesting view of the traveler's experience. Josh Neufeld and his wife Sari Wilson both come off as eminently likeable people throughout the course of their travels. While again this kind of empathy is hardly necessary, the prospect of spending 100 pages with a pair of assholes as tour guides makes you appreciate their amiability all the more, especially after having finished
Baraka and Black Magic.
I didn't recall seeing Neufeld's work before this, but a quick examination of the author's bio tells me that he illustrated the
Titans of Finance one-shot from a couple years back, a book which I vaguely remember enjoying before filing away and forgetting. His work is more memorable here, and just over the course of these hundred pages the reader can detect a marked improvement in his style. There are very few artists working today in black and white who truly appreciate the art of well-spotted grey-tones, and the later stories in the book highlight Neufeld's clear growth in using greys and sparse blacks to create effective depth-of-field in a two-dimensional panel.
Like
Baraka,
A Few Perfect Hours is as much memoir as travelogue, with all that that implies. The emphasis on the author's own experiences gives the reader an accessable focal point throughout the course of the adventures, but this is a two-edged sword. Although
any travelogue is essentially another culture filtered through a separate set of eyes, the constant presence of Josh and Sari in the panels and throughout their adventures keeps the focus squarely on the travelers' perceptions. This is similar, albeit nowhere near as egregious an example of the same kind of fallacy that made
Baraka such a confusing book.
But does it matter? Neufeld doesn't try to hide the fact that
his experiences and adventures are the focus of the book, and not any kind of authorial remove. It is an effective tool except, well, when it isn't, which is when the profound gulf between disparate cultures stymies Neufeld's ability to adequately process and communicate his thoughts. There are a number of moments throughout the book where you wish that Neufeld could just step aside and allow us to observe the proceedings without the benefit of his observations, but that never really happens.
Still, there is no doubt that Neufeld has created a distinctive and memorable work. The most impressive facet is the way that the book, constructed out of eight short sketches and a handful of smaller features, builds in scope and intensity. More than merely a collection of stories, we see Neufeld's artistic temperament and his perceptions grow apace throughout his travels. By the time we reach the book's final story, "Cremations, Cubicles & Cant", he has mastered the mixture of travelogue, autobiography and personal commentary which you realize he had been perfecting for the entire volume. It's the best story in the book, a multi-layered narrative that masterfully balances multiple time frames and personal reminiscenses. Neufeld's travels finally allow him meaningful insight into the traditions and ceremonies of his own culture and milieu. Although the ending might seem mawkish to some, the note of sentimentality is well-earned, building naturally from subtle bits of characterization peppered throughout the previous hundred pages.
[ Link to this review ]
