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Sunday Salon: Fables

The Sunday Salon.comIt’s been a very slow reading week.  I can’t seem to focus on much of anything — I’ve been trying to read Saturday by Ian McEwan, but (even though I recognize it’s a lovely book) I just can’t get into it.  But I want to read.  I want to read a lot, I just can’t seem to focus enough on it.

So, what did I do?  I went back to some comic books!  Andi over at Tripping Towards Lucidity wrote a great piece for BiblioBuffet called “On Comics: Literature in a Hurry” where she wrote,

For me, comics are literature in a hurry. That is not to say that they are in any way “less” than traditional printed volumes or any other creative medium. Comics certainly are not created in a hurry, they are rarely fully understood or studied in a hurry, but thanks to comics I can have a quality reading experience in a relatively short amount of time. In a similar fashion to watching television or a film, comics are largely processed without overtly thinking about how it happens. As the reader skims over the page of a comic, the illustrator need only provide pivotal images to get the reader through and provide the bones of a plot. The reader does the rest. The reader’s understanding is the connective tissue that binds the images together.

I think that’s just brilliant, to think of comics a little like television.  There’s good television and bad television, television that makes you think and television that lets you tune out.  Comics have a bad reputation, I suspect, because people don’t see enough of the comics that make you think and too many of the comics that let you sit back and be lazy like a lame episode of reality tv.

So what comics did I go to this week?  The next two up in my read through of the Fables series by Bill Willingham — Volume 8: Wolves, and Volume 9: Sons of Empire.  They were both excellent, as always.  Well-crafted characters, compelling plotlines, and

Point of this Sunday Salon?  Read Andi’s piece, then go and check out a comic book if you haven’t already.  Don’t be embarassed about checking it out of the library or asking for one from a friend, just do it.  You won’t regret it.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Memory January 25, 2009, 5:25 pm

    Here here! Comics are wonderful, and Fables is a great place to dive in.

  • Nymeth January 25, 2009, 5:57 pm

    I so agree with you on why comics have a bad reputation. I also read those Fables books last week. They were wonderful 🙂

  • Sarah January 25, 2009, 6:23 pm

    I’m going through a bookish dry spell too. I can’t get into anything. That’s actually what my Sunday Salon post was on!

  • Andi January 25, 2009, 7:01 pm

    Thank you for passing along some of my column!!! It was a joy to write. 🙂 Glad you’re still enjoying Fables! I’m a little behind and really need to get caught up before another edition comes out and I get further behind! lol

  • Lu January 25, 2009, 7:15 pm

    It’s been slow for me too, but I’m finally getting back into the swing of things. Maybe I’ll look for some comics from my library for the next time I go 🙂

  • Joanne January 25, 2009, 8:05 pm

    Glad to hear you’re still enjoying the Fables series. I need to get back onto them again. The last one I read was Arabian Nights #7 but the last one I reviewed was #3 *gah*

  • Kim January 26, 2009, 12:11 am

    Nymeth: I like Fables a lot, I think it’s a nice “easy” comic to read that still has some intelligence to it.

    Sarah: I hope you get over your dry spell soon too!

    Andi: No problem, I really enjoyed reading it.

    Lu: Definitely, there are a lot of good comics reviews in the book blogosphere that you could go to for recommendations.

    Joanne: Fables is hard to review; if you liked the first one, they just keep being interesting.

  • alirambles January 26, 2009, 1:21 am

    I often have a hard time getting into McEwan, too. Maybe he should try writing a graphic novel?

  • Kim January 27, 2009, 9:15 am

    alirambles: Ha ha, that would be awesome! Can you imagine Atonement as a comic book? I think that would be cool.

  • Ali January 27, 2009, 11:28 am

    Atonement might work. Just, please not On Chesil Beach!