Comics Review: Blue Is the Warmest Color, Julie Maroh

This review was first published at The Hooded Utilitarian on December 17, 2013.

The small Vancouver publisher Arsenal Pulp Press had a happy surprise this spring. At the Frankfurt International Book Fair last October, they finalized the contract to publish the English translation of Blue Is the Warmest Color, the 2010 début effort of Belgium-based cartoonist Julie Maroh. The acquisition may not have seemed like much; the book’s biggest distinction was having won the Audience Award at the 2011 International Comics Fair in Angoulême. A film adaptation was in production, but it’s not clear the people at Arsenal Pulp were aware of it. The film certainly didn’t influence their decision to take on the book. The company specializes in LGBT-oriented material, and Maroh’s coming-of-age romance between a high-school student and a twentysomething artist--both women--was a good fit. But when the film premiered at Cannes in May, it was an immediate sensation. Director Abdellatif Kechiche and stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux shared the Golden Palm, the festival’s top prize. Arsenal Pulp, in response to the interest the film generated, stepped up their edition’s publication to coincide with its North American release. The first printing immediately sold out, and the publisher may be on its way to the biggest commercial success in its history.

The buzz surrounding the film, which I have yet to see, inspired me to seek out the book. One never knows what to expect in these situations. Film adaptations of good books miss far more than they hit, and the reverse is often the case as well. A good movie (or at least a well-reviewed one) doesn’t mean the source material is especially worthwhile. It’s as true of comics adaptations as prose ones. For every American Splendor and Ghost World that’s worth checking out, there’s a Road to Perdition or A History of Violence where the book doesn’t rate much interest. With Blue Is the Warmest Color, it’s been widely reported that the film took a lot of liberties with its source. Most of this focus has been on Abdellatif Kechiche’s handling of the story’s sex scenes, which Julie Maroh denounced as pornographic. But I gather Kechiche also gave the story a completely different final act, and he even changed the protagonist’s first name from Clementine to Adèle, so it matched that of Adèle Exarchopoulos, the actress who plays her. Kechiche’s title for the film (and the one used for its release in France) is La Vie d’Adèle—Chapitrés 1 & 2 (The Life of Adèle—Chapters 1 and 2). He was clearly looking to put as much distance between Maroh’s book and his film as he could. But whatever the case, movie or no movie, Maroh’s handling of her story needs to stand on its own.

Her cartooning is impressive. Maroh is an extremely capable draftsman and dramatist. She does a fine, detailed job of evoking the Lille, France locations. Her handling of the characters is even better. She shows a remarkable command of dramatic nuance, and the story’s naturalistic tone feels effortless. Jaime Hernandez, probably the strongest draftsman among contemporary English-language cartoonists, couldn’t have provided a more skilled visual treatment. I actually prefer Maroh’s drawings to his. She has a looser, jazzier line, and the relaxed feel to the art gives the story an admirable fluidity.

Maroh’s style is cinematic, but in the opening sections she gets away from the overly literal storytelling that stunts the work of so many cartoonists. These early scenes deal with the teen Clementine’s conflicts over getting involved with Thomas, a popular boy at school. The complication is her attraction to Emma, an artist she’s seen walking around town. The drama is complemented with poetic effects. The story is told in flashback, and after a full-color framing sequence, the watercolor rendering is in gray hues. A shift of this sort is a movie cliché, but Maroh employs it as part of a larger strategy. The grays highlight the selective use of blue, which Maroh uses as a trope for Clementine’s desires and anxieties. It first appears when Clementine and Thomas see each other for the first time, and Maroh uses it to render Thomas’s shirt. As the story progresses, it’s used to render other things, including Emma’s hair, a balloon Clementine sees, and a condom package. The color and the objects it portrays are used to evoke an impressive range of meanings: Clementine’s curiosity about Emma and Thomas, how her attraction to Thomas is borne of insecurity and a desire to conform, her self-loathing over her resistance to sleeping with him, and the intensely sexual nature of her interest in Emma. Maroh’s handling of the last is especially striking. Clementine dreams of being in bed with Emma, and Emma’s hands and forearms turn blue as her caresses become more intimate. The storytelling’s poetic element makes for an admirably fresh treatment of a teenager’s world being turned upside down by discoveries about her sexual identity. The first act creates high expectations for the rest of the book.

And that turns out to be a major letdown. The sequence in which Clementine breaks up with Thomas ends on page 24. Maroh all but abandons her poetic effects for the rest of the book’s 156 pages. Blue is used as a trope in only one other scene. Clementine gets off the phone with Emma, and she’s giddy that the two are going to see each other the next day. The blue flows over the wall Clementine is sitting against, and it colors the sky the following morning. But after that Maroh just uses the blue decoratively, specifically for the coloring of Emma’s hair. The storytelling lapses entirely into the literal. Maroh doesn’t even use the blue as a poetic element in the splashy scene in which Clementine and Emma first have sex. The book doesn’t completely lose visual interest. Maroh’s considerable drawing ability never falters, and her cartooning has some bravura moments. The most conspicuous is the wordless four-page sequence in which Clementine’s parents kick her out of the house upon discovering she and Emma are involved. But after the opening sections, Maroh’s visual choices never challenge the reader, or enrich the story’s moments with new meanings. She relies entirely on plotting, dialogue, and character soliloquies to carry the story, and her script isn’t up to the task.

The story is ultimately melodrama, and hackneyed melodrama at that. Most of the book after the first act is a series of scenes in which Clementine and Emma gradually come closer before pulling away. They’re both afraid of the commitments being in love demands, and Maroh lays on the angst with a trowel. There are plenty of other tired elements. Clementine discovers her parents are homophobic. Clementine’s lesbianism results in her being ostracized at school. Emma’s ex-lover Sabine angrily confronts Clementine after their break-up. Clementine even has a gay male best friend who is the story’s voice of wisdom. The story ends with Clementine and Emma forever parted after one dies from Ali MacGraw Disease. The one who survives looks out on the ocean and muses, “Beyond death, the love that we shared continues to live.” It’s all so stale, and it’s that staleness that makes the story so trite.

The tone is earnest, though, and perhaps Maroh thought that might provide the intensity needed to carry the reader through. I can only speak for myself, but the bulk of the book comes across as a collection of scenes from romantic comedies and melodramas that have long been run into the ground. An earnest rehash is still a rehash. The challenge for any contemporary artist is to, in Ezra Pound’s famous words, “Make it new.” Art is about communication, but the magic of art is communicating what hasn’t been said before, or at least what has been said in unfamiliar ways. Maroh gives the reader that magic in the visual poetry of the book’s opening scenes. The color blue is made to carry meanings one never expected, and those meanings keep changing. The rest of the book is just communication. Yes, the narrative is clearly presented, and I don’t doubt it’s heartfelt, but when I read, I want magic all the way through. If Julie Maroh hadn’t given up on that after page 24, her work might have been able to hold its own with any worthwhile film adaptation. I don’t yet know if Abdellatif Kechiche has cleared the bar she set for him, but she should have made living up to her work, much less outdoing it, a far greater challenge.

Explaining the Joke

This essay was originally published at The Hooded Utilitarian on September 28, 2011.

Many of you have probably seen this. It was created by the blogger D. B. Echo, who posted it online on August 15, 2010. It has since gone viral. Paul Krugman himself posted it to his New York Times blog on September 18. I saw it a little while later when Warren Craghead added it to his Facebook page. Nearly everyone I know thinks it’s the most laugh-out-loud funny thing they’ve seen in a good while. I believe it might be worth discussing why.

For those not familiar with Paul Krugman, he’s a Princeton economics professor who received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008. He is also one of the most prominent journalists in the United States. Since 1999, the New York Times has published a biweekly column by him. It was joined a few years ago by a frequently updated blog. Krugman is also a mainstay of news-discussion programs on television. He most frequently appears on ABC’s This Week.

Krugman’s prominence as a journalist comes from his being one of the few genuinely contrarian voices in the U. S. establishment media. He’s a knowledgeable principle-before-party liberal, and he’s not afraid to call anyone out. Democrats, Republicans, his peers in the press and the economics profession--none are exempt from his incisive and occasionally polemical critiques. Krugman was George W. Bush’s most consistently outspoken critic during his presidency. During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, it often seemed Krugman was the only figure giving a public voice to those who objected to the administration’s conduct. He has also proved a thorn in the side of Barack Obama. Krugman has frequently criticized the inadequacy of Obama’s economic policies and legislative strategies. A good deal of his writing for the Times these days is concerned with puncturing right-wing economic arguments and disparaging the international trend towards austerity policy. His views are so much at odds with others in the U. S. media and political establishment that he may be the closest thing we have to a latter-day Cassandra. The only consolation is that he speaks for the multitudes that have found themselves marginalized by--if not outright victims of--the political discourse in both the U. S. and abroad.

The picture above isn’t of Krugman, of course. It’s of actor George Clooney, in what is probably the most famous still from the 2005 film Syriana, which Clooney starred in and helped produce. (He won an Oscar for his performance.) It’s probably Clooney’s least glamorous role. To play it, he gained 35 pounds, grew a full beard, and shaved his hairline. The character is a middle-aged CIA operative in the Middle East who grows increasingly disgusted with the shortsightedness, double-dealing, and overreaching tendencies of his superiors. The moment depicted is when he reaches his breaking point and turns on the agency. One wouldn’t normally think of Clooney and Paul Krugman as lookalikes, but the beard, paunch, and salt-and-pepper hair make them all but indistinguishable from a distance.

Humor is rooted in dissonance, and a good deal of what makes D. B. Echo’s effort funny is the contrast between the Clooney character’s affect and Krugman’s normal public demeanor. Krugman’s detractors often characterize his writing as “shrill,” but he’s a polite, genial fellow in his public appearances. No matter how pointed his arguments with George Will (his usual TV foil) and others get, he never raises his voice or acts rudely. He’s by no means passive, but he’s hardly intimidating, either. One looks at the Clooney character’s ticked-off, don’t-mess-with-me attitude, and one can’t help but think that’s what’s simmering underneath Krugman’s calm exterior. The burning car is the icing on the cake. It’s a sensational trope for a mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore moment. The frustrations of arguing in vain are recast as violent, action-adventure melodrama.

What pushes this piece beyond funny and makes it outright hilarious, at least for some of us, is that Krugman has become an icon of liberal politics in this country. He’s become an identification figure--a synecdoche, if you will--of liberals in the contemporary U. S. If one considers oneself liberal, or at least to the left of the establishment political discourse over the last decade or so, one likely sees Krugman as one’s voice in the debate and champion in the arena. One feels the frustration of seeing one’s objections to the military actions and oligarchic economic policies borne out by what has followed, and one imagines on some level (with justification) that Krugman shares these views. One gets tired of the talk--the efforts “to reason with you people”--and one imagines oneself saying the hell with it in a spectacularly defiant moment. The identification with Krugman that one brings to the image becomes one’s identification with the scenario it shows. It’s quite cathartic, but the absurdity of imagining Krugman playing out that large-than-life situation is compounded by the absurdity of seeing one playing it out oneself. Like much great humor, the piece invites the viewer to laugh at both what it depicts and oneself as well.

The D. B. Echo piece is text and imagery working together, and I can’t help but think of how its sophistication relates to comics. It does something one rarely sees from comics creators: the words decontextualize an image and recontextualize it in new terms. D. B. Echo treats the image poetically; he uses the text to transform the visual scenario into an allegory of an unrelated situation. Most comics treat the image as an end in itself; they don’t use it as a signifier that can be exploited for multiple meanings. What you see is what you get; everything is literal, and nothing is ambiguous. The D. B. Echo piece makes me wonder if that’s a distinction between comics that are mediocre and comics that offer more. Great comics should do what this piece does: transform the image to create a resonance that is both wide and deep.

However, all this pedantic analysis aside, D. B. Echo has given us something that’s brilliantly funny. I wanted to share it with those who haven’t seen it.

Comics Review: Other Lives, Peter Bagge

This review was originally published on The Comics Journal's website on April 10, 2010.

Peter Bagge has always had a knack for depicting compulsive and monomaniacal personalities. He never fails to find new variations of the type, and he never seems to repeat himself. One would be hard-pressed to find a Bagge character that isn’t a vivid, unique personality. Best of all, he knows how to play them off each other for maximum impact. There isn’t a better creator of situation comedy in comics (or elsewhere) today.

The four principals of Other Lives are worthy Bagge creations. The first introduced is Javy, a computer-programming whiz and conspiracy theorist, who may or may not be a government agent. He’s followed by Vader, a self-pitying journalist who’s completely hung up over his past. There’s also Vader’s fiancée Ivy, who’s fixated on two things: their wedding and the virtual-fantasy community website Second World. Her companion on the site is Vader’s friend Woodrow, an insurance adjuster who can’t own up to either his gambling addiction or his divorce.

Several scenes are gems. Javy and Vader’s conversations are witty roller-coaster rides, with Vader’s skepticism butting up against every intricacy of Javy’s seeming delusions. Ivy’s aggravation with Vader’s self-loathing is also well handled. Bagge makes the scenes funny while keeping both characters sympathetic, and he never once condescends to them. The most enjoyable scenes are those with Ivy and Woodrow’s avatars on the virtual-fantasy site. Ivy sees the site as an opportunity to cut loose, and the scenes of her committing virtual mayhem against the other site denizens are a delight. Her relationship with Woodrow is also wryly funny. The two aren’t on the same wavelength at all. One can’t help but chuckle at how they talk past each other in nearly every scene.

Parts of the book don’t work. Bagge’s explicit theme is that the Internet has led to people assuming multiple identities within their lives, but he doesn’t develop it into any greater insight or irony. As such, it always takes a back seat to the character comedy. And the book’s climactic scene feels completely wrong. One expects a comic crescendo as the conflicts between the principals boil over. But there’s nothing funny about it when it comes. Bagge gives us a scene of horrible, wasteful violence that ends with two of the characters dead. One wonders what he was thinking. The shift into violent melodrama is not, to put it mildly, consistent with the rest of the book’s tone. Worse, Bagge doesn’t have the kind of chops necessary to pull it off. There’s no sense of dread as the climax approaches, which denies it any cathartic power. Bagge’s highly stylized art works against the scene as well. The drawings are too abstract to give the violence weight. One wonders if it’s going to turn out to be a put-on, and when it doesn’t it leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth.

But Bagge keeps his wits about him until then. He’s been one of the funniest cartoonists around for over two decades now, and Other Lives is a fine example of his work.

Comics Review: The Playwright, Eddie Campbell & Daren White

This review was originally published at Pol Culture.

Eddie Campbell brings his extraordinary cartooning prowess to Daren White's slight though witty portrait of a writer whose professional success walks hand-in-hand with his private defeats.

At first glance, The Playwright, written by Daren White and illustrated by Eddie Campbell, is a witty character study. The protagonist is a writer for the stage, film, and television. He is defined by an irony: his professional success is directly inverse to his private inadequacies. Socially and sexually, his life is a failure, but these personal shortfalls are what drive the creativity that gives him a living and a measure of renown. Amusingly, his dilemma is also a two-way street: the more fulfilled the playwright is in his personal life, the more blocked he is creatively. This clever conceit is all but played out to perfection.

I have to admit the story isn’t quite to my taste, but The Playwright overcomes all misgivings. It’s an extraordinary piece of cartooning. Eddie Campbell is one of the most accomplished visual stylists in modern comics, and he’s in peak form. His cool, contemplative tone is firmly in place. The dramatization maintains an elegant emotional reserve. Campbell never rubs one’s nose in the sadness of the protagonist’s life. One has to feel one’s way into the character’s psyche, and the story is all the more effective for it. The amount of social detail in Campbell’s panels is just astounding; visually, The Playwright is almost as rich a portrait of London in the present day as Alan Moore and Campbell’s masterwork From Hell is of the city in the 1880s. Campbell’s talent for visual tropes is also in full flower; he presents pitch-perfect metaphors for the protagonist’s sexual anxieties and plays them for slapstick to boot. White all but certainly originated them, but the élan of their execution is Campbell's own.

And Campbell being Campbell, he expands the range of comics’ expressive possibilities as well. The Playwright was originally serialized as a black-and-white strip in the periodical comics anthology DeeVee. Among the revisions for book publication was the addition of color. Campbell, though, doesn’t use the colors in a banally descriptive way. He creates a new set of tropes out of the various combinations to inflect and dramatically enhance the scenes. One has the juxtaposition of yellow and red, which signifies sex-as-lust and sex-as-fun. There is also the juxtaposition of red and green, which is the vehicle for the tenor of longing for romance and family-life happiness. And there is the juxtaposition of green and yellow, which carries associations of sexual and romantic defeat. Purple plays an important role as well, but I won't give that one away. The color effects are rooted in metonymy, which Campbell then builds into continuing metaphors. They add a whole new dimension to the narrative. It’s one of the most imaginative uses of color that I can remember seeing in comics.

To give one an idea of how the color strategies work, let’s examine Campbell’s juxtapositions of red and yellow. He introduces it in the opening scene, which shows the title character ogling a young woman sitting across from him on a bus. The protagonist’s focus is on the woman’s breasts, but the most striking element of the panels featuring the woman is her ascot, which is bright yellow and red. When the visuals take the reader completely inside the protagonist’s sexual fantasy, the woman’s colors apart from those of her hair and skin are the red of her nipples and the yellow of her panties. The image is framed by the bus window, which is shown contained by the bright red of the bus exterior. The red-yellow juxtaposition appears whenever the fun of sex is on the protagonist’s mind. In a scene where he’s surfing Internet porn, a red-and-yellow ball is shown bouncing around the panels. When he’s imagining “some potential young wife” jumping his bones, he pictures her as a shapely brunette in a red bikini and yellow-hued skin. And when he sits down to a first date with a woman with whom he ends up having a fulfilling relationship, red and yellow are of course the color scheme of her dress.

But Campbell doesn’t just use the color juxtapositions to create decorative metaphors; he also uses them to enhance the story's drama and suspense. In one scene, the protagonist finds a rapport with an attractive woman at a resort. The colors render the scene ambiguous. The woman is shown wearing a yellow swimsuit and hat, her hat band is red, and the two sit and talk underneath yellow and red sun-umbrellas. The ambiguity, though, comes from their sitting on green chaise lounges. What does that green mean? Will it join with the red to signify romantic longing, or will it join with the yellow to bring romantic defeat? Campbell builds the suspense in the next scene, in which the woman retains the yellow and red hat but wears a green dress. As things progress, the protagonist imagines inviting her to accompany him out-of-town to an awards ceremony. He sees their hotel room in his mind’s eye, and it’s the rich red and green of romantic longing. He also imagines them in the hotel hallway after the ceremony, and one can tell what’s on his mind: her red dress is juxtaposed with the yellow walls. The green of ambiguity depicts the floor, and is all but overwhelmed by the other colors. But yellow and green dominate the next panel, which includes the narration, “And so he will reserve the adjoining suite to accommodate all potential outcomes.” The color shift visually alerts one to his insecurities asserting themselves. The reader almost doesn’t need the text to anticipate that things will ultimately fall apart. On the next page, the protagonist abandons his interest in the woman after overhearing some gossip about her. As he listens to the scuttlebutt, his glasses are colored yellow, and green is shown taking over the red hues in his face. Sex-as-lust, sex-as-fun gives way to romantic and sexual defeat.

Campbell orchestrates the colors in this manner throughout the story, and he leaves one in awe of the variety and inventiveness of his cartooning arsenal. For him, every element of word and picture exists to create meaning and enrich the material, and he constantly finds new ways to achieve these ends. At his best, he can take a slight though clever script like Daren White’s and turn it into a bravura formal exercise that has one applauding. No matter what one thinks of the libretto, the score is a marvel.