Books of the Year! Death-Ray

 

Have you read Daniel Clowes Death-Ray (Jonathan Cape) yet? Are you considering it? Have you read it and loved it aware that there's so much going on under the surface?

Daniel Clowes work really does justify critical analysis and it always fares well.  Which is why I thoroughly recommend flicking here to TheComicsJournal for the Death-Ray Discussion forum as it kicks off with an excellent break-down of comments including the use of pink and yellow, the use of the unreliable narrator and how about this example below that he entitles The Great Easily-Overlooked Moment:

The story is full of them. One of my favorites is Clowes’s use of the “non-character reaction shot.” After Andy reveals his tragic family history, Louie has no response, failing to sympathize with Andy’s plight. (This failure condemns Louie, the story’s true villain—a sidekick motivated by jealousy of the hero’s power.) The media image—George Jetson’s pained face on the TV—provides the appropriate “reaction shot” to Andy’s revelation. Why is it that we let the media and cartoons do our feeling for us?

Even if you have no interest in Death-Ray - amongst the finest superhero books ever written in my opinion - it really is worth reading for a window into appreciating comics as an art form rather than just telling stories.

Simon Pegg's subliminal Death Ray promotion