Weekly Treats! The Nao of Brown & The Hive

A protagonist with an OCD, or any psychological affliction, is always strangely attractive in drama (see Hitchcock) and in The Nao Of Brown (SelfMadeHero) Glyn Dillon has created a character study that really allows the character the room to breathe. Nao Brown suffers from violently morbid obsessions that, if she acted them out, would have had her locked up a long time ago. The story follows her through everyday life punctuated by violent and artistic fantasies and as Nao attempts to figure her life out, we're all the more curious to discover what makes her tick.  It's a book you need to spend a lot of time with: there's a lot read for a start, the watercolour artwork is very attractive and the flights of fancy will catch you off guard if you're not paying attention; plus it weighs in at just over 200 pages.

See here for The Nao Of Brown website and there's a really nice article and interview on Paul Gravett's website (see here) which covers the news that Glyn Dillon's wife found herself coping with OCD as a child and Dillon's work as a storyboard artist. But to really get up close and personal we're delighted to say that Glyn Dillon will be signing copies of The Nao of Brown in the shop on Saturday 29th September 1-3pm (see here for the original blog post).

  
Following on from 2010's X'ed Out, The Hive by Charles Burns (Jonathan Cape) finds protagonist Doug still split between the real world and the netherworld where he exists as his alter-ego NitNit (that's Tin-Tin backwards - part of a host of references to Herge's work). Whilst Burns's early work, most famously Black Hole, were in black and white, the colouring in both these books hasn't diminished his trademark smooth, swirling line work and has allowed him to play with colour coding and washed out shades.

 








Simply no other creator unsettles me the way Charles Burns does and that's partly down to strangely naturalistic mood he creates - yes the imagery is surreal but the tone is one of the mundane. I'm always engaged with the characters and story which makes it all the more subversive. See here for TheGuardian review.

For the Weekly Treateries Daredevil #18 (Marvel) gets mentioned not just because it's won Eisner and Harvey awards for best series this year but also because of the fantastic cover by Paolo Rivera. And Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #3 of 4 - “A man like you loves a mystery” - heads a DC week once again given over to #0's.

As ever, the full list of all this week's releases is under the appropriate tab at the top of the page.