The Professor's Daughter, by Joan Sfar and Emmanuel Gulbert

Monday, September 10, 2007



ISBN: 978-1596431300

This short graphic novel deals with egyptian mummies walking around and love. It is very pretty and mostly in sepia tones, and has a nice rounded feel to it. My only complaint is that is way too short, though I would not like to see it stretched for my sake.

4/5

3 comments:

Ess said...

Do you own this? I might like to borrow it...

Also, why is it that so many graphic novels in particular focus on fun periods of history, with some undead fellow having romantic liasons? Would it be that difficult to convince people to read a so-called "mundane" situation graphic novel? I love the creativity and all, and I know publication-wise, these things usually need a hook, but I often find the hook replaces something like character development.

Although maybe that's something manga has that NA graphic novels have yet to catch up to in the same way - the "soap opera" comic.

Kim D said...

I do not, but we actually have it in the store and you could get away with reading it during your lunch.

From my reading experience, hooks tend to make or break comics. When the hook (undead biker babe has to save the world using her pet monkey who turns into a demon with a sword shaped like an ultra-phallic banana) replaces story (and not so much character), the comic fails. When the hook is the character, such as in a comic book called Hack N Slash (violent but somehow touching), for instance, where a little girl destroys ghosts of vengeful spirits because her mother was one, the hook becomes back story, allows for the story to be told. Perhaps it's because you don't get as much room in a comic to work out character. Readers need a door in. A graphic novel is consumed so much faster by the reader, and therefore the hook needs to grab you right away.

Then again, I could just be a big comic book geek.

Ess said...

Well, you ARE a big comics geek, but you still have lovely insight. Which is why I asked in the first place. Wonder if it has anything to do with the tenous nature of comics publishing, and how it's a lot easier to have your series get killed off a third of the way through - so there's more bang up front.

I think that Jane of yours would make a lovely vamp comic. You read Fray? Reminded me of Fray.