Sunday, April 15, 2007
By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER
# AYA, by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie; Drawn and Quarterly, 132 pages, $19.95.
# JACK OF FABLES: The (Nearly) Great Escape, by Bill Wilingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, Andrew Pepoy; Vertigo, 128 pages, $14.99.Two recent graphic novels are distinctly adult offerings – but, stylistically, that's where their similarities end. One is a tale of 1970s Ivory Coast told in a narrative French graphic-novel style, the other a spin-off story in the style of America's superhero comics.
"Aya" is a story that captures a rural town in a newly independent, post-colonial Ivory Coast through the stories of the eponymous young woman and her friends. It's a bright patch in the soon-to-be-bloody history of that country, written by a woman who immigrated to France at the age of 12. Less political than the work of Chinua Achebe, "Aya" nevertheless demystifies African life with a warm and energetic new voice.
"Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape" comes from Vertigo's "Fables" series, in which characters from fairy tales -- known collectively as The Fables -- live an alternate life outside of their archetypal stories. Vertigo itself is a branch of DC Comics, marketed as reading for "mature readers."
Jack is an amalgam of several characters named Jack: Jack the Giant Killer, Little Jack Horner, and Jack B. Nimble, among others. In this collection of the first five issues, he leads a rebellion against the tyranny of Mr. Revise, who is trying to erase all Fables from human memory and has a torrid encounter with a certain Ms. Goldilocks.
E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
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