Coraline
Original Author: Neil Gaiman
Adapted and Illustrated by: P. Craig Russell
2008
Originally a novella written by Neil Gaiman in 2002, Coraline was adapted into the graphic novel format in 2008 and into a stop-motion animated film the same year. This is an urban fantasy featuring 10-year-old Coraline, whose family has just moved into a mysterious old house in the English countryside. With only her elderly neighbors and busy parents for company, Coraline is often alone and bored. One rainy day, she explores the house and discovers a bricked up door that becomes a portal to a parallel world. It is the home of her “other mother” a spirit who will do anything to keep Coraline with her.
The art in Coraline is realistic and structured yet somewhat inventive. Nearly every aspect of the drawing is neatly contained in rectangular panels that vary in size, shape and arrangement giving the book a cinematic quality. Shading is created with a combination of pen and ink crosshatching and cell shading. All the colors are of a low saturation that works well for the “real world” segment of the story, but I can’t help wishing that the style had changed a little for the “Otherworld” segments. Richer colors and a more dramatic shading technique would have created a clearer sense of stepping into a fantasy world.
Coraline’s tale is about desire as much as it is love. It’s Coraline’s want for adventure, excitement, and attention that sent her through the door to nowhere. She realizes that she doesn’t “want whatever I want. Not really. What fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything. What then?” Coraline has recognized that the “Beldam’s” love is false. She merely wants Coraline for what she can provide. Coraline’s ultimate desire is to protect the genuine love of her parents, which was what she really wanted all along.
Skim
Words: Mariko Tamaki
Drawings: Jillian Tamaki
2008
In contrast, “Skim” is a modern graphic novel that reads as the confessional of an intelligent but lost teenager. All of the plotlines — the suicide of Katie’s boyfriend, Skim and Lisa’s spiritual explorations, and Skim’s doomed romance with Ms. Archer — seamlessly blend in this slice of life, coming of age tale that contemplates the purpose and meaning of love.
Kimberly Keiko Cameron, “Skim” to her friends, is called so precisely because she’s not. fat-free, that is. Skim is an overweight, Asian-Canadian sixteen year old who attends a private, all-girl religious prep-school in the early nineties. She rebels with her best friend, Lisa, by cutting class to smoke and by practicing witchcraft
In the fall of her sophomore year, Skim’s classmate Katie Mathews suffers a very public breakup with her boyfriend, John. Less than a week later he kills himself. Katie is devastated and the entire school enters a hyperactive state of mourning. Skim is singled out by faculty and students alike as “vulnerable” due to her preference for the color black and, as annoying as that is, she finds herself unable to stop her descent into depression. She’s fallen in love with her female English teacher, and there’s a rumor circulating that Katie’s boyfriend shot himself because he was gay. The death of a boy she never knew suddenly becomes a very intimate part of her life.
Characterization is strong here. Each character is in possession of an ego and it is the clash of sixteen-year-old will upon sixteen-year-old will that drives the plot. It lends to the overall sense that there is life happening outside the limited panels of Skim’s point of view.
Nearly as much as the writing, the success of a graphic work rests on its art, and the style of “Skim” is at once unique, unsettling and refreshing, especially in a market saturated with standard superhero forms and half-baked manga knockoffs. Jillian Tamaki renders her figures in a soft and free flowing style reminiscent of sumi-e paintings. Skim is drawn as a traditional Japanese beauty, and it’s fascinating to see the style extended to include western faces in a modern world. All of the panels, lettering and word bubbles are done by hand and there is not a straight line in the entire book. Each panel flows into the next accentuating the brush style artwork and thoughtful yet intimate tone of the narration. The book becomes a lyrical work of burgeoning maturity in a confusing world.
It’s important to note that this is not a “gay” work of fiction. Skim may be in love with an older woman but she never self-classifies as a lesbian and the plot does not center on her being or not being gay. While it could be that the rumored reasons for John’s suicide have given her pause, she’s in no hurry to label herself. Skim has a love without a label and its end becomes a stepping stone for growth that spells, tarot cards and God all failed to be, and gives her the courage to reach out to Katie, who is sick of being the pitied and pathetic “dead boy’s girlfriend” and desperate to move on with her life.
“Being in love changes you, You know? … It makes things different. It’s like you turn a corner.”
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Please no classical Victorian bricks, and, no, we will not review “Twilight.” Lets make this interesting! See you next week.