1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
“I picked this up at Dark Star Books and Comics in Yellow Springs, Ohio, one of my favorite places to shop for comics, especially indie ones. It was there that I found Andi Watson's Slow News Day (which, incidentally, I really need to put on this shelf). This is a very beautiful hardcover, with a cloth spine, black and white comics with a color cover section in the back and a series of essays by both artist and author about each of the twelve issues. There are also pinups by other artists (including some amazing talents), and some sketches and concept art.
So much for the physical product. Is Local a good read? The short answer is, Yes. The long answer is that it took me a while to really get what this story was about, and until I knew, I wasn't sure that I liked it at all. The series is told in the form of twelve stand-alone stories, which all string together to form a scattered, sketchy narrative of one Megan McKeenan, a teenager at the time of the first issue, a thirty year old woman in the final issue. Each story takes place in a different town in North America, and one of the most interesting aspects of the series is the accurate and detailed backgrounds, portraying many specific locations. The stories themselves focus on a year of Megan's life as she travels from place to place, unable to find a home for herself or else simply unwilling to settle down. A few times she is hurt very badly by some unforeseeable tragedy (mainly, the incident in "Two Brothers"). So Local, in addition to being a series of studies of specific places in specific times (always a great thing), is also a fragmented tale of one woman's quest for normalcy, for adventure, for...something she's not sure of exactly. By the final story, taking place in breathtakingly beautiful rural Vermont, Megan has come to a few conclusions, found a few answers, and, at last, settled down in a home of her own. There are several different themes that can be taken from this series, and this has partly to do with the fact that Brian Wood's vision for the book changed at least once in the telling. The weakest issues are the ones having the least to do with Megan, namely "Hazardous Youth" and "Bar Crawl". But the strongest points -- for my money, "Food As Substitute", "Wish You Were Here", and "The House That Megan Built" -- are really strong story, story that sticks with you and makes you wonder what life on the road, life with more risks and more mistakes, would be like. Local is a book which has to be taken as a whole, not as merely the sum of its disparate parts. It took a while to grow on me, but it is a work which rewards with every additional read. ”
Michael wrote this review Thursday, June 4 2009.
(
reply |
permalink )
