Fairy tales are often warped for the enjoyment of comic book fans—see GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES and FABLES as two obvious examples. In GODCHILD, Kaori Yuki has done similar things with nursery rhymes, and the effect is simultaneously gorgeous and horrifying.
This is an eight-part series about an Earl named Cain, who has a cursed heritage and even more disturbing hobbies—in this case, collecting poisons and solving other royals’ mysteries with them. The mysteries that Cain solves involve blood-draining parasites, human embalming, medieval torture masks, and reanimated dead people. It is truly mad Victorian mayhem, with brief moments of subtle emotion. The characters can barely breathe between plot elements, and when they do, it’s usually in the form of self-reflection… or self-hatred.
Cain himself is a curious cross of Sherlock Holmes and The Shade. He enjoys solving mysteries but has moral loyalty to no one but his valet, Riff. His actions can be arbitrary and dictated by mere curiosity, but he also seems to be capable of great love—as far as it serves his own interests, that is.
Kaori Yuki’s artwork, while amazing, is difficult to defend in an American comics context, because it is very, very Japanese. Yuki is a master of spidery lines, wandering limbs, and slender faces. Her attention to detail is shocking; even a straining neck seems elegant, and the imagery—spiders, petals, candles, the tarot—makes Dracula seem tame and dry. But Yuki never apologizes for her style. It’s rich and genre-filled like a classic Hammer horror film.
I have a friend who used to say that Kaori Yuki is ‘like Shakespeare with pictures’, and that has never been more accurate than in the case of GODCHILD. Meet your manga Macbeth, your comic King Lear, your gothically illustrated Titus Andronicus. And if this comparison puts you off, then perhaps it’s just as well, for there are no happy endings here, and Cain’s Victorian London is darker than any Green Lantern can light.
There is a translated prequel series, entitled THE CAIN SAGA, which is no less disturbing or poetic but slightly more difficult to read, seeing as Yuki’s art style has matured so drastically since she first wrote it. GODCHILD bewitches all on its own. In fact, if you buy Volume One at Meltdown, we’ll take ten percent off of it and everything else. Do you still dare to resist?
LAST MONTH: Junji Ito’s UZUMAKI.
For more of why Kaori Yuki is so diabolically different from Western writers, read my blog: http://concretesoul.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/why-kaori-yuki-is-my-favourite/
For more comic & manga ramblings, follow my twitter: http://twitter.com/junkstory
#comicgeeksagainstmangadiscrimination
This month in MANGA DOESN’T SUCK: Kaori Yuki’s GODCHILD.
Fairy tales are often warped for the enjoyment of comic book fans—see GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES and FABLES as two obvious examples. In GODCHILD, Kaori Yuki has done similar things with nursery rhymes, and the effect is simultaneously gorgeous and horrifying.
This is an eight-part series about an Earl named Cain, who has a cursed heritage and even more disturbing hobbies—in this case, collecting poisons and solving other royals’ mysteries with them. The mysteries that Cain solves involve blood-draining parasites, human embalming, medieval torture masks, and reanimated dead people. It is truly mad Victorian mayhem, with brief moments of subtle emotion. The characters can barely breathe between plot elements, and when they do, it’s usually in the form of self-reflection… or self-hatred.
Cain himself is a curious cross of Sherlock Holmes and The Shade. He enjoys solving mysteries but has moral loyalty to no one but his valet, Riff. His actions can be arbitrary and dictated by mere curiosity, but he also seems to be capable of great love—as far as it serves his own interests, that is.
Kaori Yuki’s artwork, while amazing, is difficult to defend in an American comics context, because it is very, very Japanese. Yuki is a master of spidery lines, wandering limbs, and slender faces. Her attention to detail is shocking; even a straining neck seems elegant, and the imagery—spiders, petals, candles, the tarot—makes Dracula seem tame and dry. But Yuki never apologizes for her style. It’s rich and genre-filled like a classic Hammer horror film.
I have a friend who used to say that Kaori Yuki is ‘like Shakespeare with pictures’, and that has never been more accurate than in the case of GODCHILD. Meet your manga Macbeth, your comic King Lear, your gothically illustrated Titus Andronicus. And if this comparison puts you off, then perhaps it’s just as well, for there are no happy endings here, and Cain’s Victorian London is darker than any Green Lantern can light.
There is a translated prequel series, entitled THE CAIN SAGA, which is no less disturbing or poetic but slightly more difficult to read, seeing as Yuki’s art style has matured so drastically since she first wrote it. GODCHILD bewitches all on its own. In fact, if you buy Volume One at Meltdown, we’ll take ten percent off of it and everything else. Do you still dare to resist?
LAST MONTH: Junji Ito’s UZUMAKI.
For more of why Kaori Yuki is so diabolically different from Western writers, read my blog: http://concretesoul.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/why-kaori-yuki-is-my-favourite/
For more comic & manga ramblings, follow my twitter: http://twitter.com/junkstory
#comicgeeksagainstmangadiscrimination