Customer Reviews

9-11 September 11th 2001: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories to Remember; Volume 2 (Artists Respond)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Some of the works in this collection are quite good...I especially enjoyed Will Eisner's contribution ("Give me real, people!") and the single panel work of a woman touching the other side of her half empty bed. That was an excellent demonstration on how subtlety can have a much greater impact than a sledgehammer.

By contrast, there's the story written by Stan Lee ("The Sleeping Giant" I believe it's called) which uses a simple animal metaphor to retell 9/11 past, present and possible future. It starts out interesting but never elaborates on 9/11, only simplies it and assumes we can't figure things out for ourselves (such as the terrorist mice wearing "666" T-shirts).

Most of the stories were in between the ones I mentioned. Sometimes the tales are clever and subtle, but usually there's just a small bit of creativity per story.

Granted, I don't think I'm the target audience of this book. If you're looking for stories of hope after the attacks, you might enjoy this book more than I did.

"9-11: September 11, 2001: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories to Remember" collects original stories and illustrations from many of the top writers and artists from DC Comics, including Wildstorm, VERTIGO, and "MAD" magazine. But in addition to the likes of and Dan Jurgens, Neal Adams, Jim Lee, Neil Gaiman, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopze, Sergio Aragones, and Joe Kubert, you will also find contributions by Will Eisner, Stan Lee, Richard Corben, and Michael Moorcock. Unfortunately, the book's subtitle echoes badly, because even thought DC had a comic book entitled "World's Finest," which featured Superman and Batman team-ups for the most part, using that phrase to describe your own writers and artists on the same cover where Superman is impressed by those who were heroes on September 11th misses the obvious reason not to toot your own horn.

The volume is divided into section entitled Nightmare, Heroes, Recollections, Unity, and Dreams, which provide a rough thematic organization to the stories. There are stories dealing with what actually happened, such as James Denning and Guy Davis' "Walk," Josh Krach, Scott McDaniel James Pascoe's "The Job." and Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti's "Silver Linings in a Big Dust Cloud"), as well as stories that address the line between comic books and the real world created by 9-11 (e.g., "Unreal," "For Art's Sake" and "If Only"), while a few actually work DC superheroes into the story (e.g., "This, Too, Shall Pass" and Gaiman's "Endless" story, "The Wheel"). Unlike the Marvel universe, where Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers all work out of New York City, the DC superheroes inhabit an alternative, so there was not the need to have Superman, Batman, and the others deal with the destruction of the World Trade Center the way their competition had to. There are also a couple of stories that serve as reminders that there were dogs that were involved in the rescue efforts as well.

One of the other major differences between this and the first volume, which featured work by the talents at Chaos! Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and Image Comics, is that some of these stories are a bit more political. Neal Adams does a splash page supporting the Red Cross that shows Superman holding an American flag with scorch marks and Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves in front of the rescue workers at Ground Zero with the caption: "First Things First. Then We Come For You." Stan Lee and Marie Severin tell "A hitherto undiscovered Aesop's fable" entitled "The Sleeping Giant" whose moral is "Never awaken a sleeping giant!" There are several stories that make an argument for tolerance and objectivity, such as Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, and Prentis Rollins' "Wednesday Afternoon" and Geoff Johns, David S. Goyer, Humberto Romas and Sandra Hope's "A Burning Hate," while Ben Raab, Roger Robinson and Dennis Janke's "A Tale of Two Americans" makes a point about true patriotism. The final word goes to Joe Kubert, who points out "I've lived long enough to see the worst turn into something better."

Yeah, there are some misfires in this collection. "The Firsts Division" and "Spirit" both involve famous dead people, and while the latter is slightly better, neither really works. Paul Levitz and Jim Lee's "The American Dream" has some good points but could have found a better way to get them across than a lecture. But this just makes the simple elegance of Tim Sale's three-paneled page (from an idea by Chuck Kim), where a boy wearing a Superman t-shirt ducks into a telephone booth and changes into a FDNY t-shirt all the more effective. There are enough efforts within these 224 pages to find a few you will really like, and can forget about those you do not.

To be honest, I have not been in any rush to purchase any books that deal with September 11, 2001, or its aftermath. In bookstores and news stands, I have quickly passed by with little more than a cursory glance at the cover photo(s). However, this one caught my attention. Superman, the Man of Steel, standing in front of a mural of America's current heroes: firemen, policemen, doctors, construction workers, EMTs, and business men and women. I had to pick it up. I'm glad I did.

What I found was an amazing collection of comics and other art about the events of 9-11. This volume is broken up into three sections: Nightmares, Heroes, and Recollections. All the works are amazingly well-done. Each has a different color, tone, and message, but all are touching. I spent a good couple hours just looking at these stories, with my heart pounding and tears streaming down my face. No, these are not real photos, but the fear, anger, and all the other emotions that I and others felt on that day all came flooding back through the colorful stories presented here.

For those people, like me, who may have difficulty with that time still, or who just don't want to read one of the thousands of books and stories out there, this might be a good choice for you. At times it's light, presenting children's dreams of superheroes and real heroes. At times it's harsh, dealing with bias, hatred, and America's internal struggles with "what's an appropriate response?" But above-all, it's a wonderful collection of amazing work that will allow you to remember the heroes of that time, along with the goodness that began to surface in our nation after the fact.

This was a great new "used" book it came in a great package and preserved to look new. It was a great read and better than described in text...
K

Sometimes moving, sometimes grating and sometimes just a good story this book's all-over-the-place nature is the reason for only 3 stars. I cannot argue with the cause, but a good cause does not always make for a good story.

Favorites? "Unreal" by Steven Seagle, "Tradition" by Paul Levitz, "A Tale of Two Americans" by Ben Raab and the untitled inside back cover featuring Batman and his famous roses that he leaves on the spot where his parents were murdered.

No reason to dwell on the ones that I did not like or I was indifferent to.

Like it earlier companion volume, this is a gift to cherish and to help remember those endless, tiresome, exhausting, horrific, and heroic days of September 2001. This time there are lots of recognizable characters in the stories as well as the heroic hordes the book so lovingly honors. It is very hard to pick favorites. Some of the stories produce small, winsome chuckles, while others open up the tear ducts we thought wed never turn off again last fall. Theres an absolutely delightful Krypto story where Supermans best friend brings his own enormous water dish to share with the rescue dogs at Ground Zero. Theres also an amazing, but very brief tale of Death and Destruction of the Endless by Neil Gaiman. This is such a beautiful and unforgettable tribute; truly awesome. Even better, all profits from the sale of this and its companion volume go to aid the victims, families, and communities. An essential addition to any collection of graphic novels.

This book has captured the mood of 9/11 more than anything else I've seen to date. I purchased it so my nieces, who are 1 and 2 1/2, can read it in years to come and learn more about that tragic day.

My personal favorites are the turbaned man who rips down his own "MISSING" poster, and the single career woman who buys a load of cookies from two children selling them door to door "to help all the people who died." Or, rather, their families, but we know what you mean.

I can't read it without crying.

Firstly - I bought this book. Therefore, my money went towards the funds that helped victims of the atrocities of 11th September. It was the least I could do. (I also signed a book of condolence, but we all know how practically useful _that_ is.)

Secondly, this book is a remarkable ragbag of responses to the attack. One of the striking thing about the 9-11 attack is that it was the first time in nearly 200 years that the US mainland had been attacked. (Pearl Harbour doesn't count because, at the time, Hawaii was not a state of the US, it was still a "dependency" - shorthand for "ex-colony".)

The best responses in this book are the ones that take a, shall we say, dialectical response to the attack - those that at once focus on the innocent victims (cause it was a terrorist attack, and terrorism by nature is aimed at targeting the innocent in order to make the guilty feel guilty) and that also have a longer historical perspective. Because, and I'm almost embarrassed to point this out - the 9-11 attack did not happen because some deluded lunatics somewhere took it into their heads to be mean to Americans. It was the ultimate suicide attack, the nec plus ultra of the recent bombings in Jerusalem.

The best pieces in this book do not merely recognise the heroism of New York firefighters and police personnel - which is a sort of heroism that I, for one, don't doubt. But the facts are, this kind of heroism has been displayed around the world by populations under attack from US-funded or US-trained forces. It's not a very nice fact to have to face, but unless it is faced, there is little chance of events like 9-11 never happening again.

The sad thing is, much of the more ambitious pieces in here rely on "private" tragedy (as if these events had no more significance than the deaths of people in New York) and public jingoism - witness Stan Lee's asinine allegory about sleeping elephants. Stan, if the elephant's population was happy, it's because it had stolen so much from other countries already. Learn a little history.

Those of us who have learned to live with the potential for terrorist attacks on a daily basis are a little less naive than much of the authorship of this book. I grieve as much as anyone else for the dead of 9-11. But I cannot pretend that it isn't the kind of thing that happens around the rest of the world, as a result of the insanely inequal distribution of wealth.

This is a good book. But it is as much symptom as it is diagnosis.

I am using these two volumes to do my senior thesis and have read the other reviews and am convinced that some reviewers need to BACK OFF. This was written in commemoration for those who had a hard time dealing with the tragedy, not for you to criticize. The artists and comics who made these works did so as a way to understand and as a way to vent. I am sorry, but if you are going to criticize a creative effort to release you have no compassion. Some stories are disturbing, but the whole event was and has been disturbing. I am sure someone is going to think I am waving my flag a little to wildly, but you know what I am just calling it as I see it. Until you spent the day watching from your window as the towers fell down and smoked up the whole city to tell them how to do there job!

There are a few really compelling stories here - mostly the ones that focus on the victims and the rescue workers. But there is also, sadly, a great deal of garbage.

There's actually a fair amount of America bashing here. Some stories are patriotic, but, for the most part, the people holding or displaying American flags are protrayed as ignorant bigots.

Now, the artists and writers have every right to express their views. If that sort of thing is your cup of tea, I suspect you'll regard the more anti-American stories as provocative and stimulating. To me, they seemed like more of the same tired cliches I used to hear all the time before 9-11.

There's also a fair amount of the mushy-headedness about Islam which seems popular in this country these days. ...

The worst stories were those that tried to make some sort of political point. In one, an alien shows up and explains why we are all doomed if we don't adopt the Democratic party platform. (I'm really sort of neutral on abortion, but I always have to shake my head when someone starts preaching about the need to take care of the poor, the weak, the children, the elderly, the fish, the birds, the dung beetles, and then insists, even by omission, that destroying a human fetus is just fine.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is a lot of this felt very contrived. The more powerful stories and pictures were the ones where the author/artist was writing/drawing from the heart. The worst were the ones were the author was "moralizing," for a lack of a better word.