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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A British Comics Pantheon Unleashed,
This review is from: Albion (Paperback)
I have to state for the record that before this, I was not familiar with any element of British comics aside from anything mentioned in passing by Neil Gaiman. So when I began reading this story, I went into it with essentially no knowledge of any of the characters, or their place in British imagination.The book begins with an Introduction by Neil Gaiman talking about how as a child he first got into the world of British comics, the characters he finds fascinating and also being an active reader during the time that British comics themselves went through several different changes. The important thing here is that it seems that even in their country of origin, many of these comics died out ages ago. This ties into the plot of Albion itself: Albion itself apparently being one of the oldest names ascribed to the British Isles and perhaps the imagination behind it. It begins with an old man in a hospital bed dreaming. It continues with a young man named Danny who -- fittingly enough -- is an aficionado of old out-of-print British comics with its strange and eccentric super-powered characters. It is only after the arrest of a very well known criminal and his meeting with a mysterious inventor-woman that Danny begins to recognize the link between the comics he relates to so much and the reality that exists around him. He also starts to understand just why his comics became out-of-print and ... what exactly happened to the characters involved. The style of comics illustration involved in this undertaking was a very interesting choice. Most of the graphic narrative is composed of a series of very sharply defined square and rectangular panels with very stark-lined drawings of the characters. However, sometimes the transitions from one frame to another can blur and the lines between panels are thin and not always very clear. This -- combined with the possibility that a reader may not be familiar with the characters being alluded to and mythologically expanded on -- can be confusing at times. However, there is also a very interesting aesthetic effect: most of the flashbacks of the characters in Albion are drawn as either vintage sketchy black and white illustrations or the basic cartoon shapes found in comic strips. Sometimes these styles and the main stark and dark lushly coloured aesthetic of the main graphic narrative can also be confusing. One possibility for this is a cartoon and a realistic illustration provide different foci for a reader-audience: that there are different things to look at and find in these different drawing styles. However, these different styles work well in conveying the different tones between the past and the present. I don't want to give that much more away here except to mention this. One of the things that to some extent Neil Gaiman mentions and that the British comics historian Steve Holland goes into a little more detail with in his article "A Brief History of Albion" at the end of the book, is that the super-powered beings and adventurers seen in this run of old style British comics are not what you would classify as "heroes" or "villains." Some of these beings do run close to one side of the spectrum or the other, but in many cases they are complex and eccentric characters that have their own agendas and reasons for undertaking the actions that they do. The fact that many of them are strange and unusual is pretty much the only thing they all have in common. It is immensely interesting how characters like the Spider -- who you can define as a super-villain that likes catching other super-villains not loyal to him -- or the Victorian thug and thief Charlie Peace are the protagonists of their own works. These are beings that would in old American comics be the villains that the heroes would endeavor to defeat. Yet in these figures and more have their own comics and stories. I think that this says a lot about the British comics of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Then add robots, and gems of invulnerability, and cybernetic claws and bizarre devices and creatures and you have a very interesting spirit indeed to look at. The rest of Albion itself is appropriately dedicated to reprints of many of the old comics that coexisted in popular magazine anthologies including the adventures of a scientist and his mechanized puppet "children" in The House of Dolmann, the loyal and temperamental British super-soldier Captain Hurricane with his long suffering batman Maggot fighting the Nazis in WWII, The Incredible Adventures of Janus Stark the Victorian rubber-boned escape artist, the cynical superhero called The Steel Claw, Kelly with his invulnerability gem The Eye of Zoltec, and the American sleuth Zip Nolan. These comics themselves will hopefully allow a reader not familiar with British comics to have a glimpse into that world and perhaps appreciate what was attempted in Albion. And even though I still lack an inexhaustive knowledge of British comics, I can definitely respect and love the greater narrative that has been made with them. It is very tempting to say that these characters are part of a lost pantheon long since fallen asleep. If this is at all true, if they are like the old man sleeping at the beginning of the story, if Albion itself truly is as Neil Gaiman and the writers seem to put it "Britain's Dreaming" world then perhaps this project has been a way to wake them up again, to release them from their prison of the forgotten and be unleashed back into the world and imagination once more.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing,
This review is from: Albion (Paperback)
Albion is a bit confusing to a Yank like me. The comics discussed are British in origin, but are no less fascinating. The writing is gripping and the art is fantastic. It has made me want to learn more about these characters, and can be considered another feather in Moore's cap.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dont judge this book by the cover.,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Albion (Paperback)
As a huge fan of the classic british characters, I rushed into buying this book , mainly because of the cover art. Seeing Robot Archie on the cover , i didnt think twice.My bad, I have no idea what the creators were thinking. Lame story , bad art , Period. They literally slaughtered the characters and their reputation. This book is in no way a representation of those classic characters and the good old stories. I am giving 2 stars for the collection of the classic stories towards the end of the book. As for the main story, 0.
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