Cinema Panopticum [Hardcover]

Thomas Ott (Author, Artist)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 2005

T. Ott plunges into the darkness with five new graphic horror novelettes: "The Prophet," "The Wonder Pill," "La Lucha," "The Hotel," and the title story, each executed in his hallucinatory and hyper-detailed scratchboard style and running between 16 to 20 pages.

The first story in the book introduces the other four: A little girl visits an amusement park. She looks fascinated, but finds everything too expensive. Finally, behind the rollercoaster she eyeballs a small booth with "CINEMA PANOPTICUM" written on it. Inside there are boxes with screens. Every box contains a movie; the title of each appears on each screen. Each costs only a dime, so the price is right for the little girl. She puts her money in the first box: "The Prophet" begins. In the film, a vagrant foresees the end of the world and tries to warn people, but nobody believes him. They will soon enough.

In the second film, "The Wonderpill," a short-sighted man initially goes blind from some pills his doctor gave him, but soon the blindness wears off and he finds they accord quite a view. "La Lucha," the third story, introduces a Mexican wrestler who fights against death himself. In a typical Ott twist, he wins and loses at the same time. The final story, "The Hotel," depicts a traveler who goes to sleep in what seems to be an otherwise empty hotel. His awakening is the stuff of nightmares...

Ott's O. Henry-esque plot twists will delight fans of classic horror like The Twilight Zone and Tales From the Crypt, or modern efforts like M. Night Shamalayan's films; his artwork will haunt you long after you've put the book down.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Comics are popularly defined as a combination of words and pictures, but words are no more necessary to the comics than sound is to cinema. Swiss cartoonist Ott employs neither dialogue nor captions in his stories; words appear rarely, usually as chapter titles or signs in the background. Appropriately, Ott uses the early silent cinema as a motif. In the framing sequences, a morose little girl wanders through an old-fashioned amusement park and finds herself alone in the "Cinema Panopticon," which holds coin-operated machines showing silent films. Each film recounts a macabre tale which overturns the laws of reality, leading to a twist ending reminiscent of The Twilight Zone. A man enters a hotel but cannot leave; a masked wrestler battles Death; a patient finds a grotesque cure for his failing vision; a homeless man discovers signs of approaching Apocalypse. In keeping with the silent movie motif, Ott uses black, white and grays, enveloping his realistically drawn characters and settings in an expressionistic mood. The characters initially display understated emotions, and their situations seem familiar. Ott's storytelling moves at a slow but steady pace, making his protagonists' extreme reactions more believable when they, and the readers, are caught in Ott's imaginatively conceived, masterfully executed traps.
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Review

The wordless noir morality plays are both meticulous and unnerving. (The Times [London] )

Internal and psychological terrors are Ott's concerns, and language couldn't convey them as powerfully as do his disquieting, foreboding illustrations. (Booklist )

[...] Ott's storytelling moves at a slow but steady pace, making his protagonists' extreme reactions more believable when they, and the readers, are caught in Ott's imaginatively conceived, masterfully executed traps. (Publishers Weekly )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 104 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (July 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560976497
• ISBN-13: 978-1560976493
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,801,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Cinematic masterpiece, May 18, 2010

By 

Sam Quixote - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cinema Panopticum (Hardcover)

A girl at a carnival finds that her small amount of money won't get her onto any rides or do any of the stalls until she finds a small unattended attraction called "Cinema Panopticum". Inside are 5 sets with screens, all cheap. She puts a coin in each and watches them one by one.

"The Hotel" is a kafka-esque tale of an unattended hotel and a man wanting to stay the night in it. Finding a lavish spread in one room he feasts upon it and then heads to bed. He wakes in the middle of the night with an ache in his gut... why is this hotel empty?

"The Champion" features a Mexican wrestler literally fighting for his life against Death.

"The Prophet" features a homeless man and his attempts to spread the word that the world is doomed.

"The Experiment" features a mad scientist and his experiment on a man with poor eyesight.

In all the stories, Ott excels at storytelling, all without words. The scratchboard technique in black and white matches perfectly the tone of mounting horror in each of the macabre stories and has you rifling through the pages, devouring each brilliant story.

As with all of Ott's books you can fly through it in minutes but I always find myself going back and looking at individual panels. The level of artistry is astonishing and I wish he'd make poster size reproductions of some of them so I can put them on my walls.

"Cinema Panopticum" might be my favourite Thomas Ott book and I heartily recommend him to fans of comics. He's simply too good to be passed over.

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, July 30, 2008

By 

Victor Bornia (Studio City, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cinema Panopticum (Hardcover)

Brilliant, wordless storytelling at its best. Ott's style communicates volumes with minimal fuss, weaving stories that captivate and stimulate.