Customer Reviews

Deitch's Pictorama

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

 

 

The Deitch brothers, led by long-time underground cartoonist Kim Deitch, ganged up to write and draw this collection of illustrated stories. The Newness of this collection is the format -- instead of laying out the stories as straight comics or as illustrated fiction, most of the stories are so neatly integrated with graphics that the stories are denser and rich with nuance and clever fun as a result.

Kim D.'s imagination is phenomenal. He starts with a plausible scenario, pulls in the reader with solid characters and charming drawings, then takes off on flights of fancy that incorporate his love for vintage curiosities such as illustrated bottle caps or obscure old jazz sides and the people who made them. It is as if his soul was born 30 years before his body. In both "The Sunshine Girl" and "The Cop on the Beat" he sprinkles in enough truth to his fiction that I often wonder just where reality drops off. A master of the comics form, his stories have an edge on the amalgamated tales.

But Seth D.'s stories "Unlikely Hours" and "Children of Aruf" are close seconds. The former is craftily illustrated by Kim, engaging and loads of fun. The latter story is text with an illustrated title page. This story happily took me by surprise with its alternate-world treatment of the age-old relationship between man and dog.

"Golem" is a good effort at retelling an old legend, but perhaps because Seth's story followed the drawings it didn't engage me as well as the others and feels a bit old-fashioned. Simon D.'s drawings are kind of "normal" (as contrasted with Kim's accomplished, idiosyncratic style) and rendered in pencil, so they don't quite meld with the rest of the book. But this is a family production and it's interesting and quite entertaining to see the differences in style among the three brothers.

Gene Deitch's introduction to his sons' works ties the package together with love and pride. His own be-bop drawing style is miles apart from what his sons deliver, and although his work is not showcased here, his talent and genes might be read between the lines.

It will be interesting to see if more cartoonists will venture into this little-explored territory of illustrated story. If so, we have Kim Deitch to thank for leading the way.

I actually wasn't knowing what to expect when I purchased this. I saw that it was by Kim Deitch but then learned that it was co-written by his brothers as well as other contributors.

The idea of having a large ration of words to pictures kind of deterred me at first but I really came to enjoy it. I think this was a great experiment by the Deitch boys and would mind a sequel. Hoorah!

This isn't really a comic book like Kim Deitch's other stuff, this is mostly prose with Kim or his brother Simon illustrating the text with a picture on every other page. The good news is that despite one or two duds, it's mostly a good read!

Kim's stuff is the best (as you would imagine) - his Sunshine Girl story of bottle cap collecting maniacs and acid casualties is good fun and gets the book off to a good start. It's snappy despite being very wordy in places and his excellent artwork adds to the overall effect of a good, fun story.

Kim's other contribution is a shorter piece set in the late '60s featuring himself as a struggling underground comix artist who falls in love with a singer in a band who in turn falls in love with an older guitar playing man with a tall story to tell. Kim uses this strip to talk about his love of obscure musicians from the 20s, 30s, and 40s, and is quite interesting in places.

Kim's brother Seth writes a funny story about working for a pharmaceutical company who is experimenting on rats to make them super-smart and what they get up to when they escape. Kim supplies the art and it's another plus to the book.

The only duds were the golem story - Seth writes, Simon draws - that felt a bit leaden and just a reworking of Shelley's Frankenstein. There's also a text only piece by Seth that I didn't bother reading as I didn't enjoy the golem story at all.

Overall, not a bad book but probably Kim Deitch's least interesting book. I'd recommend to readers "Smilin' Ed" or "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" if you can get your hands on a copy. "Pictorama" is probably best appreciated for fans of Deitch only.

i really love kim deitch pictures, his books are awesome, here you get the whole deitch family effort and it really rules.
weird, quirky and funny stories with great pictures, mostly by kim deitch.
if you like weird "kinda" fantasy stories, if you like authors like kelly link, get this book right now!!