Customer Reviews

Isolation And Illusion: Collected Short Stories Of P. Craig Russell

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This is a simply stunning collection - and varied, as well; from the moody black-and-white illustrations of "Dance on a Razor's Edge" (subtitled "a ballet on the death of Yukio Mishima") to the colorful and hilarious rendition of de Bergerac's "Voyage to the Moon," to the gorgeous pencil-sketch drawings of the enigmatic title story (which features a beautiful angel-winged man wandering through a demolished cityscape), the book's a winner. There's also "Breakdown on Starship Remembrance," a space-faring tale of a kind of inside-out claustrophobia, and "Insomnia," which depicts a sleepless night so perfectly that you feel you've been through it [and which has a truly wonderful capper of an ending]. In fact, I think I enjoyed every tale in here - with the possible exception of the Lovecraft story; some things just don't work as well when illustrated, even by a really fine illustrator, and "From Beyond" is one of 'em. But, that aside, the collection's really fine...

"Dance on a Razor's Edge"

"Dance on a Razor's Edge" dramatizes the interior monologue of the protagonist, Kimitake, at the point of death. The story's subtitle alludes to the suicide of author Yukio Mishima who committed public seppuku at the Japan Self-defense Forces headquarters after unsuccessfully attempting to incite a coup d'état in 1970. Like Mishima, Kimitake has chosen a ceremonial disembowelment as the only honorable resolution to his existential crisis. Although this story is text heavy for a comic, Russell's realistically detailed illustrations in black and white do more than merely complement the narrative; they extend the by plot juxtaposing Kimitake's self-inflicted anguish with his mental attempts to attain serenity. The strict colorless symmetrical and asymmetrical balance that Russell has wrought on each and every page mirrors Kimitake's "passion for purity" even while questioning it and cautioning the reader that "we must not discount the possibility that...Kimitake may have been just a bit unabalanced" (14). This multi-faceted text pairs well with William Cullen Bryant's "Thanatopsis"and will easily fuel an analysis of mood and tone.

"From Beyond"

An unnamed narrator recounts his tale of woe in which he returns to the home of Crawford Tillinghast after having been banished. Tillinghast has created a device that allows an individual to detect beings that are ordinarily outside of human perception--a portal to a hyper reality. Upon the narrator's arrival, Tillinghast subjects him to the experience, and the narrator finds himself preyed upon by the Lovecraftian horrors as not only can he see but he can also be seen. Destroying the apparatus and preventing his own demise, the narrator discovers that Tillinghast has died and escaped the consequences of his actions. Contrasting realism with expressionism and a muted palette with a broad range of vibrant hues, Russell renders Tillinghast and his hyper reality more real than "reality," leaving the narrator and the audience with a "hideous sense of pursuit [that] sometimes comes chillingly on ... when [we are] weary" (24). Russell's adaptation of this tale could serve as either an introduction to Lovecraft's text or as one text among several that is studied as part of a multi-genre thematic unit about forbidden knowledge including works such as the myth of Prometheus, Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Edgar Allen Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher," and Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park.

"Voyage to the Moon"

This is a three part tale of an Earthling who is sucked up by the moon's gravity well and transported to its surface. Having landed in a lush forest, the adventurer stops to admire a delectable flower, and its mere scent makes him twenty years younger, foreshadowing a society where mores are the opposite of those on earth and youth is more highly prized than age. Shortly thereafter, he is discovered by the race of men who inhabit the planet. Unfortunately, they make sport of him and treat him as an oddity until he encounters a man from the sun who helps him navigate his way through this world. Russell's simple playful lines and broad color palette render a caricatural depiction of this seventeenth century science fiction novel--with its exotic world and denizens--that complements and extends the text yet is fitting for modern sensibilities. "Voyage to the Moon" would find a home in a literature study of early science fiction that includes works such as Jules Verne's From The Earth To The Moon Round The Moon, H.G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon, and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In addition, it couches social commentary in an outlandish plot, thus it is critical without being biting; consequently, this tale would make a nice introduction to other indirect critiques of modern society such as Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

"The Gift of the Magi"

Christmas Eve finds Mr. and Mrs. James Dillingham Young practically penniless, living in nigh penury, and practicing parsimony. Unable to countenance the thought of not gifting each other at this time of year, each sells the only items of value that the couple possesses in order to purchase a gift for one another. Ironically, the items that were purchased are intended to be accompaniments to the items that were sold. The couple's gifts to each other, like those of the wise men who welcomed baby Jesus, are gifts of sacrifice born of love and are received as such. Russell's ornate, idealized illustrations reflect the tale's turn-of-the century setting. Moreover, his choice of a limited color palette that is largely comprised of gold and bronze tones complements and extends the text by providing a tension between depicting the story in sentimental sepia tones and keeping the couple's lack of monetary wealth ever present in the mind of the audience. This adaptation could be part of a multi-genre study that includes O. Henry's short story, a movie adaptation, and the song by the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Similarly, it could be included in a text set of different versions of this story or a set focusing on different winter holidays such as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Solstice, and Diwali.

"La Sonnambula and the City of Sleep: A Fragment of a Dream"

In this wordless tale, Russell employs colorless, romantic and surreal illustrations to evoke the strange opulence of a dream world. The plot begins with a frame story in which the protagonist sleepwalks. While sleepwalking, she dreams of being an angel who joins others to journey to the City of Sleep where they gather at a tower and peer through the window at a Rude Goldbergesque machine that generates the world of dreams. Upon entering this world, the angels soar through the air, narrowly escape the predators of the sea, and revel in their own splendor. Eventually, the protagonist leaves the group and returns alone to the city where she re-enters the tower and exits the dream world that it creates. "La Sonnambula" pairs well with Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan" which was composed one night after an opium influenced dream. Coleridge was interrupted while writing the lines of poetry that came to him from his dream, causing him to forget the remainder. Like Russell's tale, Coleridge's poem is "a fragment of a dream."

"Isolation and Illusion"

Although wordless for the duration of the story, it bears an epigraph attributed to Rosetti,"Beauty without the beloved is like a sword through the heart," which appears at both the beginning and end. Although the attribution is specious, the expression lends perspective to the multi-layered tale of loss, solitude, fear, hope and death. The action follows an angelic figure rendered in the style of Michelangelo in uninked pencils as he travels from atop a tower in a dead city to the hinterlands, where he is caught in a nightmarish trap of thorny vines, from which he is freed by doves, allowing him to continue on to find a half-submerged cathedral, where he encounters his beloved. All this is an illusion, though, as he has been impaled through the heart by a malevolent bramble while in the trap. Russell weaves an extended visual metaphor for loss and its potential aftermath, from the immediate devastation at the point of impact to loneliness, the sudden unexpected aftershocks of pain, through false hope and into terminal despair. "Isolation and Illusion" could be paired with Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" for an intertextual comparison of their plots.

"The Insomniac"

"The Insomniac" depicts the tale of one man's fitful snatches of sleep in a largely sleepless night. Because the plot occurs mainly at night, Russell employs realistic illustrations in blue, black, and green that complement and extend the text. Thwarting the protagonists' attempts at sustained rest, colorful dream fragments--rendered in varying styles ranging from blocky ink brush sketches to surrealism--interject throughout the sleepless night and allude to artists such as Heinz Edelmann, Salvador Dalí, and the author himself. The repetition and failure in the story lend it to pairing with other similar tales of trial and failure, such as the Hellenic myths of Sisyphus and Tantalus.

"Breakdown on the Starship Remembrance"

Ironically, Lieutenant Jordon Alexander--who, from an early age, has romanticized space travel--suffers a mental breakdown while serving on the starship Remembrance where "fantasies of Venusian summers and Plutonian nights are replaced by ... the ultimate inertia of routine activity" (100). Alexander steals a shuttle pod and flees to a nearby planet where he finds solace. Russell's realistic black and white illustrations allow the reader to empathize with Alexander and symbolize the mind-rending dichotomy that has been his experience with space travel--the actual and the ideal. Russell concludes with two possible endings--one in which Alexander makes his dreams come true and one in which he abandons them. "Breakdown on the Starship Remembrance" could serve as introduction to George Orwell's Animal Farm as an example of a course of action which fails to fulfill its initial promise.

this volume of P Craig Russell's artwork is wonderful, it is full of angels and art nouveau lines. i just love it. i was collecting him in comic books back in the 70's when he drew Amazing Adventures with Killraven, then he went out on his own, and i couldn't find his stuff. i have now found most of the parts of this book at used comic book shops now in the 2010. but the paper here and colors are so much better than some of the originals from Star Reach back then. i now collect Russell and Alex Ross and Darwyn Cooke and Jim Steranko, as much as i can.

Each story in this compilation is a treat. If you are into comic art, short stories, or just great short fiction in general, this is a good book to have. If you are a P. Craig Russell fan, you should probably already own this. It is amazing that his storytelling has been very solid from the earliest works in hiss great career. This book "illustrates" why Russell is a comic visionary.

P. Craig Russell has been a defining force in comics for at least thirty years. I don't know much about his more commerical work, drawing other people's characters. This work, however, shows how good it can get when a masterful illustrator follows his own lead.

The first half of this collection presents some of Russell's wondeful adaptations. They draw from many sources: speculations on the non-fictional suicide of an influential Japanese writer, a beautiful rendering of O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi," H.P.Lovecraft, and Cyrano de Bergerac. The stories vary widely in narrative mood, so Russell varies his visual style to match, Mishimo's death is a dark, realistic monochrome; Cyrano is brightly colored cartoony in keeping with the story it tells.

The second half of the book is Russell's own work, and even more varied. Dreamy "Sonnambula" tells it's wandering story without words. "Isolation and Illusion" is equaly silent and dreamy, but the only pencil-drawn piece in the collection. "The Insomniac" is filled with hard lines and harsh color in a combination of visual styles, and the other stories explore other narrative and visual territories.

Russell is generally known for pastel palettes and delicate inking. That's just an artistic choice, though. This book shows just how versatile this master storyteller can be. If you're new to Russell, you might do well to start here.

//wiredweird