Customer Reviews

The Originals

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

 

 

This is a decent book, but only because of the striking B&W art work and great layout. For some reason it is set in the future (complete with hoverbikes, apparently the only advance the future has brought us), but the setting makes no difference to what is a predictible story with a simplistic moral ending. As a coming of age story, you see the outcome of the story from the beginning, and Gibbon doesn't offer any twists or turns to liven up the story line. If it were not for the "hook" of mods in the future, there would be no reason to pick this up.

That said, the art is amazing, and the layout makes an other wise dull story worth reading. Skip the hardcover and pick it up in paperback if you like his earlier work or are interested in mod culture.

Dave Gibbons, esteemed illustrator of Alan Moore's landmark graphic novel Watchmen, has once again set a comic book precedent. Revealing for the first time his skill as a writer, which easily matches his artistic prowess, The Originals has dazzled Dave's fans, his colleagues in the comic industry and just about anyone else in the world who reads it.

The Originals is a story of rebellious youth, which has been addressed repeatedly in great literary works (A Clockwork Orange and West Side Story come to mind), but never before in a comic book, and, in my opinion, has been long overdue for one. In the near future, the streets are ruled by hoverbike-riding teenage gangs, constantly feuding and fighting with each other. The most respected gang of all, however, is the Originals, and Lel and Bok, two best friends looking for excitement and power, will do anything to join their ranks.

They accomplish this relatively easily, and are immediately swept into a world of drugs, dancing and violence. They both find the acceptance they desire, the power they sought, and, possibly, the loves of their life. Their paradise is quickly spoiled, however, when the gang war escalates, and people begin to die. Lel and Bok are forced to reconsider this fast-paced lifestyle, or accept it with its full consequences.

The Originals, unlike most other graphic novels, not only has a clear, meaningful underlying theme, but manages to get that theme across while keeping the story simple and concise. It simply abounds in simplicity: all the names are catchy one-syllable slang terms (the police force is dubbed "the Law", hoverbikes are "hovers" and long names like Leslie, Vivian and Bokassa are simply "Lel", "Viv" and "Bok", respectively), there's no unnecessary exposition, and every single event in the story, no matter how brief, contributes to the overall plot.

In conclusion, The Originals is simply that: original. Original in its combination of topic and medium, its writing style and the teen slang language in which the characters speak (based mostly around swear words, including some that no comic company has ever dared to print). To add on to M. Osman's comments, not only did I immediately see this book's potential as a movie, but, more importantly, it can be easily made into an entertaining movie without changing or abridging the plot in any way, like most comic-based movies turn out. This book is destined to become a classic, reserve your copy today!

give Gibbons a chance as a writer! With past works like World's Finest and the first Batman Vs. Predator series Gibbons has proved he CAN write as well as he draws.

The Originals is one of the best drawn and written graphic novels I've read in a long time.

The graphic novel industry needs more Dave Gibbons and personal works like, The Originals. Pick it up. You won't be disappointed!

Who knew Dave Gibbons could write? I've read his writer-artist works on Batman, and they were barely worth glancing at once. Now with the Originals, Dave Gibbons takes his talents as a writer-artist to new, impeccable heights. The story he's telling is the oft-used and abused rival gang yarn. Boy joins gang, has fun, falls in love, someone dies, someone dies in retaliation, etc., you get the picture. It's a format we're all familiar with, but Gibbons uses it to its full potential. The set-up is mods (the Originals) versus the greasers (Dirt), taking place in a modern future with hover-bikes, where guns are outlawed.

Gibbons does two things that separate this story from any other rival-gang story we've scene before. First is his delivery. His dynamic use of panels and text make this feel like you're in the scenes watching them firsthand. The book is a few inches smaller than a regular comic book, but it still feels huge and enveloping. The second thing is the ending. Instead of the end resolution being the product of things spinning out of control, the final defeat of our protagonist is subtle and quiet. Of course, that anti-climax comes after an awesome scene of retribution-filled vengeance.

Is the Originals original? Not exactly. But it still feels new and important. I hope theirs a sequel.

writing: [7/10]
art: [9/10]

The Originals was exactly that, original. Gibbons art work, as always, is fantastic and pleasant to look at. The world that he has created in The Originals is intriguing and stylistic. The story of the the book isn't very deep, fairly basic plot, but that is made up for in his artwork and in the action sequences. It's a good quick read if your looking for something to keep you entertained for a while, though it won't have as lasting an effect as something like Watchmen.

Just a teenage gang story, but Gibbons makes it look good, in a Hollywood way. e.g. all the teenagers looks like they are 26. This is partly the conflict about being a big enough loser to be in a gang to start with, as though that is cool, and how far you will go when you are such as loser, as far as crime goes, drugs, violence, murder.

This very well plotted and very well drawn black-and-white graphic novel is about a couple of young wannabe punks in a retro-futuristic Britain where Hovers are like motorcycles with antigrav plates instead of wheels, where a huge protective dome over a reservoir also provides an enormous recreation area, where the Originals and the Dirt are violently rival gangs not unlike the Mods and the Rockers of the early 1960s. Lel and his black buddy, Bok, make it into the gang and are introduced to drugs as well as the lifestyle they yearn for -- until an encounter with the Dirt gets out of hand. The characterization is quite good, the dialogue is believable, and there's actually a Beginning, a Middle, and an End -- unlike so many graphic novels.

Gibbons must have written The Originals as an homage or possibly a prank on the movie Quadraphenia. The story is practically identical and every now and then recognizable characters from the movie pop up in the background. Set in the future, scooters are replaced by hoverbikes. Gibbons goes strangely deeper- among other things he plays out a subtle race relations drama between the two protagonists, an Arian man and a black man, both vying for a spot in a futuristic version of the Mods- a homogeneous British gang that thrived on scooters, fashion and pills. The panels are black and white too, highlighting the ridiculous naivete of these British gangs, for whom guns were practically nonexistent and gangs "rumbled". This book has such a foreign, naive and innocent perspective, that violence and fashion and all the coolness of mod culture is replaced with an intense awkwardness that is Gibbons' trademark. All the characters are much older than the teens in the movie. These Mods are in their late 20's early 30's, and they are living out a teenage fantasy from 60s Britain- in a future world. ??? Nobody I've read seems to understand his real intentions for writing this book. See Quadraphenia if you want to see a cool mod movie - read The Originals after, and see if you can figure out Gibbons' very weird mind.

The story is old, but the execution, atmosphere, art and neo-retro future is awesome. One of those stories after you're done reading, immediately say to yourself 'This would make a great movie!'

While this is a decent graphic novel, it offers so much that The Who album (and subsequent film) QUADROPHENIA already covered that it felt redundant.