Customer Reviews

Table for One

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

 

 

Bosch Fawstin is a phenomenal talent! I have also found him to be a genuinely nice guy having chatted with him on a fairly regular basis. His art and sense of pacing/storytelling have received high praise from legendary animator Alex Toth. Bosch's style is reminiscent of artists David Mazzucchelli and Bruce Timm, but with a unique and fantastic twist that makes it his own. Bosch also manages to put fun and entertaining "Easter eggs" throughout his book to enhance the story and make the second, third, fourth, and even fifth reads more entertaining and engaging than the first.

Table For One is a fantastic read. I look forward to his next project with great enthusiasm! Check out his website at www.boschfawstin.com for a 5 page preview.

I'd like to thank the artist for his bold stance. This isn't the "I'm no Superman/Somebody save me/It's not easy to be me" mentality of superheroes that have been promoted in comics lately. Not that TABLE FOR ONE is a "superhero" book, but the allusions are there. (See the arist's upcoming PIGMAN for more superhero fare.) What we have here is not a weakling in the main character Will, but an uncompromising idealist/realist who lives what he means.

Like Ayn Rand, Fawstin is accused of making his characters too perfect, not having any flaws to overcome. Story-wise, this is obviously an artist still growing (this being his first graphic novel), there isn't a lot of "plot," and I'd agree that the hero doesn't have a strong enough tempation/conflict to overcome as presented,though the opportunity is there in the love relationship. (Actually, there's a similarity to Rand's fiction here as well: it is not the main character Will who progresses, but the feminine character, a la Dominique Francon from THE FOUNTAINHEAD or Dagny Taggart from ATLAS SHRUGGED.) I'd say there was a limitation in the amount of pages, so that this all was painted in large strokes. But I'd also defend the artistic choices using the definition of art offered by Ayn Rand: a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's value judgments, paraphrasing Aristotle, a recreation as the world might and ought to be. What we get in TABLE FOR ONE is just that, and on this reasoning, I'd say the artist succeeds in presenting his vision. The fact that the character is an uncompromising idealist struggling to keep his art pure is simply icing on the cake for me. I'll take the bold stance over a subtle, finely-detailed portrait of a flawed gray everyman any day.

Fawstin offers a new view of the hard-boiled genre - a claustrophobic, night-time faceoff, where strength of personality means everything. Strong B&W artwork supports the encounter, even if I'm not quite sure what the back-story was that led to this evening's encounter.

The artistic style is a bit raw, something that works in this story, but I look forward to seeing it mature. These characters and this artist has a lot to offer, and I hope I see more of both.

-- wiredweird

I gretaly enjoyed this book. If you are considering reading it, you should buy it.

Bosch has found the perfect weapon against the death cult of jihadis in our midst,and it is pen and ink, which is always more powerful than anything else. I can't wait for his second book.