The Eternal Smile.  Derek Kirk Kim and Gene Luen Yang.  Fiction – Graphic Novel/Comics.

I picked up The Eternal Smile because of Vulture’s excerpt of one of the stories in this collection of three – and I was not disappointed (click on the Vulture link to read a large excerpt).  That story, Urgent Request, is one of my favorite short graphic stories I’ve ever read.  I loved the concept and the execution equally and had I liked all the stories in The Eternal Smile as much, I would have been hard pressed to give this collection anything less than a 5 star rating.

Unfortunately, and largely based I think, on personal preference alone, the other two stories just didn’t speak to me as Urgent Request did.  The art is well executed and lovely in all three stories, though different stylistically, which is a nice treat.  Urgent Request is the style that I personally find the most visually interesting and emotionally engaging, though Duncan’s Kingdom is drawn vividly and is complex in its own right.  The pages are really quite beautiful and I wish more mainstream comics were drawn as well as it is.  Gran’pa Greenbax and The Eternal Smile was the least interesting visually for me, though still, excellent in execution overall.

Excerpt from Urgent Request.

Unfortunately, though there is nothing wrong with Duncan’s Kingdom or Gran’pa Greenbax and The Eternal Smile and each bring nice stuff to the table, neither really did it for me plot/concept wise.  Neither story was as nuanced or poignant as Urgent Request and thus ended up suffering in comparison.  Urgent Request is a story about a shy, mild mannered office worker named Janet and her experiences with an urgent email request for assistance from Africa.  Janet makes unique choices and as such gets unique results and I found the story to be charming and innocent and missing the cynicism of ‘real life’ in all the good ways.  Duncan’s Kingdom is the story of a knight that makes good, but just can’t leave well enough alone, and through his own curiosity unravels the wonderful life he’s set up for himself.  Gran’pa Greenbax and The Eternal Smile is a loose parody of Uncle Scrooge and Ducktales (which I was never really a fan of – perhaps why this story didn’t hit home for me) and touches on interesting themes like money and religion.  The ‘Eternal Smile’ part of the Gran’pa Greenbax story is rather insightful and interesting, but that alone couldn’t save the story as a whole for me. But don’t get me wrong – Duncan’s Kingdom and Gran’pa Greenbax and The Eternal Smile are not bad stories – not at all – they just didn’t live up to Urgent Request for me and so I was left feeling that Yang and Kim could have done better.

Even if you feel mixed about the collection, as I did, it’s still more than worth the $16.95 purchase price – beautiful packaging, stunning artwork, and thoughtful stories, and you never know, you may prefer different stories – or love them all.

Overall I give the collection 3.0 Stars, though if I was rating the pieces separately I’d break it down thus:

Urgent Request:  4.5 Stars

Duncan’s Kingdom:  3.5 Stars

Gran’pa Greenbax and The Eternal Smile:  3.0 Stars

Possibly.

But there’s a really really good reason for it.  Sorta.  I somehow missed the boat initially when the issues were coming out, even though I’d heard about it and was interested all along.  And then I missed enough issues that it was going to be difficult to catch up…without missing issues and having holes.  So I figured I’d wait until they came out all collected and I could read them in one sitting (which is my favorite way to read a great series anyway).  But the shit was taking WAY too long.  So here we are.

I finally got my hands on the first two big collected volumes a few weeks ago and plowed through them in a day.  Amazing stuff.  And then, unable to wait for however long it might take for everything else to come out, I hunted down the rest of the issues and read everything else in a couple days.

Amazing stuff.

Y The Last Man.  Brian K. Vaughan (writer), Pia Guerra (illustrator). Fiction – Graphic Novel/Comics.

[SPOILERS]

So for anyone who doesn’t know, Y The Last Man is essentially about Yorick, the last man on earth (along with his monkey – Ampersand – also male) after something kills all the men on the planet except him (er…them).

Yorick is a wonderfully layered character and he is surrounded by fascinating women, of all kinds, which is so refreshing to see in popular comics that I just don’t really have words to describe how happy it made me.  Vaughan’s world is filled with women that are good and bad and beautiful and ugly and horrifying and badass and brilliant, they are all of these things, because women ARE all of these thing, rather than just “sexy” as they so often get boiled down to in comics.  And Vaughan has established himself, at least in my mind, as being a writer that can write the hell out of women.  He gets it and I would welcome his take on any number of things I love any day.  It’s interesting to know that one of his other wildly successful projects, Runaways, also stars a mostly female cast.  Interesting.

Y The Last Man takes place over sixty issues, and one of the great strengths is that artist Pia Guerra is always there – so the art is always consistent and it’s fair to say, consistently gorgeous.  Guerra is a master and it’s such a treat to be able to see an entire series collected together with no deviation in the art.  Even in the best of circumstances an artist is rarely able to do every single issue of the series, so this is a real treat.

Guerra’s style matches Vaughan’s writing perfectly, and the result is one of those perfect books we rarely get to see in comics.

My only complaint, and it’s a mild one, is the ending.  Like many fans of the story, I really did want a satisfying “answer” for what caused the plague.  I understand why Vaughan doesn’t give it to us – life – real life – is rarely that simple and spelled out and so it’s realistic for him to suggest possible answers but not say for sure, but so much time is spent on it over the 60-issues that I couldn’t help but feel disappointed and maybe a little cheated not to get a real resolution.  It felt a little like he’d possibly written himself into a hole he wasn’t sure how to escape from.  Regardless, the story in its entirety will remain a benchmark in graphic novels/comics for years to come and has solidified Vaughan’s status in my mind as both a sensational writer and also one of the few men out there who write women as well as women themselves do.

4.5 Stars

Also, if you want more information on Y The Last Man (though beware of spoilers) the wikipedia page is really detailed about the series – very nice.