18 Days
Comments(0) I’m not sure where I first read about Grant Morrison‘s 18 Days, only know I was in China at the time. When I got back to ATL, I went looking at Oxford comics (lame site I’m afraid), discovered it hadn’t come out yet, so pre-ordered. When it arrived a few weeks later, I was surprised to find it closer to an elongated, thin coffee table book than a graphic novel. No problem, but if you get one, beware looking through the pages unless the book is completely horizontal, as the long pages will fall, fold, and can be creased easily.
I haven’t read the entire thing yet, am sort of slowly savoring it. And Mukesh Singh’s art is beautiful (he worked on Devil, among other things I have yet to see). It’s a retelling of India’s Hindu epic Mahabharata. The actual story is better than Morrison’s uber-pop “notes” in the beginning. Not to judge him too harshly: despite whatever other genius he may posses, the guy is essentially a comic book writer. But as he mentions, name dropping from Star Wars and LOTR help give readers a reference in trying to keep up with the multitude of strangely (to western minds) named characters. And ultimately to understand the story, we will have to go beyond the western duality of good guys/bad guys.
If, down the road, this is turned in an animated feature film – or more likely a multi-part franchise – it could kick supreme ass. But for now, let’s be just as please to enjoy it in this form.
