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98th out of 482 books
—
211 voters
Curses: Glenn Ganges Stories
"One of the brightest, most interesting new comix authors to appear in the last five years." -Time.com
Delving into mythology, belief, and spirituality,Kevin Huizenga's short stories are based on the lives of familiar characters confronting the textures of mortality in unique and sometimes peculiar ways. Huizenga fuses the most banal aspects of modern culture with its mos
...moreHardcover, 145 pages
Published
December 12th 2006
by Drawn & Quarterly
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At least I made it through this turd. Don't get me wrong, if you enjoy essays on religion and religious debate and religion vs. science vs. spirituality vs. Haystacks Calhoun in a steel cage match at the Rapid City Civic Center... sorry. Then this is the story for you. It was engaging enough at first being character-driven by Glenn Ganges. Some people may be into the stuff Glenn is rapping about or that Kevin is laying down. It was tolerable until the last story, and this more because of my tast...more
Anthologies and short story collections are always such a difficult thing for me to judge. Generally the quality and value of the work is so varied that it's hard to come up with any kind of monolithic opinion to summarize the work. While single-author collections can be a bit easier, they still aren't wholly immune to this kind of trouble.
Kevin Huizenga's Curses is, for me, no exception to this rule.
While some of the stories are great and perfect examples of viable ways to use the comic medium...more
Kevin Huizenga's Curses is, for me, no exception to this rule.
While some of the stories are great and perfect examples of viable ways to use the comic medium...more
I really enjoy Huizenga's illustration style. There's a neatness and simplicity to it. I REALLY enjoyed the Glenn Ganges story included in The Best American Comics 2009 (on gaming after work at a .com). This collection isn't quite as strong to me as that story. There isn't the humor. Some of the selections feel like essays in comic form (very text reliant). This is more thought-provoking than the gaming selection. I especially liked the illustrated text of adoption documentation. I sense that mu...more
Huizenga has always been a cartoonist who strives to make me NOT like his material, despite his always engaging and straightforward cartooning style. This book has some works, 28th Street in particular, which showcase how good he can be at times, but the book also overwhelmingly showcases how he can't ever put his finger on an ending, and so simply runs on until everything completely runs out of gas and, far worse from my side, the book also stresses how he would apparently be more comfortable i...more
Kevin Huizenga is my favorite comic book writer. This may be a little too heady for some people, but the way he illustrates his characters' inner worlds is fascinating to me. His art is also really appealing- the simple style contrasts the complex themes, and it kept me going in the parts that were more mentally taxing, particularly the biblical debate at the end about the existence of hell. I think the welcoming drawing style may entice people that are looking for something more lighthearted, a...more
This was my introduction to Kevin Huizenga, and oh my gosh I loved it. That said, I realize how much potential there is for me to like his other work even more, and I wonder how I can express that with more than five stars? Should I revamp my whole rating system for this?
One of the reviews of this I read was hating on the theology story in this collection. That was really one of my favorite stories. I really liked that it provided both Glenn's (as the atheist) and the pastor's perspective, becau...more
One of the reviews of this I read was hating on the theology story in this collection. That was really one of my favorite stories. I really liked that it provided both Glenn's (as the atheist) and the pastor's perspective, becau...more
I was a little worried when I saw the Sunday-cartoon style drawings, but with stories about the existence of hell, fertility problems, a a curse of starlings it was much more bleak than Kevin Huizenga's art suggested. I found these stories to be well-written and interesting, yet I didn't really see why it needed to be a graphic novel when the dialogue and narrative could have stood better on its own. I couldn't bring myself to care about the main character, Glenn Ganges, and found myself wishing...more
Huizenga's stories range from Victorian ghost stories, articles on Sudan, folk tales, Christian arguments, and even adoption reports. This can be a good thing if the subjects themselves are interesting though unfortunately most of them are not.
The Victorian ghost story is an adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's story "Green Tea" about a vicar haunted by a monkey who tells him to kill himself. The story is agonisingly played out with Le Fanu's words telling us about the vicar and his grief, his meet...more
The Victorian ghost story is an adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's story "Green Tea" about a vicar haunted by a monkey who tells him to kill himself. The story is agonisingly played out with Le Fanu's words telling us about the vicar and his grief, his meet...more
" Yeah, it's that bad.
It's a shame, too, because this comic had potential. The first story examined the theme of personal demons who manifest themselves as hallucinations, following around two hapless characters. I have my own negative thoughts that hound me, so I found this a very creative way of illustrating this idea.
Then I turn the page....
and there's an entire comic devoted to the very subject that haunts me. Just what I need, right? (I'm really getting tired of being blindsided by this s...more
Kevin Huizenga, Curses (Drawn and Quarterly, 2006)
I think that, were Glenn Ganges a real person (and I believe that he is, at least partially, Kevin Huizenga himself), that he and I would get along famously. Ganges seems to take an approach to the world very similar to my own, and we have things in common I never expected to find I had in common with, shall we say, an artist's rendition. Thus, I will freely admit to bias in my review of Curses, Huizenga's first book of Glenn Ganges stories. (A s...more
I think that, were Glenn Ganges a real person (and I believe that he is, at least partially, Kevin Huizenga himself), that he and I would get along famously. Ganges seems to take an approach to the world very similar to my own, and we have things in common I never expected to find I had in common with, shall we say, an artist's rendition. Thus, I will freely admit to bias in my review of Curses, Huizenga's first book of Glenn Ganges stories. (A s...more
the art in this book is really wonderful. it is not lacking in stars for that reason. i'd love to be able to draw and tell a story like huzienga. his stories are able to convey suspense and pathos in very striking ways. i guess so me it is just that there was high creepiness factor and creepiness kind of scares me. will i have nightmares now about delusions of animals driving me crazy? scary stuff.
suburban michigan is really not far off from what he depicts. but he does it in a way that makes it not so unbearable...even with some wonder in the corners. and i like his drawing style. "28th street" is great! the last story hits uncomfortably close to home, but interestingly ambiguous (maybe too many theological discussions over the dinner table recently..)
A great collection of short stories told in comics format with a shared central character, the middle-class suburban-dwelling everyman Glenn Ganges. Huizenga is a master of the claire-ligne style that I love so much -- those spare, deft lines that speak volumes in their simplicity. I also enjoyed the philosophical and supernatural tinge of several of the stories in this volume, especially the related stories about the lengths Glenn & his wife go to produce their own child and the curse of th...more
Huizenga is a master. This collection, though, has a few misses. While I appreciate the amount of research that must've gone in to the story "Jeepers Jacobs," I wasn't at all interested in a character who isn't Glenn thinking about religion. I liked the art in the story "Green Tea (Glenn Ganges Remix)," but I found the actual story fairly flat. So a must-have for any Huizenga fan, but not for a first timer (go get Ganges #1 instead).
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This is a splendid collection of short stories, anchored by one character who is either experiencing the action or reading about it. Each story is pretty good, and the last two are terrific. These two are also emotionally wrenching. Great writing, well done art.
Jul 03, 2007
Linda
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
pensive comic lovers
Shelves:
sequential-art
I wanted to like this book more than I did. I heard the author give a reading at Quimby's this winter. The first and penultimate stories were the best: In "Green Tea," Ganges recounts an episode from university days, when a tea-fueled research project on hallucinations triggered his own visionary experience (he keeps seeing a certain dog in various locations) and had him digging through a nineteenth-century psychiatrist's papers for explanations (the psychiatrist's patient is an ultimately suici...more
A collection of short stories. Some stories were better than others often due to abrupt endings or storylines that did not grab my attention. I think he touched on several topics that need to be discussed in West Michigan with varying degrees of entertaining creative approaches. That said, being from Grand Rapids I really connected with all the West Michigan references making me like the stories more. He provides accurate accounts of West Michigan life including the horror's of 28th street and e...more
Very strange overall tone. I'm not sure that I "got it". Felt like it was all going over my head. It wasn't bad at all, just way more serious than I was prepared for.
some simple stories, some longer stories that are partially essays about scary spirit animals and the existence of hell. none of it is light but i loved it all.
Overall this didn't do it for me, but the story about the birds (starlings, I think) stayed with me long after the rest of the book faded from memory.
There is a story in here about how starlings incorporate sounds of traffic and cellphones into their birdsong, and it creates a really haunting landscape.
A set of comics, featuring the same main character, that explore themes of relationships and family and religion and mythology. Thought-provoking.
Last story is the best part. The beginning was rough, but the book got better and better. If I could give it just 3.5 stars, I would.
I think I've had this pretty much since it came out, and its one of the books I turn back to every once and a while, flip open, and just digest one of the stories. They are autobio and philosophical, dealing with religion and workload and how to get pregnant if there might be a curse on you (find an ogre). The ways in which the stories fall into one another, the factual sidling up next to the fictional, the stuff that maybe never could happen tossing pebbles at the stuff that probably never shou...more
***1/2 stars. This book opens and closes with its weakest stories, long-winded character studies thick with theology. Skip to the middle: a knockout trilogy about missing children, pregnancy, and troll feathers, and an insomniac reverie that's equally haunting and charming.
To be honest, i only liked the story with the birds and the last one about the statues and aborted fetuses. I'm giving this 3 stars because i like his style of drawing/coloring.
Hit or miss. Despite the unifying theme, it seemed to lack direction throughout.
It's actually a pretty high 3, but I'm a pretty harsh rater.
Half of it is fantastic, the other half is a bit dull. I always love his more abstract panels and dialogues.
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Kevin Huizenga was born in 1977 in Harvey, IL and spent most of his childhood in South Holland, IL, near Chicago. He attended college in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and moved to St. Louis in 2000 where he lives and works.
He began drawing comics in high school, xeroxing his first issue (with friends) at the neighborhood Jewel Osco in 1993. Since that time he's made approximately 30 more. In 2001 the Co...more
More about Kevin Huizenga...
He began drawing comics in high school, xeroxing his first issue (with friends) at the neighborhood Jewel Osco in 1993. Since that time he's made approximately 30 more. In 2001 the Co...more
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Feb 13, 2010 08:02pm