Brandy's review
Lost Girls
by Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie
gosh, someone else who has read Lost Girls (tell me you didn't get an advanced copy of this). i agree with what you've said, especially about Moore's cutting out any possibility of non-fetish sex. (if the problem is "not enough good sex" then the solution may very well be "more, better sex!"--but the fact that Moore's good porn solution is the same as a lot of bad porn solutions doesn't make me totally comfortable. and on the coloring--it fit the stories, in some ways, but wasn't easy--or maybe was too easy--on the eyes).
But I will say this: given its size, the places where it fits best in my apartment are my coffee-table or my bedside table, either of which leads to some hilarious conversations.
No, this was an honest-to-goodness, post-release read!
I've been lugging the slipcase back and forth around the house, bedroom to coffee table, depending where I'm planning to read it. Also, waiting for our housemate to be out before opening another volume, because reading porn in front of someone with whom you're not romantically involved is really weird.
The coloring suits the stories well, but that doesn't mean I liked it--it's just not a palette that appeals to me. I know that's entirely a personal criticism and not a fault of the art itself, but that's part of what you have to expect with comics--not everyone is going to like your art.
Ben, I totally read Lost Girls (and enjoyed it as a slightly higher class porn, though not as much as an Alan Moore story. He's done better).
woops. your review was only a month ago and i missed it. (i might have been thinking of chris's one time refusal to read this--come to think of it, didn't chris used to have a "i won't read this" bookshelf?)
but since we're here talking about this, let me ask: i have a friend who is working on a dissertation on what i think he's calling "coextensive character rewriting"--modern works where you take and rewrite a story from another pov (Stoppard's R&G are dead, Gardner's Grendel, The Wind Done Gone, etc.--and really, there are a lot, though I think he's always looking for more). so here's my question: does it matter for this story/message that Dorothy/Wendy/Alice all have previous narrative lives (not to mention multiple previous narrative lives--all the movies and other spin-offs)? How does their status in children's literature affect the story about their sexuality?
p.s. what, you never have time to visit to chicago?
Well, I think Alan Moore might have been going for somewhat of a Tiujauna Bible thing with the use of DWG, and also insamuch as he's basically always writing metafiction and this is a story of women's sexual awakening, those three were a decent choice. Also, the rise of the female protagonist, the end of innocence in WWI, etc. etc.
Wikipedia refers to coextensive character writing as "parallel literature" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... but I can't find any citations for the use of that term right now.
in re: Chicago - maybe sometime this year or next? I'm actually making a salary now
heh--i saw that wiki article also and ALSO couldn't find any other use of that term. (also their "parallel" is a little broader than my friend jeremy's "coextensive"--that is, "Ender's Shadow" might be of interest for my friend, but "Eaters of the Dead" probably isn't, since it doesn't really change POV from Beowulf--you're still on the side of the humans against the monsters. Or even better, "The Hours" is definitely not "coextensive" in the way he means, since it is about "Mrs Dalloway" but it doesn't rewrite it (in the way that "Mr. Dalloway" does).)
so, other than indicating his massive library, what is alan moore's interest in pastiche/metafiction? that is, insofar as he was going to write about characters that already existed (because that's what he does these days), taking characters from children's literature seems right to tell a story about the sexualization that gets repressed in the socialization of the female characters in those stories. but why use characters that have been written before at all? I guess I've answered that question (whee, the return of the repressed), but to broaden the question: what's the point of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?
who needs a salary chicago is a garden of eden chicago provides for its children Ia! Ia! chicago fthagn!
I think Dorothy, Wendy, and Alice were decent choices for this particular experiment, but I don't really think they were necessary to the story. Moore has his metafiction bent and that's clearly what he was exploring, but in this case the metafiction is obscured--or rather, turned into one more kink. The repression angle is a fine one, but there are so many angles Moore is taking on here that the book becomes a confused polyhedron of graphic (in every sense) effort. The story muddles and many of his points get lost, buried beneath everything else he's trying to do.
I fear this conversation has gotten a little too smart for me. I haven't read League yet, so I can't speak to the point of it; I can just blather on about other books using established characters, for good or evil.
Coextensive titles: Laurie Fox's The Lost Girls was very good, from what I remember--generations of Wendys being swept off to Neverland, and their individual problems with and reactions to Peter Pan himself. There's also Capt. Hook>/i>, by JV Hart, but it was pretty dismal, and tells Hook's origin story in a way that makes no sense in relation to <i>Peter Pan. (Ditto Dave Barry's Peter and the Starcatchers series.)
Brandy's review
Lost Girls by Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie
Brandy's review
rating:
bookshelves:
2008reads,
comics
I'm all about sex-positive writings for women. I'm all in favor of giving porn to women, that it's not all male-fantasy male-centric images. In that regard, I enjoyed Lost Girls, though the art--particularly the coloring--didn't really do it for me. I like what Moore is doing with gender roles and female empowerment--it's okay to be a woman and like sex--and I can even see his ham-fisted points about how fantasy is perfectly okay. He has some good messages in here, even if he's not subtle about expressing them.
Where the book lost me, though, was its lack of a plot through the first book, the lack of a coherent ending, and the insistence that the only way to get comfortable with one's sexuality is All Orgy All The Time. As a storytelling experiment (giving another side to these established characters), it's been done so many times before, albeit never in such filthy ways.
It's hard to review this book in any context other than good porn vs crappy porn, good messages vs b...more
Where the book lost me, though, was its lack of a plot through the first book, the lack of a coherent ending, and the insistence that the only way to get comfortable with one's sexuality is All Orgy All The Time. As a storytelling experiment (giving another side to these established characters), it's been done so many times before, albeit never in such filthy ways.
It's hard to review this book in any context other than good porn vs crappy porn, good messages vs b...more
gosh, someone else who has read Lost Girls (tell me you didn't get an advanced copy of this). i agree with what you've said, especially about Moore's cutting out any possibility of non-fetish sex. (if the problem is "not enough good sex" then the solution may very well be "more, better sex!"--but the fact that Moore's good porn solution is the same as a lot of bad porn solutions doesn't make me totally comfortable. and on the coloring--it fit the stories, in some ways, but wasn't easy--or maybe was too easy--on the eyes). But I will say this: given its size, the places where it fits best in my apartment are my coffee-table or my bedside table, either of which leads to some hilarious conversations.
No, this was an honest-to-goodness, post-release read! I've been lugging the slipcase back and forth around the house, bedroom to coffee table, depending where I'm planning to read it. Also, waiting for our housemate to be out before opening another volume, because reading porn in front of someone with whom you're not romantically involved is really weird.
The coloring suits the stories well, but that doesn't mean I liked it--it's just not a palette that appeals to me. I know that's entirely a personal criticism and not a fault of the art itself, but that's part of what you have to expect with comics--not everyone is going to like your art.
Ben, I totally read Lost Girls (and enjoyed it as a slightly higher class porn, though not as much as an Alan Moore story. He's done better).
woops. your review was only a month ago and i missed it. (i might have been thinking of chris's one time refusal to read this--come to think of it, didn't chris used to have a "i won't read this" bookshelf?)but since we're here talking about this, let me ask: i have a friend who is working on a dissertation on what i think he's calling "coextensive character rewriting"--modern works where you take and rewrite a story from another pov (Stoppard's R&G are dead, Gardner's Grendel, The Wind Done Gone, etc.--and really, there are a lot, though I think he's always looking for more). so here's my question: does it matter for this story/message that Dorothy/Wendy/Alice all have previous narrative lives (not to mention multiple previous narrative lives--all the movies and other spin-offs)? How does their status in children's literature affect the story about their sexuality?
p.s. what, you never have time to visit to chicago?
Well, I think Alan Moore might have been going for somewhat of a Tiujauna Bible thing with the use of DWG, and also insamuch as he's basically always writing metafiction and this is a story of women's sexual awakening, those three were a decent choice. Also, the rise of the female protagonist, the end of innocence in WWI, etc. etc.
Wikipedia refers to coextensive character writing as "parallel literature" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... but I can't find any citations for the use of that term right now.
in re: Chicago - maybe sometime this year or next? I'm actually making a salary now
heh--i saw that wiki article also and ALSO couldn't find any other use of that term. (also their "parallel" is a little broader than my friend jeremy's "coextensive"--that is, "Ender's Shadow" might be of interest for my friend, but "Eaters of the Dead" probably isn't, since it doesn't really change POV from Beowulf--you're still on the side of the humans against the monsters. Or even better, "The Hours" is definitely not "coextensive" in the way he means, since it is about "Mrs Dalloway" but it doesn't rewrite it (in the way that "Mr. Dalloway" does).)so, other than indicating his massive library, what is alan moore's interest in pastiche/metafiction? that is, insofar as he was going to write about characters that already existed (because that's what he does these days), taking characters from children's literature seems right to tell a story about the sexualization that gets repressed in the socialization of the female characters in those stories. but why use characters that have been written before at all? I guess I've answered that question (whee, the return of the repressed), but to broaden the question: what's the point of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?
who needs a salary chicago is a garden of eden chicago provides for its children Ia! Ia! chicago fthagn!
I think Dorothy, Wendy, and Alice were decent choices for this particular experiment, but I don't really think they were necessary to the story. Moore has his metafiction bent and that's clearly what he was exploring, but in this case the metafiction is obscured--or rather, turned into one more kink. The repression angle is a fine one, but there are so many angles Moore is taking on here that the book becomes a confused polyhedron of graphic (in every sense) effort. The story muddles and many of his points get lost, buried beneath everything else he's trying to do. I fear this conversation has gotten a little too smart for me. I haven't read League yet, so I can't speak to the point of it; I can just blather on about other books using established characters, for good or evil.
Coextensive titles: Laurie Fox's The Lost Girls was very good, from what I remember--generations of Wendys being swept off to Neverland, and their individual problems with and reactions to Peter Pan himself. There's also Capt. Hook>/i>, by JV Hart, but it was pretty dismal, and tells Hook's origin story in a way that makes no sense in relation to <i>Peter Pan. (Ditto Dave Barry's Peter and the Starcatchers series.)