Scratch
Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.
Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.
On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.
Alan Moore (Writer), Melinda Gebbie (Illustrator)
For more than a century, Alice, Wendy and Dorothy have been our guides through the Wonderland, Neverland and Land of Oz of our childhoods. Now like us, these three lost girls have grown up and are ready to guide us again, this time through the realms of our sexual awakening and fulfillment. Through their familiar fairytales they share with us their most intimate revelations of desire in its many forms, revelations that shine out radiantly through the dark clouds of war gathering around a luxury Austrian hotel. Drawing on the rich heritage of erotica, Lost Girls is the rediscovery of the power of ecstatic writing and art in a sublime union that only the medium of comics can achieve. Exquisite, thoughtful, and human, Lost Girls is a work of breathtaking scope that challenges the very notion of art fettered by convention. This is erotic fiction at its finest.
Lost Girls was always going to controversial. Taking three well known childhood stories and radically re-interpreting them into a Marquis de Sade-esque story of sexual awakenings, no matter how well written and with so much depth, is still going to split the readers. Subjects such as pedophilia, incest is walking the line at the best of time, and some people have accused Moore/Gebbie of glorifying the issue and simple sexploitation to make money. Others rave over the clever ways the issues are addressed and by tackling the subject make people more aware. Whether this is erotica or pornography shouldn't be the issue, (a rose by any other name, you say potato, I say potato*, beauty in the eye of the beholder, other crap metaphor) but will no doubt be central to most conversations.
Personally, there were some aspects I found unappealing, but as Moore himself writes "Fiction and fact: only madmen and magistrates cannot discriminate between them, and being neither I can resolve the issues in my head without detriment to the book. Moore's writing is second to none drawing on a wide range of techniques and materials to present the story and this is complemented by Gebbie's natural drawing style.
Whilst there is undoubtedly going to be an ongoing 'discussion' as to the literary, merits, relevance and suitability, it is a good read. For further analysis and whether its something for you, I draw your attention to Neil Gaiman, the AV Club and Newsarama's respective interviews with Alan Moore.
* Strangely this doesn't really carry the same meaning when typed...
24 Feb 2008 16:59 | (0) comments | Books
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