By Oli Smith and Oliver Lambden
Self-published.
The UK small press equivalent of a dynamic duo here. Smith and Lambden are well known around these parts for their individual works: I enjoyed Oli’s sentimental early works (reviews here) and more recent I Toddler and Grumpy Days (review here) and likewise think Oliver’s artwork on Tales From The Flat and The Dan Lester Mysteries (reviews here and here) shows great promise. This is the first time this pair have worked together and it’s a strange beast indeed.
Bloc is a completely wordless tale, always a difficult thing to pull off. What the writer intends the reader to get from the story can all too easily be lost when the reader transposes their own ideas upon the story. And whether Bloc works or not will most probably be down to your own personal reading of the story.
In Bloc a faceless, nameless male figure of stone, a perfect tabula rasa, wanders from the sea into a landscape of huge floating blocks of stone. These blocks are moving through the barren landscape forming huge structures that the figure moves through, in turns playfully and exploratory. Investigating further he discovers a large stone hammer in one of the structures and proceeds to use it, at first destructively, but then, over the course of one long night, constructively to fashion a female form.
Straight away we have theories in our heads of the creation story, of our stone Adam creating his own stone Eve. And, just as before, this Eve is to be the downfall of Adam. Her rough exterior, crudely made, cuts our stone man as he leans in for what we must assume is a first kiss. Wounded, both physically and emotionally, he casts her aside, pushing her into the waters surrounding the island and then sits to ponder the things he has done. She re-emerges, days later, rough edges made soft by the sea’s power and, when he attempts reconciliation, rejects him as he rejected her. She wounds and then destroys him, breaking his body and leaving him, in pieces, on the shores of the island. It’s then her turn to reflect as we pull away from the island one last time.
The wordless nature of the piece makes it completely open to interpretation. I’ve given you mine, yours may well be completely different. One thing Bloc definitely is is a comic that bears and demands repeated readings. In the absence of words, the art carries an extra weight and you’ll begin to analyse every page, every panel to squeeze whatever extra meaning you can from the details. It’s a comic to think about, to mull over and to formulate your own opinions of.
The subtlety of the story is reflected in some really well crafted art, easily Lambden’s best of what I’ve seen thus far. With very little actual detail to go on and a minimal cast, the art had to make every nuance of movement or body language work perfectly and, with but a few slightly askew poses, Lambden more than manages it here. Initially the script called for 18 pages. Lambden eventually turned in 47. The extra time and the space available allows the story to breathe and develop much more, something Lambden obviously enjoyed – and it shows.
Bloc is something that should at least intrigue. But hopefully, like I did, you’ll really enjoy the challenge of ascribing your own values and meanings to the deliberately open and fluid story. It’s this openness, combined with some great artwork by Lambden, that I found made the book a rather enjoyable and satisfying experience.
Bloc is available from Oli Smith’s website via paypal.
Mon, Sep 7, 2009
Comics and cartoons, Propaganda, Reviews