I'm not so interested in looking into publishers and how much cash was behind each book. Just know that by "indie" I mean, "fitting into the stereotypes of indie, such as being drawn and written by one dude and being about, you know, emotions and shit."
I decided to rank this in order from most-enjoyed to least. That way, even if you don't get all the way through, you'll hear the good instead of the bad.
1. Mid-Life by Joe OllmanA favorite amongst these titles, Mid-Life focuses on a guy in a time period of his life that I feel is adequately explained by the title. As a matter of fact, three of four books in this entry are about a man in that time when ex-wives are abundant and unattractive physical features are rendered in dark ink.
Mid-Life reads like total autobiography, the disclaimer being that some parts may or may not be real. The details are so vivid, though, that you finish the book feeling like all of it was real and the only purpose of the disclaimer was to avoid trouble with the other "characters."
The main character is a guy who's been married a couple times, has two grown daughters and a baby son, and ends up crushing on a girl who is a semi-famous children's performer. Imagine Raffi with nice cans. Through some complicated shit, he gets the chance to actually meet boob-ed Raffi in a business setting and talk to her one-on-one.
It's an interesting premise because we all have our celebrity crushes that are totally okay because they are totally unrealistic. Most people don't mind when their girlfriend has a thing for Brad Pitt because for anything to happen they would somehow have to meet, Pitt would have to somehow be mysteriously yet powerfully attracted as well, and somehow they would end up falling in love together, you suddenly upset at Brad Pitt's changing shitty beards that were just some man's hair to you only days ago. In short, you might as well fall in love with a unicorn, because it's about equally likely that things will work out, especially since unicorns are well-known wifebeaters.
So, although it gets there through a very indie lens, at the heart of this book is an actual story as opposed to a series of pages expressing feelings and detailing impossibly small moments, a staple of this genre.
2. Life With Mr. Dangerous by Paul HornschemeierLife is a much shorter book, and it's a little closer to the indie stereotype in that the story is pretty much about the small little nothings of a relationship that exists mostly in the main character's head.
You have a female main character who makes some clumsy attempts at love, most of which are a little depressing and ultimately fruitless.
The thing that made this book work for me is that the story, though it can be sad at times, doesn't feel like it's purposefully shooting for sad with every turn of the page. There are some lighter moments, the art is more cartoon-y than realistic, and although the situation is a little rough it's 100% believable (see below).
This story didn't have that strong thread to it, the thing keeping you turning pages. But it does wrap itself up nicely and have a sense of flow. If someone showed you the pages of this book completely out of order, you could put them back in their proper places, which means it passes the test of having SOME kind of narrative.
The female character is seen a little less often in the role of a lonely, single nerd pining a bit too much. The character wasn't terribly feminine, but it was nice to see some different takes on the cliches, such as a mom who is a little overbearing but with her own set of problems, and a distant love who isn't a lying asshole of some variety.
Mr. Dangerous didn't blow my mind or anything, but it did what a quiet indie book is supposed to do, which is lend a little emotion and then get out of the reader's way.
3. Mr. Wonderful by Daniel ClowesWell, you're probably familiar with Clowes' work by now. If not, I'd say give this one a try. You'll know whether you like him within a few pages.
This book, also about a guy in his mid-life getting back on the dating scene, has the Clowes' touch of having a lot of good, realistic touchstones, but with a few pages of bizarre interpersonal stuff that makes no sense to me thrown in as well.
Clowes' characters often find themselves in uncomfortable situations. Think about those cringe-worthy moments on a show like the Office, but ratcheted up and taken to a place where the discomfort is too frightening to laugh through.
I will say that this ended better for the character than most Clowes books. It also had more story to it than a book like Wilson, which is something I've come to value in indie books. So if you're into this, it's worth reading through the end.
4. Reunion by Pascal GirardI wanted to like it. I really did.
The basic premise was about a guy headed to his high school reunion. He went to a small enough school that he knows everyone, so he decides to get in shape just a bit make a good impression. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to his wife/girlfriend/whatever, he exchanges some emails back and forth with an old flame in preparation for seeing her for the first time in a while.
In the beginning the book did a decent job of getting me to believe the whole thing, throwing in a couple fantasies about how Pascal thought the whole thing would go that were just outrageous enough to laugh at. He set himself up as the ex-nerd with a little something to prove.
But by the end, not only does the reality contrast with the fantasy, you don't even want the fantasy to come true for Pascal because he's such an asshole.
The book takes a sharp turn at the reunion. It's like one of those Fokkers movies where the guy can't seem to do anything right, and people are very aggressive on calling him out on his shit. For example, the invite said "bring a beer for a tasting party." Like a dope, Pascal brings a single beer, a weird peach one, and then takes shit the entire time for not participating properly. He makes a dumb mistake that doesn't make sense, and then the level of outrage is a little out of proportion.
At another point he is on a bench having his leg examined by one fellow attendee while another is giving him a full oral exam. Someone snaps a picture which goes up online. It's WAY too much. Even if this story is 100% real, it's just too strange and over-the-top to be entertaining. Instead of watching events unfold, the reader spends most of his energy debating the truth behind it, which means that the author failed to either
A) Create a world in which these events are believable
or
B) Temper true-life events so that they are believable.
So, what makes for an indie book that I like?
-Art-
It counts, folks. It's nice when a writer can ink his own shit, but if the art is sub-par, the story is tough to get through. Fortunately, the art in all of these was pretty good. Mid-Life has a very Peter-Bagge-esque style. Mr. Wonderful hits a lot of the simpler notes of Chris Ware with an interesting color palette and well-defined lines. Clowes is a style to himself, and Reunion was sort of a light version of what's best about Jeffrey Brown.
-Story-
After reading a lot of this kind of stuff, I prefer a book with a story that I can sum up, and it helps if there's an interesting hook. Mid-Life is the main example here, giving us a love story of sorts but with a nice twist. But indie books that have a summary along the lines of "I don't know...it's pretty much about this dude's life" are so abundant that there isn't much room for them on my bookshelf.
-Realism-
Because these stories hinge on things being realistic, when the reality feels broken it leaves the book rudderless. There's a fistfight in Mr. Wonderful that feels pretty damn perfunctory, and it breaks the reality of this intense business going on under the surface.
-Natural Empathy-
The best indie books cause you to have a natural empathy for the character. Though you might not agree with some of the feelings expressed, you can acknowledge their existence and emotional logic. But when Pascal, in Reunion, borrows a suit from his brother that is WAY too big, then takes shit all night for wearing a weird suit, it's one thing. But when the book seems to be asking you to feel sorry for him, it loses all its edge. These characters, because they are meant to feel real, have to occupy a somewhat real world and react in somewhat realistic fashion. When a character acts like a complete lunatic, I just stop caring because now we're just watching a lunatic.
No comments:
Post a Comment