The Golem of Gabirol
This is one of those comics that could have used a bit more room to breathe. I don’t mean that in terms of the length of the story, but more in the sense that this should have been the size of a magazine so that the reader had a bit more room to take in all of the little details, because there were bunches of them. The panels telling the story were surrounded (and, in some cases, invaded) by half-seen images of hidden people, leaves, smoke, and a mountain, among many other things. I’ve gotten ahead of myself here. This is the story of man in the 11th century who fell for a woman, but the woman ended up marrying another man. The man who was spurned (although it seemed like he never really even made his feelings known) made a golem with the face of the woman he lost and eventually even made little golem children. This did not go over well with the authorities of the time, but I shouldn’t say much more about it to avoid spoilers. This comic also introduces the notion that the original people who were here were erased when god made the world again, but they live on in the shells of peanuts. Go get a few peanut shells and look at them and you’ll see that a case for that could be made. My only problem with this story was the sheer amount of imagery everywhere, which is pretty much never my complaint, but in this case I had some trouble following exactly where the dialogue was heading (physically, not in terms of the story), which left me scratching my head a few times when something dramatic happened. As always, the most likely explanation is that it’s a failing on my part, but I still think that larger pages could have helped this out. It’s still a fascinating story, and if you’re one of those people who love finding hidden tidbits in art you’re fall in love with this comic. $7
