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Volozova, Olga – The Golem of Gabirol
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
Volozova, Olga – The Airy Tales
The Airy Tales Now Available! $15
If you were one of the 100% of people who saw that title and thought, “Huh, that sound like ‘fairy tales'”, give yourself a pat on the back. This is essentially a book of fairy tales, but told in Olga’s unique, um, airy way. It does too make sense! Everybody and everything in these stories seems to float along, sometimes literally so. This is broken down into chunks, and those chunks are broken down into smaller pieces that make up the chunk, but almost any short piece in here could be read all by itself and make perfect sense. Stories in here include the only man who is able to see the strings guiding all our choices, a man who lives in and is made out of rain (and his meetings with various people who come to him for help), a small town that lives on giant leaves from a tree and how they rise or fall based on what’s on their leaf, a man who comes to town with only a rooster on display and the attempts of the townspeople to make sense of it, the birds that control the strings mentioned above (also what they’re made of and who’s in charge of them), a man made entirely out of ice cream and the reaction of his doctors, a sad man who finally gets a smile but has it worn down by people asking him why he’s so happy, the relationship between a crow and a lamp, a snow hat, a man who is always losing everything, and a series of one page pieces in the back that shall remain a mystery. Briefly describing each of these stories doesn’t do a thing to convey the constant sense of wonder and innocence that pervades this book. It really is a children’s book in the strictest sense of the term; I can picture kids being fascinated by the utter unreality of many of the stories in here and the breezy art that accompanies them. That man made out of ice cream desperately trying to save himself from all the lickers, the way that the crow and the lamp are both determined to prove that they are more than a number, the sad man who is finally happy getting beaten down by society, there are some brilliant touches in here. I was afraid after her other comic that this might be a meandering mess, but that’s far, far from the case. It’s a damned near perfect book of modern fairy tales and is one of those rare “good for all ages” books. $15
