Mr. Struggan's Regards

Siegfried Vol. 1, 2012
Alex Alice

Nico here. As a participant in the Graphic Novel Reading Group at Politics & Prose Bookstore, I read at least one graphic novel per month. Mr. Struggan has invited me to share my criticism of this month’s selected reading here.

Alex Alice’s Siegfried is the first volume of a three part adaptation of German composer Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, a pretty grand story to be condensed into 50 pages of comics. Alice weaves the origin-story of Siegfried, a boy who is friends with wolves, raised by an outcast and whose mother was a goddess. Pretty epic.

Unsurprisingly, Alice’s art is heavily french-influenced, from the looks of characters to unabashedly cinematic paneling, even to the innocent, hopeful tone of the story. His warm, romantic style is evocative of late ’70s heavy metal, The Legend of Zelda, and the art of Disney animated films, an influence the artist credits.

It’s a beautiful book. Alice deftly mixes hand-drawn and computer-generated illustration to create evocatively, detailed panels. As good as the graphics are, the quality of the materials used in printing made a huge difference. With a hard cover and glossy pages, no expense was spared.

As strong as the work is, Siegfried may be a little too psyched about itself. Over 60 pages of an interview with Alex Alice and preliminary sketches are nice, but unwarranted. I might expect these extras in a reprint, but not a first edition. As nice as they are, I’d prefer the first edition to let the work speak for itself. That said, it’s a great change of pace from diaristic indie comics and more familiar American comic books.

Mr. Struggan sends his High Regards.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, 1999
Stephen Chbosky

Nico here. For the first literary review on Regards, I asked Mr. Struggan if I could review the modern cult classic The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. This fall, I saw the cinematic adaptation of this novel and have been curious about it since.

The film was not my first encounter with Perks. During my freshman year of high school, a classmate recited a poem by Michael, a character who commits suicide in the story, for an oratory contest. Needless to say, the poem is not a bright point. I wholeheartedly congratulate this classmate for for creating an excellently awkward silence in a theatre of approximately 240 students and administrators.

Moments like this real life one are common throughout Perks. Chbosky’s novel is made up of letters from Charlie during his freshman year of high school. As Charlie develops as a writer, his morbid observations of adolescence skew more towards inspiring hope.

Is it a happy book? Sort of. It’s exciting. The reader roots for a kid who has a lot of strikes against him and achieves a lot in his first year of high school. Charlie’s victories remind the reader that milestones in high school lead to things ahead. I think a reader in high school might also be excited about illicit activities they were reading about in the book. 

Chbosky, a screenwriter by trade, tells a good story with Perks. The letters make up scenes, and are not drawn out. As opposed to larger acts or chapters, the story moves incrementally and skips from week to week.

I wonder what a reader still in high school thinks while reading it. Are they excited? Are they heartened? Maybe they dwell more on the negative aspects of that period of life. Chbosky believes that if misery has company, all bad things come to pass.

Mr. Struggan sends his High Regards.