Monsters! and Other Stories by Gustavo Duarte
My rating: 3/5 cats
should you suddenly develop aphasia, never fear! here is a book you will still be able to enjoy!
this graphic novel consists of three separate stories, blessedly free of pesky words, words, words. the stories fall into that horror-humor category, and duarte’s artwork is fun, vibrant, and dynamic—he really manages to capture movement well in these static images, and i can see these translating very easily into excellent animated shorts.
the first story is called có!, and was my least-favorite of the three, so probably not the best introduction to his work, or to this collection, for me. i just thought it was a little confusing at times, which is probably just my being accustomed to words being the storytelling engine, and occasionally i would have to stop, go back, and reorient myself to figure out what was going on. dummy.
it’s your basic alien-invasion and transmogrification story, by someone who draws both pigs and chickens very well.
the second story is called birds, and is the only title that doesn’t get to be exclamatory. this one is about two office-working birds who try to evade fate and capital-d death, when they start encountering their own corpses littering up the office one morning. awkward!
this story made me laugh, and not just because i know the truth about how eeeevil birds are. it had a sort of mad-magazine feel to it, beyond the easy-reference spy vs spy bird association. but—yeah—i am always gratified to see birds get what’s coming to them.
the final story is called monsters!
it is about…monsters!! monsters who start rampaging through a city, and the one brave man who will battle them all. these are definitely my favorite of his illustrations.
that man sure can draw a chubby-cute tentacle…
and i didn’t realize this when i was reading this book last week, but duarte is also the illustrator for marvel’s 100th anniversary special #1 Guardians of the Galaxy issue, so he is a very timely name, and draws a damn cute raccoon:
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