Best of Enemies
by Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B
-I did not like the form of comics storytelling this book takes. This is an approach to comics nonfiction that handicaps the powers of text on the one hand and images on the other. If I were drawing a comic right now using this approach, the previous sentence would be at the top of a panel written in a font made from my handwriting, and it would be accompanied by a cartoon drawing of a generic comics page with two large hands coming out of it, one hand holding the word "text" and the other some generic image, and both of these would also somehow have arms and hands and one arm of each of these would be tied behind it's back. The effect is silly and exhausting. And I think David B is one of the best illustrators in the world! There are many beautiful illustrations in this book. But at times all the whimsical compositions of people and weapons and machines seemed a weird way to put across a very serious story of geopolitics. I'm not qualified to comment on the actual content of that story. I didn't know a lot of it.
West Coast Blues
by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jacques Tardi
