Books: We3

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We3
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Frank Quitely
2005




Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

The pleasures (of which there are very many) of reading We3 are kinda hard to put into words ("experimental page dynamics" maybe?). I mean: yes - obviously all comics are visual - but We3 is way more visual than most and visual in a way that's way different to all the comics I've ever read and visual in a way that you just don't expect from a comic with Grant Morrison's name on (I'm not the only one to gripe that Grant Morrison comics have a definite tendency to short-change the pictures in favor for the words: or to put it another way - most of the comics he writes don't really look that nice [1].) The other day I watched Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes (very much recommended) and was stunned into silence by it's grand 15-minute centerpiece (if you've seen it then you know which bit I'm talking about). What got me thinking afterwards was - how exactly did they manage to script it? Not that it's impossible to write down (I mean - obviously not) but just that all of the impact of how it works comes from - well - how it works as a film: and that if you tried to explain it with mere words - then you wouldn't get any sense of (well) the complete picture (is this making sense?). Same with We3. I could say that there are bits of this comic when the panels cut time into little slices of frozen time - or that there's a bit where the bullets explode from the page like they're 3D - but - hell - you just have to read it and experience it for yourself. Because - yeah - it's kinda hard to put into words. 

That's not to stay that it doesn't have a story that you can follow. In board strokes then: It's like Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey but with cybernetic weaponry (or as Morrison has referred to it: "Disney with fangs.") With none of the usual narrative gymnastics Morrison gets up to it's probably the best way in for new readers: and yeah - like I said: it's also one of the prettiest books he's ever written (see also: everything else he does with Frank Quitely).

Well worth trying out.

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[1] In fact - We3 is such a good response to the claim that Grant Morrison only makes ugly books that one commenter in the link above responded with nothing but images of pages from We3. Ha.

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Links: Jog - The Blog Review., Peiratikos Review, Comics Alliance Review.

Further reading: Superman: All Star Superman, Flex Mentallo, Joe The Barbarian, Vimanarama, Sebastian O, Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites, JLA: Earth 2, Mezolith.

Profiles: Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely.

All comments welcome.