I guess I’ve been promising reviews of the two remaining Top Shelf “Swedish Invasion” books for a while now – or at least since my C2E2 update, and wow, I really can’t believe that was almost a month ago already – so now its time to deliver. My review of The Troll King is here, but today I’m going to focus on 120 Days of Simon, by Simon Gardenfors, and Hey Princess, by Mats Jonsson.
As I’ve previously mentioned, both books are firmly ensconced in the autobiographical comics genre, but each book takes a very different approach to what that means. 120 Days of Simon is more tightly focused and bounded by a central conceit, as it only deals with a particular slice of the author’s life. Specifically, the book recounts something of a social experiment conducted by Gardenfors, in which he travels across Sweden over the span of 120 days, and never stays overnight in the same place for more than two nights. Sometimes he stays with friends, and sometimes he stays with volunteers who’ve agreed to host him after he made his experiment known on the internet. The fact that so many people allow him to stay with them makes more sense once us non-Swedish readers figure out that Simon is actually a rather well-known (or at least I gather this is the case from the book) rapper in his native country.
This premise both helps and hurts the book in certain respects. On the plus side, it keeps the book from taking on the rambling, aimless tone that sometime plague autobiographical works. The high concept nature of what Simon is doing gives us more to focus on than the random life an unfamiliar Swede. On the other hand, the premise almost reads a bit too much like a bad VH1 celebreality show – watch as Simon travels around the Swedish countryside having unprotected sex, taking drugs, and generally behaving badly!
But what rescues it from that for me is that the story is charmingly rendered, with simple cartoon figures interacting with each other over two panels per page for the duration, and the fact that, unlike many readers – from what I can tell from the few other reviews I’ve read – I actually found Simon quite likeable throughout the course of the book. Maybe I’m a sucker for the story of a guy on a quest, even if that quest is just to have fun and get laid a lot, but I found the journey Simon went on to be pretty compelling.
Partly because the book does have a defined end-point, there is a bit of drama in Simon’s story. He falls in love with a girl just before he’s about to go on his adventure, and while they agree not to be exclusive while he is gone, he still worries about losing her (I won’t give away whether he actually does get the girl in the end here). He also has some close calls with the angry family of a girl he meets on his travels, faces some financial peril, and engages in some serious introspection after sharing some peyote with one of his hosts. In the end, the book is just plot-driven enough to avoid the kind of navel-gazing many hate about autobiographical comics, but still focuses on the characters above all else. I would strongly recommend the book, with the caveat that your opinion may vary if you end up viewing Simon as a total jerk and not as an ultimately sympathetic character, as I did.
I’ll be back tomorrow (or so) with thoughts on Hey Princess!
No comments:
Post a Comment