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Review: The Building Opposite
The Building Opposite
Written and Drawn by Vanyda
Published by Fanfare/Ponent Mon. $21.99 USD
Ponent Mon has built a reputation for intelligent, sophisticated manga in recent years, mainly for the work of Jiro Taniguchi. This volume comes from their "Nouvelle Manga" line, and the work is not Asian in origin. Vanyda is a female cartoonist working out of Paris, and this is a collection of short vignettes that form a kind of graphic novel about the inhabitants of an apartment building. Anger, resentment, longing, love--Vanyda's characters run the gamut of emotions, and she has a gifted ear for naturalistic dialogue.
However, though there is promise here, at this point (the strips were produced from 2002-2003) she is still finding her way, turning out lots of average comics as she hones her skills. Naturalistic dialogue and an avoidance of melodramatic subjects for stories can be admirable, but here the strips fail to cohere and their lack of affect and momentum becomes a grind. It doesn't help, either, that Vanyda takes a while to settle on one art style, and the one she chooses is not interesting, her pen line utterly dead. I think going with a brush, and letting a complex story develop through more contemplation and editing would improve her future work immensely.
Written and Drawn by Vanyda
Published by Fanfare/Ponent Mon. $21.99 USD
Ponent Mon has built a reputation for intelligent, sophisticated manga in recent years, mainly for the work of Jiro Taniguchi. This volume comes from their "Nouvelle Manga" line, and the work is not Asian in origin. Vanyda is a female cartoonist working out of Paris, and this is a collection of short vignettes that form a kind of graphic novel about the inhabitants of an apartment building. Anger, resentment, longing, love--Vanyda's characters run the gamut of emotions, and she has a gifted ear for naturalistic dialogue.
However, though there is promise here, at this point (the strips were produced from 2002-2003) she is still finding her way, turning out lots of average comics as she hones her skills. Naturalistic dialogue and an avoidance of melodramatic subjects for stories can be admirable, but here the strips fail to cohere and their lack of affect and momentum becomes a grind. It doesn't help, either, that Vanyda takes a while to settle on one art style, and the one she chooses is not interesting, her pen line utterly dead. I think going with a brush, and letting a complex story develop through more contemplation and editing would improve her future work immensely.
Posted by ChristopherAllen at 3:22 PM [Link to this post]
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