Graphic Novel Reviews: Enchanted Lion Books

 

Reviewed by Liz Brown, Outreach and Instruction Librarian, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

Enchanted Lion Books features a catalogue primarily from the Eurocomics scene, although with diversions to other countries and continents. They frequently feature illustrations with strong painterly influences, including works by well-known artists, such as Matthew Forsythe, Daniel Salmieri, and Yuki Ainoya. The subject matter is poetic, contemplative, and emotionally aware. Their titles, particularly from their picture book line, have won multiple awards and recognitions. Many of their titles are clearly chosen for broad appeal across age ranges, and their Unruly Imprint is for “picture books intended specifically for adults and teenagers.” Readers who already read graphic works are likely to be a receptive audience to this line, and additional appeal may come from those who enjoy and collect visually-based books, such as artistic monographs. The following reviews include books marketed towards their middle grade/young adult readers.

            Blexbolex. Translator:  Karin Snelson. 2023. The Magicians. Brooklyn, NY:  Enchanted Lion Books.

         The Magicians is a story of three self-serving magicians who escape their confines only to be pursued by a stubborn Huntress and the single-minded Clinker, who are intent on keeping their mischief under control. The plot follows its own internal logic, rather than a strict narrative structure, playing with the concept of the characters’ internally-generated methods of creation. The magicians, as with artists, can create their own realities, but also get stuck inside that which they create. Over the course of the story, clear lines of who is the protagonist and who is an antagonist erode as the characters’ identities are interrogated and manipulated by outside forces.

Each page of the book is a full panel, with a few lines of spare dialogue or explanatory text captioning the framework of the story. Blexbolex takes advantage of the generous gutters to entrust his audience to fill in details and nuance. The artwork features Blexbolex’s characteristic style, but the illustrations are more visually complex than his prior work for picture books, including densely-layered stencils that create a broader color palette featuring half-tones and shadows. Visual references to vintage illustrations call to mind the works of Henry Darger, with additional cross-cultural references to Asian graphic arts.

 

Fig. 1. The Huntress succeeds after a battle. Page 106.

         While the fairy tale framework of the story might appeal to young readers, the visual complexity, absurd bends in the plot, irreverent humor, and focus on the development of character identity suggest that older readers--teens and adults--are a more likely audience for the work.

         Isol. Translator:  Lawrence Schimel. 2024. Loose Threads. Brooklyn, NY:  Enchanted Lion Books.

Loose Threads is one of six picture books created for the exhibit, “Palestinian Art History as Told by Everyday Objects,” organized by the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, Palestine. It imagines a story on the surface of the hand-embroidered shawl that illustrator, Isol, received when visiting the Tamer Institute for Community Education. The work plays with the concept of the front side of the embroidery, where the designs are legible iconography of traditional Palestinian cross-stitching, and the back side of the embroidery, where you see the abstract shapes formed by the work between the stitches. Isol’s story is a digital collage about the characters living on the visible side of the embroidery. They keep losing objects that slip through the small tears in the fabric, into “the Other Side.” Plucky heroine, Leilah, sets out to mend the tears, but her patches don’t have the intended effect.

 

Fig. 2. Leilah dreams about the inhabitants of the Other Side.

         The images in this work are largely full-page spreads with no more than five sentences of text, broken into five short chapters. It would be a good transitional book for students who progress from picture books into longer material and who are working on reading independently.

As the Gazan genocide continues to unfold, this book has particular interest and poignancy in sharing Palestinian culture through material objects, but it is worth noting that Isol is a Spanish-speaking, Argentinian artist invited to work on the project, not a Palestinian herself. The book’s theme of mending is both a literal device in the story, but also alludes to generational healing and the passing down of heritage.

        Oyvind Torseter. Translator:  Kari Dickson. 2016. The Heartless Troll. Brooklyn, NY:  Enchanted Lion Books.

         A contemporary retelling of the Norwegian fairytale, “The Troll with No Heart in His Body,” The Heartless Troll begins with the third son setting out to rescue his brothers and make his fortune. Torseter has an established cast of characters whom he grafts into different roles throughout his books. Central is the Moomin-like, donkey-headed hero, Prince Fred--simple, trusting, and malleable--who is frequently the protagonist in Torseter’s works. But more interesting--both in writing and visual design--are the newer characters introduced for the story. Prince Fred’s anthropomorphic, reluctant nag provides an amusing counterpoint to Fred’s tepid heroism. Torseter gives voice to what is traditionally an unspeaking role in the story, using the steed’s cowardice as a source for his witticisms. The monstrous Troll visually calls out art history references, including Leonard Baskin’s prints and Picasso’s “Guernica.”

 

Fig. 3. The first night of Prince Fred’s quest.

The illustrations revel in their physicality, with inked lines and textured backgrounds imitating the grain of drypoint etchings, and intentionally-visible collaging of materials in large spreads. The drawings feature spare lines on large swathes of black, with limited color employed for emphasis. The work is in the same milieu as Anne Simon’s comics, especially her adaptation of Greek myth in The Song of Aglaia, but Torseter sticks to sparser dialogue, a simpler plot, and less allegorical intentions. His retelling is amusing and visually interesting, but lacks the substance to hold up to deeper probing.

             Oyvind Torseter. Translator:  Kari Dickson. 2023. Mulysses. Brooklyn, NY:  Enchanted Lion Books.

         Mulysses is a composite story, drawing tropes from multiple sea-faring sources, but not a true adaptation of any particular one. The story contains pursuit of a menacing whale, as in Moby Dick, escaping the island of a one-eyed monster, as in Ulysses, plumbing the ocean depths for mysteries, as in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but with an irreverent and absurd tone that is uniquely Torseter’s own. The comic’s primary cast is, once again, made up of Torseter’s recurring characters--the eponymous, mule-headed protagonist; his elephant-headed, sea-captain foil; and generic, female, “harbor tavern gal” love interest; along with cameos of other recognizable characters in the background. Mulysses is out of work and about to be evicted. With a one-week deadline looming over him, before he loses all his worldly possessions, he signs on to a questionable voyage captained by an eccentric millionaire in hopes that the reward will be enough to recover his belongings from storage. Of course, with both an inept captain and crew, only mayhem can ensue.

 

Fig. 4. An average day for Mulysses at sea.

Along with Torseter’s established grainy line work, collaged spreads, and limited color palette, he has started incorporating printmaking techniques into his work. He uses stamp printing for texture in his panels--clothing and hairstyles for background characters, wheels on vehicles, furniture, waves in the sea--and also layers colors in halftones, either in imitation of or truly printing with a risograph. The use of these printing methods is tentative and experimental, but the results seem worth pursuing further, as they add tactility to the illustrations, which Torseter is clearly in pursuit of when making his art. The book’s design is in a horizontal format, which intentionally calls to mind photograph albums, as one might have once used to store vacation snapshots; however, it should still fit on most standard bookshelves. While the content is appropriate for all ages, Mulysses’ motivating worries over rent and work mark this as a comic geared for adults. It would appeal to fans of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (dir. Wes Anderson, 2004)