Lesbians, Incest, Beastiality And Plain, Boring Sex, Lost Girls Is A Problematic, Pornographic, Graphic Novel.

The Good: Good concept, Good quality of book
The Bad: Erratic artwork quality, Disturbing
The Basics: What starts as a clever reimagining of three beloved stories as erotic fiction becomes a gutwrenching volume of comic book pornography when Alan Moore presents Lost Girls.


There are several things that I like to be clear about in my life: I make distinctions between lovemaking and sex, I make distinctions between erotica and pornography. These distinctions are important to me. For the former, I don't want to waste my time with just the physical act of sex without the emotional connection of love. As for the latter, while erotica has its moments of enjoyable titillation, pornography has never been of interest to me. Since I was first aware of the two, I followed the traditional Feminist definition that "erotica" might have artistic value and in "pornography" there is an inherent lack of consent. It was only after I read Lost Girls that I discovered interviews by the writers where they openly referred to the book as pornography and their desire to raise the caliber of writing in that genre.

So, what first drove me to Lost Girls? It's simple; this is a lush, bound graphic novel from Alan Moore. Moore wrote Watchmen (reviewed here!) and V For Vendetta and so he has a lot of credibility with me as being a compelling and interesting writer. The back of this mammoth graphic novel promised a fascinating story; an erotic tale wherein Alice (from Alice In Wonderland), Dorothy Gale (from The Wizard Of Oz) and Wendy (Peter Pan) trade stories of their sexual awakenings. Reading the back of the book, I was appropriately titillated and my partner and I discussed it because it sounded fun. As well, we approached the book with the idea that if anyone could smartly and erotically write such a story, Alan Moore was the man. With my love of Watchmen, I figured the book would be psychologically complicated and well-developed. Unfortunately, after getting my hands on the book and reading it (my partner gave up long before I did), Lost Girls ultimately disappointed me. It was cleverly-conceived, but it was ultimately creepy in large chunks of the book and it undermined any sense of genuine eroticism with disturbing encounters that cross every border.

And before I continue, I ought to make clear the following two things. First, I am not a prude. Despite having a love of lovemaking and a desire not to have sex or watch/read/participate in pornography, I love quality erotica and I love artwork which is sexually charged and genuinely erotic. Second, if you're a prude, Lost Girls and this review are certainly not for you. This is intended to be an erotic - or pornographic - graphic novel and despite my problems with the book, it is certainly that. It is absolutely impossible to discuss this work without discussing or describing things that those with a prudish mentality would find offensive. That said . . . Lost Girls . . .

In 1913 in a hotel in Austria, there is a mythical mirror in a room. Reflected in that mirror, Alice - the Lady Fairchild - sees her aged face and is somewhat horrified to discover she has gotten old. She is surprised the next day when Dorothy Gale checks in accompanied by an officer who is escorting her. After Dorothy and the officer have sex outside, Dorothy is disposing of her cum-covered silver slippers when she meets Alice and the two begin a torrid affair. In the room adjacent to theirs, Wendy Potter is not having sex with her husband. So, she draws a bath, and listens to Dorothy and Alice getting it on in the next room and she masturbates to the sound of them having their first orgasm together. The next day, Alice and Dorothy are outside having sex when they catch Wendy watching them and the three return to Alice's room and they begin telling one another stories in between having sex with one another.

As all three tell the stories of their sexual awakenings, the classic stories they are from are reimagined as erotic tales. Dorothy has her first orgasm while masturbating as a cyclone hits. While she goes on to have sex with farmhands, Alice describes being taken advantage of by one of her father's friends before becoming quite active at the all-girl's school she is sent to. And Wendy describes the summer she ran away with her brothers with a homeless boy named Peter and his sister and had orgies. As they turn one another on with their stories, they begin having sex with one another, inviting others in the hotel to join them and watching as the world around them changes.

I suppose I ought to start with the positives. First, Lost Girls does what it promises in that it provides a true reimagining of the stories of the protagonists from The Wizard Of Oz, Alice In Wonderland, and Peter Pan. And some of the stories are genuinely erotic, not pornographic. In fact, the scenes between the women as women are hotter and loving than most anything else in American literature. As well, co-writer and artist Melinda Gebbie draws the elder Alice, Dorothy and Wendy well, with realistic proportions. Finally, there are moments in this expensive volume where the reimaginings are clever or interesting enough to work, like when Dorothy seduces a timid farmhand (the Cowardly Lion). She works him up until he gets his sexual confidence enough and that has its charms.

But Lost Girls is more frequently problematic or outright creepy. For example, Alice is seduced for the first time as a minor and most of her experiences happen well below any country's age of consent. Even worse is that Wendy's story begins with her and Peter having sex while her brothers look on and jerk one another off. This is both a strength and obvious, disturbing weakness of Lost Girls. Alan Moore and Gebbie set out to create a work of unbridled sexuality without any borders or mores. What starts as a creative exercise that has moments of excitement for the reader soon becomes entirely disgusting. I have no problem with the genderbending, partner swapping or same-sex relations, but when Dorothy starts jerking off a horse, the book takes a turn into outright disgusting. Similarly the fact that Dorothy later takes on her own father sexually is just gross - without any sense of puritanical judgment to it!

Lost Girls also failed to grab me for the artwork. While Gebbie and Moore are clever about arrangements (windows in the panels are made out to be period-appropriate for each character) the characters are often drawn in a sloppy fashion. Indeed, much of the book has the look and stylization of old Chinese erotic etchings and this does not fit the modern feel of the rest of the book. On the character front the only real growth is that Wendy becomes empowered enough to leave her husband. The rest of the book is fairly monolithic and repetitive listings of sexual encounters.

Moreover, Lost Girls is ridiculously expensive. While the book is a true graphic novel presented in a lush hardcover (most bookstores carry it wrapped in cellophane, when they carry it all) it bears a stifling cover price of $50. Because so much of the artwork is comparable to that of The Joys Of Sex or lesser works, those expecting a truly lush, adult work will be left entirely disappointed.

But the real disappointment is how the writers take pushing the envelope so far beyond good taste that they create something that fails to work. The concept is solid and the fundamentals of the execution are good, but the work steers itself into territory for those uncomfortable with anything but pornography. And while minors having sex with one another might be borderline (if that), minors having sex with parents and animals is pretty indisputably vile. Fortunately for most potential readers (at least those who read this review), one need not get sucked into the book from the tantalizing, genuinely erotic sections only to end up disturbed. Instead, pass this one by; it's a good idea with an execution that will tighten every part of your body as opposed to excite you.

For other works dealing with sex or love, please check out my reviews of:
The Complete Idiot's Guide To The Kama Sutra
The Story Of O
The Justice League Of Porn Star Heroes

4.5/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2009 W.L. Swarts. My not be reprinted without permission.
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The Darkness Gets Deeper In Batman: The Killing Joke

The Good: Great artwork, Good story, Disturbingly graphic
The Bad: Ultimately adds up to very little.
The Basics: Batman: The Killing Joke might well be one of the few Batman graphic novels I enjoyed, offering a backstory to the Joker and desperately wounding one of the heroines of the DC Universe.


Recently, I began reading graphic novels in the Birds Of Prey series (Perfect Pitch is reviewed here!) and while I have been a little more neutral to them than some of the other comic book series’ that I have picked up, I suppose I found myself intrigued. I was intrigued enough by Barbara Gordon – the Oracle – to want to check out what was essentially the Oracle’s origin story. I knew that the Joker was responsible for getting Barbara confined to a wheelchair and that it happened in Batman: The Killing Joke, so I figured I would pick that book up. Now available in a deluxe hardcover version, Batman: The Killing Joke is an appropriately dark book with surprisingly little in the way of mystery. In fact, Batman: The Killing Joke might well be the most straightforward Batman book I have read.

Batman: The Killing Joke is essentially a double-long one-shot story that once again pits the Joker against Batman. What makes Batman: The Killing Joke different is that it actually provides an origin story for the Joker and it has lasting consequences, at least for Barbara Gordon.

Batman arrives at Arkham Asylum to interview the Joker. He wants to reach out and try to appeal to the Joker’s humanity before either of them ends up killing the other. He is, therefore, surprised and disturbed to discover that the man he is sitting across from is not the Joker and that once more the Joker is free. The Joker, for his part, spends the same time buying an amusement park. After killing the park’s owner, the Joker prepares his most elaborate plot yet.

Arriving at the home of Police Commissioner Jim Gordon, the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down, naked and helpless. Capturing Jim Gordon, the Joker takes him to his amusement park where he torments the old man with images of his wounded daughter. Batman swoops in to rescue Gordon and thwart the Joker once again.

Batman: The Killing Joke is intentionally dark, disturbing and creepy. But I found it to be something quite a bit less extraordinary than Alan Moore’s other important graphic novel from around the same time, Watchmen (reviewed here!). While still arguably quite a bit better than his Lost Girls, Batman: The Killing Joke is in many ways a troublingly simple graphic novel. Indeed, the seminal event that I picked the book up for happens very early in the tome and is not truly reflected upon within its pages. In fact, the Joker makes no mention of shooting Barbara as anything other than a random occurrence. If the Joker knew she was Batgirl, it is not made clear in this story.

Instead, much of Batman: The Killing Joke focuses on the Joker trying to drive Jim Gordon insane while flashing back to the origin story of the Joker. The origin story is interesting and creates an almost sympathetic character before the accident which created the Joker. Moore is good at making readers care about unlikely characters and in that way, Batman: The Killing Joke is another success of his. The reader feels bad for the proto-Joker even as his current incarnation has Jim Gordon stripped naked and tortured. It’s brutal, but Moore effectively contrasts the current Joker with his surprisingly mundane origins.

What is also worthwhile in the book is how Batman is characterized, however briefly. In Batman: The Killing Joke, Bruce Wayne tries to come to a truce with the Joker. He wants to stop the bloodshed and he offers the Joker a chance at rehabilitation and redemption. This is a far cry from the Batman I have read in so many other books where he is characterized as cold, emotionally reserved and so efficient as to be almost inhuman. In Batman: The Killing Joke, he is highly-principled and deeply human. In fact, here he is heroic.

The artwork in Batman: The Killing Joke is largely excellent as well. While there are a few sequences – most notably what appears to be a protracted sequence of Jim Gordon’s carnival ride leaving the house of horrors it was stuck in – that are less clear, the artwork is distinctive, well-rendered and intriguing. None of the panels are glossed over with simplified artwork and the colors are vibrant, clear and rich with depth and shading on par with contemporary comic books.

In the end, I got exactly what I hoped to in reading Batman: The Killing Joke; I witnessed for myself just how Barbara Gordon was paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair for over twenty years. But I did not get much more out of it than that. The origin story of the Joker was intriguing, but Batman: The Killing Joke does not, ultimately, humanize him; it merely reminds us of what a monster a normal person may become.

For other Batman books, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Batman: R.I.P.
Knightfall: Volume 1 – Broken Bat
Knightfall: Volume 2 – Who Rules The Night
Knightfall: Volume 3 – Knightsend
Batman/Daredevil: King Of New York

6.5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the book reviews I have written.

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Nothing Extraordinary With These Gentlemen: The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The Good: Intriguing idea, Good acting
The Bad: Poor script, Lack of character exploration, Physical darkness, Plodding plot
The Basics: When the world is set on the verge of war in an alternate 1899, various fictional heroes come together to try to stop an uninspired villain in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.


I am always skeptical about movies that are based on comic books. There's a reason they are two different mediums. I suspended my skepticism sometimes and my viewing of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen was one of those times. It was also one of the times I was disappointed by an adaptation of a comic book to a movie. And it wasn't the adaptation that bothered me - I've never read the graphic novel on which this movie was based - it was the fact that this was a less than decent movie. This flick did not live up to the expectations I had for it.

When a rogue villain known only as the Phantom makes several independent attacks on important locations within Britain and Germany in 1899, adventurer Allan Quatermain is recruited by the mysterious M for a mission to stop him. Quatermain is not alone. He has been recruited to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a top-secret and apparently ancient order that has been quietly protecting Britain for many many years. Quatermain is joined by Captain Nemo (and his amazing Nautilus), Mina Harker (a vampire), Rodney Skinner (an invisible man), Dorian Gray (an indestructible man), and Tom Sawyer. They - for no reason that is clearly explained - capture Dr. Jekyll and compel him to join the League and then they set off for Venice to stop the Phantom. However, the League is plagued by a saboteur from within and the world seems destined for war.

First, the good, because it was that kind of movie. The characters are well-acted. Shane West, for example, earns his second billing by being more than simply a good-looking guy. He is confident in the role of Sawyer, making him distinctly different from his Once And Again character (Eli) and earning his paycheck. Similarly, Peta Wilson does a good job with what little she has to work with for Mena. It's disappointing that her role was not bigger or better, but she makes due with what she was given. That is admirable, if not extraordinary.

Even Stuart Townsend does a good job at creating Dorian Gray as a viable character. He is cold and ruthless in the role and he does his best to make the clothes fit. The real waste of talent here is in the form of Jason Flemyng. Flemyng was electrifying in The Red Violin and here he is relegated to the back of the group. Flemyng manages to keep his acting talents foremost through consideration the director had for him; his Mr. Hyde character is not completely CGed, allowing for Flemyng's expressiveness and emotional gravitas to be expressed.

But there the good ends.

The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen is plagued by a poor script. The first big problem is in the form of the saboteur within the League. The prime suspect is, naturally, the invisible man. Why? He has access. The moment accusations start flying in Skinner's direction, though, his character completely disappears from the movie. Zip. He's gone. It doesn't take much of a brain at all to realize that he is a red herring and one of the other members of the League is the real spy. The moment it is suggested, however, that Skinner is not the spy, the real villain is exposed. After all of the time spent building up that Skinner was it, the movie could have respected the audience's mood enough to indulge in the paranoia of the possibilities of the identity of the saboteur.

The reason it doesn't is that the spy is obvious from the very beginning. It's not a complex revelation and the moment the person reveals themselves, there is more of a "yeah, okay" feeling than "oh my! I didn't see THAT coming!"

And the big problem is that the characters are not delved into the way they deserve to be. Mena Harker, for instance, is a fascinating choice to include in the League. Why is she there? I don't know. Moreover, I'm not sure why she can walk around in sunlight; "Dracula"-style vampires (which is where her origins are) are unable to do so. Her relationship with Dorian Gray is fascinating and established in the movie, yet director Stephen Norrington insists on panning to Harker's surprise when Quatermain tells a story about their meeting.

Harker is not the only one; none of the characters truly come to life. They are all bound by serious limits and a complete failure to explore their personalities and potentials fully. Add to that, the movie is dark. I do not mean thematically (those who know my reviews know I enjoy thematically dark films), but rather physically. Photographically, much of the movie is too dark to appreciate the details created. A prime example is the underwater scenes of the Nautilus where the propellers and such are illustrated. The scene is so dark, it's hard to tell what it is the viewer is supposed to be seeing in the water. All of the detail of the ship (submarine) is lost.

In the end, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a good idea with a poor theatrical execution. A good idea cannot save a bad movie and this is a decent example of that theory. While it begins with enough intrigue, it does not maintain it and it is not nearly as clever or surprising as one would think it is trying to be.

For other films featuring Jason Flemyng, be sure to check out my reviews of:
X-Men: First Class
Clash Of The Titans
Kick-Ass
The Red Violin

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Changing Minds About The Medium, Watchmen Is A Superb Graphic Novel!

The Good: Interesting characters, Engaging plot, Clever concept, Well-written
The Bad: Narrative structure, Editing/Censorship
The Basics: A fairly incredible graphic novel, when retired superheroes are hunted and discredited, it seems to relate to a plan to bring about nuclear armageddon between the US and the USSR!


I would like to talk, for a moment, about the penis. The penis; the organ with perhaps the most euphemisms associated with it - phallus, dick, prick, wang, johnson, and hundreds of others - this body part is found on almost half the world's population. There is, perhaps, no organ which is more feared (ask any young girl who has seen a real Greek performance of Lysistrata!) or shamed (women will always have men wondering if size DOES matter . . .) than the human penis. In art and literature, its appearance is almost always treated with fear, respect or utter mockery. Seldom is it simply treated with the callous disregard with which female nudity is, especially in movies. So, when I prepared to pick up Watchmen, I was especially surprised to learn that the graphic novel - originally released in the mid 1980s - had featured full frontal male nudity and that the current reprintings (I was told with much dismay by comic book aficionados) were editing the penis of the naked floating blue guy, Dr. Manhattan, out. Specifically, page 20 in Chapter 4 was cited by those in the know as having an image of Dr. Manhattan wearing a strange black brief (visible on many other pages as well) when none appeared in the original comics. This came in preparation for the Watchmen film. With Hollywood's fear of the wood, we had to expect modifications to Dr. Manhattan. It seems disappointing that something so simple would require so many editorial changes in making the comic books into a graphic novel like this one and that our society is so squeamish toward something half the population has.

I picked up Watchmen because when watching The Dark Knight I was blown away by the trailer for the film based upon the graphic novel. The preview was perfect; it told me nothing about the movie and made me want to see it more than any other film on the next year's docket. Reading Watchmen, I found myself all the more eager to see how the film would be pulled off (check out that review soon!). I have been picking up graphic novels of late (see links below) and Watchmen is another in a long series that appears to be an anthology of comic books rather than a graphic novel exclusively. This, unfortunately, works against the overall narrative and is what keeps it from perfection in my mind and reviewing standards.

In the autumn of 1985, the world is falling apart at the seams. In New York City, a former super hero is killed, sparking a series of events which put the entire world in jeopardy. The militant right-wing government-sponsored mercenary known as the Comedian, thrown out the window of his apartment, inspires the last remaining masked super hero, an enigmatic moral absolutist named Rorschach to begin an investigation. After warning the other super heroes from their aborted group from the mid-1960s, the powerful Dr. Manhattan is implicated in a number of cancer-related deaths, billionaire industrialist Adrian Veidt is shot at in the lobby of his own offices and Rorschach is caught by the police after a decade of them pursuing him.

With most of the former masked adventurers taken out of action, it falls to the reluctant Laurie Juspeczyk (formerly the Silk Spectre) and Dan Dreiberg (who had previously taken up the mantle of Nite Owl when the original one retired) to pick up Rorschach's investigation. Soon, though, it appear that the end of the world truly is nigh and without the all-powerful Dr. Manhattan, Laurie and Dan's efforts forced them to rely on the world's smartest man, Veidt, to try to save the planet.

What works incredibly well in Watchmen is that it is clever, fairly well-constructed and it develops in a mature and clever fashion over the twelve chapters in the graphic novel. Like all great works, seeds are planted in the beginning and they develop, grow and are paid off near the end. The book requires patience, intelligence and trust in author Alan Moore. Fortunately, that investment is paid off.

Moore does not make this easy for the reader, though. First, the world of Watchmen is presented in many layers, rewriting history with a strong sense of storytelling that almost requires a chart to follow it. This is because there are two crime fighting organizations mentioned in Watchmen and Edward Blake was a part of them both. In the 1940s, there were the Minute Men, costumed crusaders who fought crime. Blake joined them as the Comedian and then was part of an ill-fated attempt in the mid-1960s by a new generation of costumed crime fighters to form their own league of super heroes. The Comedian was largely responsible for that effort failing. While there are members of the later group, notably Juspeczyk and Dreiberg, who bore the names of retired super heroes, this is not terribly confusing. What is a bit more problematic is the somewhat pointless references to retired Minute Men who serve only to distract some from the main plot - though the Sally Jupiter story is integral to Laurie's character development.

Second, with the sheer number of characters involved in the various flashbacks, the artwork has moments where it lacks distinction. This is not to disparage Dave Gibbons, who does a pretty spectacular job throughout the book, but some of the costumed crusaders look alike as do some of the characters out of their guises.

That said, there is only one serious problem with Watchmen; it follows too closely to its comic book origins. At the end of each comic book there were pages from other documents in the Watchmen world, most notably "Under The Hood," Hollis Mason's biography from how he became the Nite Owl. Thus, the story is broken up between past super heroes, recently retired super heroes (the Keane Act of 1977 made vigilante-ism illegal and all by Rorschach complied with that law), a comic book and outside references to various characters. And the last straw is that last one. The comic book - wherein a pirate story is used to mirror the moral decay of the world after the USSR invades Afghanistan and threatens Pakistan - breaks up several different narratives and that works all right. But when one has at least five main protagonists whose stories are broken up and intertwined WHILE weaving them between a pirate story with the same themes, external documents like the Ozymandias toy line memos just kills the momentum. While I tend to want to respect the original vision and presentation of a work, in Watchmen, this comes across as sloppy and further confuses the reader. A vastly better way to arrange the supplemental materials would have been as prologue ("Under The Hood" segments) and appendices (things like the Adrian Veidt interview) materials. Similarly, in keeping the integrity of the original comic books intact, Watchmen is numbered every thirty-two pages (page counts restart with each chapter).

Barring that, Watchmen is impressive enough that it is one of the few graphic novels I have read that I will be keeping on my shelves. First, the characters are interesting and the history is unique to this story. So, none of the characters from other DC or Marvel comics pop up, the Watchmen are unique to this book. Rorschach is a perfect morally absolute vigilante whose story actually makes the reader question what motivates him. He has an absolute sense of right and wrong and evil is brutally punished by him. Similarly, Dr. Manhattan is a floating blue man with the ability to reorganize matter with just his thoughts, inspiring him to flee to Mars when the apocalypse is at hand! And Laurie, his lover, struggles with her emotions in processing his inability to relate to her and all of humanity and her desire for him.

Dave Gibbons comes to the forefront of his craft when establishing Dan. In every scene that has Dan, long before his feelings for Laurie are revealed, are obvious by the way Gibbons has Dan postured. It's brilliant and an incredible use of the medium.

As for Ozymandias - Adrian Veidt - I salute Alan Moore. Far too often, heroes or villains are characterized with the superlative; in this case, Veidt is called the smartest man on Earth. As a result, the reader's expectation for such a character has to be surprise. In order for us to plausibly believe that Veidt is the smartest man on Earth, we expect him to put things together faster and in a way that surprises us. In other words, in order to believe that Veidt is as smart as he is billed as, we must not be able to reach the conclusions before Veidt does and in this regard, Moore does not disappoint.

But more than anything, Watchmen is a remarkably tight conspiracy theory story surrounding one dastardly plan to bring about the end of the world. It is clever, remarkably well-constructed and well-developed. The characters are rich and the layers, though sometimes complex, all add up to one solid story with clues peppered on every page. Like any good book, it requires patience and when I sat down to read Watchmen, I thought it would be a light afternoon's read. Not so. This book is densely written and attention must be paid to every plotline alluded to.

It is not surprising Time magazine named Watchmen one of the best 100 novels since 1923; it is clever, despite its structural problems related to maintaining its original presentation as a comic book. That said, it is easy to overlook graphic novels and Watchmen makes the case - and well - for the graphic novel to be considered more the "novel" than just a collection of comic books. And as for the graphic, Watchmen certainly is that, too. After all, not all of the penises are edited out.

For other graphic novels reviewed by me, please check out my reviews of:
Lost Girls
Who Is Wonder Woman?

9/10

For other book reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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