« Brokeback Mountain: A
Main
Scott Pilgrim: Precious Little Life - Bryan Lee O'Malley »

This is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel but the story itself is glum and distant. Johnson was a student of David Mazzuchelli and you can see the influence on his work. There are some inventive things done with cutting off captions to break into a scene or to create the effect of dialogue fading into the background (Daniel Clowes experimented with similar effects in the last issue of Eightball) and he uses diagram-like drawings within the story in a clever way to further illustrate little actions like tying a knot.

The story itself about teens in Maui getting caught up in the crystal meth scene is not as interesting as the illustrative devices Johnson uses. I'm sure, being this is his first book and he is only in his early 20s, great things are going to come from him very soon.

Posted at January 8, 2006 12:21 PM