Melinda Gebbie
Teoksen Lost Girls tekijä
Tietoja tekijästä
Image credit: Women in Comics panel, San Diego Comic-Con 1982, photo by Alan Light
Sarjat
Tekijän teokset
Wimmen's Comix #7 2 kappaletta
Wimmen's Comix #9 1 kappale
Associated Works
Anarchy Comics 1 — Avustaja — 4 kappaletta
Cultural correspondence : No. 9 Sex roles & humor — Avustaja — 1 kappale
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Sukupuoli
- female
- Kansalaisuus
- USA
- Syntymäpaikka
- San Francisco, California, USA
- Asuinpaikat
- England, UK
- Ammatit
- comic artist
writer - Suhteet
- Moore, Alan (husband)
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
This book was definitely not on the list of recommended for kids at the school in graphic novels. This is an incredibly sexualized take on fairytales. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't very impressive either.
I hated this. I hated, hated, hated, hated this. I hated it with a pure hate I haven't felt toward a book in many, many years.
I think I'm angry because I've spent a fair amount of time defending Alan Moore and his obsessions over the past two decades. "He's a bit weird, but he's cool," I'd say. "Yeah, he likes to throw shocking curveballs but there is always some really interesting deconstruction going on." Well, there's no interesting deconstruction here. It's just a lot of sex: every kind of sex imaginable, basically, and on nearly every page. It's not erotica; it's pornography. And it's pretending that it's "saying" something about three of the most beloved children's stories within memory: Lewis Carroll's Alice books; J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy (aka Peter Pan); and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
I'm also angry because I'm no stranger to grown-up examinations of these same works, and while I don't love them all, some of them are quite interesting and have meaningful observations to make. Some of them are just weird and fun: I'll defend A Barnstormer in Oz 'til my dying day, for instance, because it's clearly a thought experiment (What if Oz were a real place where magic was just advanced science? What if the story was dumbed down because no one would believe the real thing?) taken to a logical, if occasionally slightly ridiculous conclusion. There is nothing like that in Lost Girls. I can't even defend it as having a perspective if I wanted to; there's no perspective to give.
I had expected something rather more like Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which - aside from being a genre fiction easter egg lollapalooza - treats the classic characters involved as living, breathing, sometimes uncomfortably troubling people, all of whom have their own motivations. Mina Harker is forever changed by her experience with Dracula, and it makes her into a morally upright leader. Dr. Jekyll can never escape the bestial pull of his "other half," and it causes him to do truly inhuman things. James Bond can barely disguise his true nature as a nasty, misogynistic thug. And so on. Despite the entire three-volume book being centered around them, there are no such insights in Lost Girls on Alice, Dorothy, or Wendy.
In fact, all three have been rendered down to flat, two-dimensional characters: Alice the articulate, aristocratic widow, Wendy a quiet and submissive wife, and Dorothy an "Aw shucks!" farm girl stereotype. Yes, it's very clever-clever that Moore's found a way to reframe their stories as sexual experiences - Alice's first sexual experience is an assault by an older man named "Bunny," Dorothy has her first self-induced orgasm as the tornado hits the house, etc. - but that doesn't tell me anything about my favorite books from childhood. It just feels like a particularly raunchy party trick, one that is repeated again and again and is already boring by the end of Book One.
I have read elsewhere that Moore and his wife, Melinda Gebbie - who created the art in the book, which is certainly very colorful if loosely styled - worked on Lost Girls for almost twenty years, and their goal was not to inspire conversation about the stories they adapted but about the nature of pornography itself. And that's...fine, I guess? I just don't see the point of involving Alice, Dorothy, and Wendy, except that it makes a great elevator pitch: "...They're all in a hotel together and they're all getting it on!" Perhaps those interested in pornography as an art form will find meaning in it, but to me, this feels like little more than an over-expensive vanity project. It was a waste of my time and especially of my money.… (lisätietoja)
I think I'm angry because I've spent a fair amount of time defending Alan Moore and his obsessions over the past two decades. "He's a bit weird, but he's cool," I'd say. "Yeah, he likes to throw shocking curveballs but there is always some really interesting deconstruction going on." Well, there's no interesting deconstruction here. It's just a lot of sex: every kind of sex imaginable, basically, and on nearly every page. It's not erotica; it's pornography. And it's pretending that it's "saying" something about three of the most beloved children's stories within memory: Lewis Carroll's Alice books; J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy (aka Peter Pan); and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
I'm also angry because I'm no stranger to grown-up examinations of these same works, and while I don't love them all, some of them are quite interesting and have meaningful observations to make. Some of them are just weird and fun: I'll defend A Barnstormer in Oz 'til my dying day, for instance, because it's clearly a thought experiment (What if Oz were a real place where magic was just advanced science? What if the story was dumbed down because no one would believe the real thing?) taken to a logical, if occasionally slightly ridiculous conclusion. There is nothing like that in Lost Girls. I can't even defend it as having a perspective if I wanted to; there's no perspective to give.
I had expected something rather more like Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which - aside from being a genre fiction easter egg lollapalooza - treats the classic characters involved as living, breathing, sometimes uncomfortably troubling people, all of whom have their own motivations. Mina Harker is forever changed by her experience with Dracula, and it makes her into a morally upright leader. Dr. Jekyll can never escape the bestial pull of his "other half," and it causes him to do truly inhuman things. James Bond can barely disguise his true nature as a nasty, misogynistic thug. And so on. Despite the entire three-volume book being centered around them, there are no such insights in Lost Girls on Alice, Dorothy, or Wendy.
In fact, all three have been rendered down to flat, two-dimensional characters: Alice the articulate, aristocratic widow, Wendy a quiet and submissive wife, and Dorothy an "Aw shucks!" farm girl stereotype. Yes, it's very clever-clever that Moore's found a way to reframe their stories as sexual experiences - Alice's first sexual experience is an assault by an older man named "Bunny," Dorothy has her first self-induced orgasm as the tornado hits the house, etc. - but that doesn't tell me anything about my favorite books from childhood. It just feels like a particularly raunchy party trick, one that is repeated again and again and is already boring by the end of Book One.
I have read elsewhere that Moore and his wife, Melinda Gebbie - who created the art in the book, which is certainly very colorful if loosely styled - worked on Lost Girls for almost twenty years, and their goal was not to inspire conversation about the stories they adapted but about the nature of pornography itself. And that's...fine, I guess? I just don't see the point of involving Alice, Dorothy, and Wendy, except that it makes a great elevator pitch: "...They're all in a hotel together and they're all getting it on!" Perhaps those interested in pornography as an art form will find meaning in it, but to me, this feels like little more than an over-expensive vanity project. It was a waste of my time and especially of my money.… (lisätietoja)
Not my cup of tea. I thought it would be interesting, Moore adapting the characters of Alice (in Wonderland), Dorothy (Wizard of Oz), and Wendy (Peter Pan), in the way he used characters in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (highly recommended) from other classic stories. But despite warnings of the erotic content and adult warnings on the cover, this volume was positively pornographic throughout. Definitely aimed at fans of the Marquis de Sade, as for me, it made an uncomfortable read.
Listat
Palkinnot
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For adults only.
Filles perdues (anglais : Lost Girls) est une bande dessinée érotique écrite par Alan Moore et dessinée par Melinda Gebbie. Ses cinq premiers chapitres ont été publiés en 1991-1992 dans la revue américaine Taboo, augmentés de deux nouveaux chapitres lorsqu'ils ont été recueillis en deux albums par Tundra Publishing en 1995 et 1996, puis de vingt-deux nouveaux chapitres pour la parution d'un recueil en trois volumes chez Top Shelf Productions en 20061.
La traduction française publiée chez Delcourt en 2008, a figuré en sélection officielle du festival d'Angoulême 2009.… (lisätietoja)