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Tuesday, November 7, 2006
City Sketches
After the amazing collection The Contract With God Trilogy with the classic novel of the same name, more New York stories seemed like overkill. Little did I realize, New York was Will Eisner's home, and his muse.
While not connected to the Dropsie avenue stories per se (there's only one mention of it), this book collects many stories that just didn't fit anywhere else. Some are mediocre, but iffy Will Eisner is like bad sex: Even when it's bad, it's good.
And there are gems here! The Treasure of Avenue C shows the life of a grate. A would-be courter fumbles an engagement ring, a murder weapon is disposed of... all hidden treasure casually divided up by a pair of young boys. The Building features the prototypical Gilda Green, who falls for an unpublished poet.
Mostly vignettes a few pages long: Illicit sex; the illusion of privacy in city living; and above all, butterfly-effect-style stories, where one small event opens a chain of events ending in tragedy, litter these pages.
Easily the most disturbing story in the book, the slightly longer story Sanctum deserves special mention. Pincus Pleatnik stays away from others, leading a solitary life. When a newspaper mistakenly and stubbornly reports him dead, his life falls apart in disturbing ways.
Mr. Eisner's trademark casual visual style is at its most ecelectic and beautiful. A few of the stories are a little out of voice for the author, but these were obviously testing grounds for longer works. a few out-takes at the end reinforce this feeling.
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