Comic Review for MOOC Module 2: Environment

This is where we get to my incomplete reading. The optional readings for the environment included Snow Piercer, Volumes 1 and 2, and I have not read them yet. One thing about this class is that there are more extended sections, where you read a whole volume instead of one or two issues. Many of them are available in trades, and many of them are available through our library. So, when possible, I have been checking these out instead of buying. The class would be prohibitively expensive otherwise. I think I will still end up spending about the same amount of money that I did for the last class, but reading a lot more.

Anyway, it feels like I have been waiting forever for Snow Piercers (and The Harlem Hellfighters, but that's for something different), but they were in the optional, and I can include it when I write about the next two modules, so I guess it works.

I like a lot of these more passionately, though that does not necessarily mean they make a strong environmental point. Several of them have the landscape created by things gone wrong in the environment, but that is the end of it as a theme.

Swamp Thing: Rot World, written by Scott Snyder, art by Yanick Paquette, Pretty good.

The Massive, Vol. 1: Black Pacific, written by Brian Wood, art by Kristian Donaldson and Garry Brown, Pretty good.

Hinterkind Vol. 1: The Waking World, written by Ian Edginton, art by Francesco Trifogli, colors by Cris Peter, Recommended!

Hawkeye #7, written by Matt Fraction, art by Steve Lieber and Jesse Hamm, colored by Matt Hollingsworth, lettered by Chris Eliopoulos. Recommended!

Optional

Swamp Thing, Vol. 1: Saga of the Swamp Thing, written by Alan Moore, art by Stephen R. Bissette and John Totleben. Recommended!

Climate Changed: A Personal Journey through the Science, by Philippe Squarzoni, Recommended!

As you can see, my most tepid recommendations are "pretty good" - this was a good unit.

The Massive was interesting, but it jumped around a lot. I thought it was hard to follow, but maybe I didn't love it enough to pay the attention it needed. There is some effort required, anyway. There are some interesting things coming in though so that even though I did not love it, I could still totally see myself checking out the next volume.

Rot World was pretty easy to follow, but it was another of those books where everything goes crazily to pot, and then is undone with some time travel, which is not my favorite thing. That is somewhat compensated for by a couple of interesting concepts. One is the interplay of The Green (plant life) with the Red (animal life), as represented by Swamp Thing and Animal Man, and the Rot as also a necessary component and part, but dangerous because it was out of balance due to Anton Arcane's evil. The solution, of going back and replacing Anton with Abby does work, because the cost of that, to her and to Swamp Thing, is a price worthy of that sort of salvation. It was also a neat idea that heroes and villains with some plant or animal parts fared better in standing against the Rot. There was some neat plotting.

Saga of the Swamp Thing was not as clearly environmental as Rot World, but having some familiarity with Swamp Thing and then going back and reading that original reboot was amazing. The relationship between man and nature is probably brought up most in the story arc of the Floronic Man who, despite his awfulness, engendered some pity by the end, but the real strength of the book was the question of identity and trying to find your way. There is some beautiful use of language, and some audacity. I don't know what more I can say, except that I admire Alan Moore more for this than for Watchmen.

And now for the ones I really love!

Hinterkind is gorgeous. I love the color palette Cris Peter uses, Trifogli's renderings, and I am attached to the characters. I am sticking with the series past the assignment because I want to know what happens.

I not only bought Hawkeye #7, but since that one sale had gotten me issues 1-5, I also bought 6, even though it had nothing to do with the environment. I mean, why not be complete? Fraction, Hamm, and Lieber are top-notch, and the way the comic took a real event with Hurricane Sandy and showed people dealing with it was touching and inspiring, as well as feeling pretty realistic.

Climate Changed is a very hard book. One of the recurring themes of the interviews, and a lot of other things that you see, is that we are past the point of no return on climate. The book explains what that means better, and what it means is that there are changes that are going to occur over the next 30 years that we cannot stop and that are pretty bad, but then for beyond that we do still have a window of opportunity to prevent even worse catastrophe.

Laying out all of that, including what already is, what additional danger there is, and knowledge that this is being largely ignored, can be overwhelming. I had to pace myself going through, to not take on too much at once. That being said, the information is clear, the art is beautiful, the recurring theme of literary and film references as you think about the concept of ending a book, and what that means, especially for this topic, is effective, and the book truly is really both scientific and personal. Everyone should read this one, because it is not just entertainment, it is our present and future.

Again, that knowledge that people are ignoring it, and that it can be easily ignored but should not be, is disconcerting. There are some things my family does fairly well, but that is one household on the planet, and even making the improvements possible for us feels very small. So, it feels like there should be something more, and I am not sure where that will lead yet. That's okay. The caring shouldn't end just because the next module begins, and it won't.