Two Graphic Novel Reviews

The Salon by Nick Bertozzi has a fascinating pretext: The artists living in Paris in 1907: Picasso, Braque, Satie, plus Gertrude Stein, are being stalked and killed off by a strange vengeful being who has the ability to pass in and out of paintings. Stein's salon serves as homebase for these painters who come together to discuss art, their current works, and engage in hedonistic behavior. A strange blue absinthe gives them the ability to jump into paintings. The story is intriguing, and the artwork occasionally striking, but I was disappointed in this book. It got a lot of wonderful reviews leading me to believe it was transcendent and more than "just" a graphic novel. I loved the discussions between Braque and Picasso about how to paint all perspectives at once, giving birth to cubism. But so much of the book focused on the baser instincts of the artists. There were far too many panels of Picasso's penis for me. Bertozzi seemed to revel in his characters' hedonism, to the detriment of the story. I expected more from this book.

Levitation by Jim Ottaviani and Janine Johnston is an expose of how magicians perform their famous levitation tricks on stage. But the book is far more than that. This beautiful graphic novel is narrated by a stagehand who knows the history of the trick and how it traveled from Europe with the magician John Neville Maskelyne to the American Harry Kellar, who stole the trick. The slim volume has backstage drama along with technical detail all lovingly illustrated by Johnston. Each panel is fantastic, especially those where real posters have been included. There's not a lot to this book, but what is there is all pleasing. I even got my husband to read this, and he's not a fan of graphic novels. Very enjoyable read!