NBM Publishing

Miss Don’t Touch Me, Vol. 2

gwen — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

My knowledge of graphic novels is limited to having only read The Watchman. When you’re reading a book you imagine what the character looks like and maybe even the environment where she lives. When you experience a graphic novel, an interconnected array of words and colors awaits you much like what a child sees when looking at a picture book. I think it’s a fabulous genre and I look forward to reading more.

Miss Don’t Touch Me, Vol. 2, takes place in Paris in the 1930s. I recommend you read Miss Don’t Touch Me, Vol. 1, first, as there is good back story to the characters in Volume 2. Miss Don’t Touch Me, Vol. 2 centers on a frightened and nervous young woman named Blanche, who is overshadowed by her sister Agatha, a fun-loving free spirit who frequently goes out dancing. They both work as maids and are barely getting by financially. Blanche experiences a tragedy when someone very close to her is shot. She takes it upon herself to find the people responsible, which leads her to the Pompadour, a house of call girls. Blanche becomes a dominatrix and is given the name “Miss Don’t Touch Me,” because she is still a virgin and her male customers are not allowed to touch her.

The other prostitutes at the Pompadour are jealous of Blanche and are constantly bullying her, but she stands up for herself. Through Blanche’s eyes we see a division between the prostitutes and the people with all the money and power—who are often the prostitutes’ customers. In Blanche, we see an advocate for her friends that are abused or mistreated. She has a complicated relationship with her mother and she falls in love with a man who is struggling with his own sexual identity. Blanche grows from a nervous woman to someone who fights the male dominance and the power hungry individuals that threaten to bring her down. She is still frightened, but she works through her fears and tries to survive in a world that is very much against her.

The Miss Don’t Touch Me series is not for everyone and if you’re easily offended by images of men getting whipped or women being tied up, this is probably not the best introductory graphic novel. But if none of the above bothers you, then you will enjoy this strange—albeit entertaining—tale filled with horror, S&M, mystery, and romance.

Written by: Su Lin Mangan, March 23rd 2011

A Home For Mr. Easter

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Brooke A. Allen

NBM Publishing

Tesana is a teenage girl lacking love. Her mother belittles her behavior, and the kids at school make fun of her. She is huge—both very tall and very overweight. She feels like a walking target, so it’s understandable that she has learned to escape into her imagination. When the bus ride home sucks, she dreams up a unicorn to carry her across the city. But daydreams can’t make everything better. When the popular jocks and cheerleaders try to make a victim of a bunny rabbit, Tesana unleashes all her pent-up anger on them.

This is no ordinary bunny. He lays Easter eggs! He talks! Everyone thinks Tesana is crazy, but she knows the truth. She resolves to help Mr. Easter get back home. In order to do this, they have to retrace the route that brought him to the high school: a pet shop, a science lab, and a magician’s show. At every stop there’s someone who wants that bunny back, and soon there’s a small army chasing Tesana and Mr. Easter.

A Home for Mr. Easter is defined by its chaos. Tesana feels attacked on all sides, and then she actually is. The plot follows the logic of a dreamer, so magical things are suddenly allowed. The laws of the real world are stretched and twisted.

Though this graphic novel style isn’t really my favorite—it delights in the misshapen—I appreciate what Allen has succeeded in doing. What I don’t enjoy may make the book all the richer for some readers. Tesana’s world is ugly; she deals with ugly people.

Along the way, Tesana slowly excises some of her demons. By the time they find Mr. Easter’s true home, she is less angry and has had some of her deepest beliefs validated. Through the bedlam, she and her mother become allies, instead of enemies. The fairy tale ends happily.

And yet, A Home for Mr. Easter contains a great deal of insight, slipped into the subtext. Brooke Allen gives just enough clues for us to get a rich impression of what Tesana’s inner and physical lives are like. The characters are expressive, leaving no doubt about how something is being said or the emotion it’s being said with.

I did enjoy the story, and its fantastic nature. The range of emotion is powerful, taking one through disbelief, righteous anger, fear, and pathos. Allen is clearly talented and confident in her craft.

Written by: Richenda Gould, August 30th 2010

Mijeong

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:29:00 +0000

By Byun Byung-Jun

NBM Publishing

Mijeong is a collection of short stories by Byung-Jun Byun in manhwa form. In a word, Mijeong—a Chinese word meaning “pure beauty”—is moving. No matter what the story (there are seven) I was encouraged to think critically about men and women, adults and children, and their relationships to one another. Although the stories don’t seem to overlap, each is about a young person or young people dealing with the realities of their harsh urban world. Whatever else the author does, it’s clear the manhwa is striving for the beauty the title implies.

“Manhwa” is the general term for comics, print cartoons, and graphic novels in Korea. In other parts of the world, it’s usually marketed as Manga, a Japanese term meaning the same thing. One way it’s certainly different from Manga is that it’s read from left to right—the same direction as books in English—not right to left, as Manga traditionally is.

The author’s artistic style is more realistic than most Manga I’ve read. Characters’ eyes, for example, don’t seem to be a dominating facial feature. The art is more expressionist than I was expecting, and each page seems fuzzy, as if I was reading it through a dream. Most of the stories are in black, white, and grey. The one in the middle, “Song for You,” however, is cast in pastel hues and shows Byun’s artistic progress in the representation of space. Over all, the writing is sparse, letting the art speak except in cases of character dialogue.

I was struck most by “Yeon-du, seventeen years old,” which is about a young woman who acts in a porn film in order to be able to pay for a piece of art that a childhood friend of hers loved. We learn that the friend was killed trying to protect her from rapists at a young age, and now she lives to avenge him.

In “Utility,” a group of friends finds one of the girls' siblings hanging in her apartment after committing suicide. Because they’re afraid someone will come in and think they killed the young woman, they try to decide how to dispose of the body. It is, like Byun’s other pieces in Mijeong, very thought provoking.

This collection is quite an undertaking, and it left me with a sense of Korean urban life as well as the life of young people today. It’s not an overtly feminist collection, but it touches on some serious issues and treats them with respect. I’m looking forward to reading more of Byun’s work in the future.

Written by: Viannah Duncan, August 24th 2009

Miss Don't Touch Me

admin — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:08:00 +0000

By Hubert & Kerascoet

NBM Publishing

Miss Don't Touch Me is the story of a girl, Blanche, who works with her sister, Agatha, as a live-in maid in Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. When Blanche witnesses her sister’s murder, her world is destroyed. People think Agatha committed suicide, and nobody will believe Blanche. She goes on a mission to avenge Agatha’s death, which takes her into a realm of prostitution, murder, and deceit.

It is both hard to believe and a relief that Agatha can manage to work at a brothel and not even have to take off her clothes. She is a virgin and does not want to “sell [her] virtue” (emphasis mine). So she presents her conundrum of sorts to the madam boss, who offers her the ideal position: a “virgin of steel” dominatrix who “whips, but [is] not to be touched.”

This setup, however, reinforces the virgin/whore duality in the novel. Blanche’s virginity is the main characteristic that differentiates her from every other woman from this point forward, something that even induces hatred toward her from some of the “whores.” One of them even cuts off Blanche’s long dark hair in her sleep, thickening the line that separates them. Blanche only gets along with the two other “special girls” in the brothel: Annette, who looks stereotypically angelical but harbors a dark secret, and the “madame/monsieur” Miss Josephine, her gender-bending confidante and the only other prostitute in the brothel with short hair. The authors have made it clear that Blanche does not belong on the “whore” side of the dichotomy through her asexuality, her appearance, and her very name (“blanche” means “white” in French).

Does this graphic novel stretch the virgin/whore dichotomy to create a new space? What’s for sure is that Blanche is gutsy, clever, cunning, and even cruel. She’s good-looking enough to be a prostitute but has chosen another route. She’s also goal-driven and steadfast. But, her character is not very believable. Not only is her character an amalgam of her aforementioned traits; there are also problems in the narrative that affect her credibility as a character.

The novel reads quickly, and it is enjoyable. But something feels amiss throughout. The authors at times skip from one crucial scene to the next. For example, when Blanche's sister Agatha is murdered, Blanche's life suddenly changes drastically. Blanche, naturally, cries over her dead sister following her murder—and then never does it again. We aren't even told why this is; is Blanche the kind to bury her feelings? She does not seem to be that at all. What’s more, she’s impulsive precisely because she can’t seem to control them. So what gives? These missing feelings and thoughts—which are ostensibly the very engine behind the plot—make Blanche seem at times incongruous and even robotic. Something important is lacking. While she does think about Agatha and does all she can to avenge her death, Blanche lacks the corresponding depth. And while no other characters display notable depth either, one would think that at least the main protagonist of the novel would. Alas, this is not the case. When she sheds blood, she doesn’t even blink.

The illustrations are sketchy but defined; each character is visually unequivocal from the next. Nudity is ubiquitous, as is to be expected, as well as uninhibited, which shows in the casual lines traced by Kerascoet. There is much play between light and shadow, and although sometimes there are so many details in one panel that you must squint to find what you’re looking for, overall the drawings are sharp and witty.

In the end, this novel is a sassy and even controversial murder mystery that will entertain. It would be even more pleasing if it finished what it started.

Written by: Natalia Real, July 12th 2009