Trial and Error: The Aviated Efforts of Jean Baptiste de Bomberaque Review
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 by Carl Doherty under Graphic Novel Reviews

Tabella Publishing Written and illustrated by Øivind Hovland
Oh to have lived in the era of madcap pioneers, an age when the boffins contributing to the advancement of mankind weren’t just academics in white overcoats but brave dreamers willing to risk life and limb in order to change the world. Trial and Error: The Aviated Efforts of Jean Baptiste de Bomberaque, a darkly humorous picture book from award winning artist Øivind Hovland, chronicles the endeavours of the titular aviator, a fictional inventor whose place in history, we are told, has been eclipsed by the Wright Brothers’s aeroplane design.

Trial and Error: The Aviated Efforts of Jean Baptiste de Bomberaque

Presented as a cross between a photo album and the intertitles from a silent movie, Trial and Error is a labour of love that’s anything but laborious to read. There are few words on each page, if any, but Hovland has a gift for telling mature stories with images alone. For example, in one fantastic double-page spread we see de Boberaque preparing for his father’s funeral; the opposite page shows the same interior but decked out with schematics of bizarre flying contraptions, and the accompanying text “life goes on.”
I read Hovland’s second effort A day in the Life of Alfred first, and while I felt that to be a deeper and more touching read (if a book with so few words can be defined as a read), this tale of aerial obsession is by far the more charming of Hovland’s two picture books. It’s a little costly for a book you’ll read in minutes (£11.99 for 32 pages) but it’s a purchase you’ll want to return to again and again.
I originally set up shelfabuse.com purely with conventional, “panels and speech bubbles” comic books in mind, yet frequently I receive books that are hard to categorise – not that art or literature should fit neatly into any specific genre or medium, of course. Trial and Error: The Aviated Efforts of Jean Baptiste de Bomberaque may not be a comic or a graphic novel by definition, but it is definitely sequential art, and Øivind Hovland should be applauded for making this peculiar little niche entirely his own.
8/10

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Thanks to Carl for a great review A day in the life of Alfred:
“There’s something wrong within A Day in the Life of Alfred. An insidious, gradual feeling of unease that will work its way into your subconscious without you even realising it. Perhaps it’s due to the book’s format, a sort of picture book for adults in which Norwegian-born artist Øivind Hovland uses minimal words to convey his story, that it only becomes apparent quite how claustrophobic and downright depressing A Day in the Life is several minutes after you’ve finished reading.
“This is Hovland’s second book, a spiritual follow-up to Trial and Error: The Aviated Efforts of Jean Baptiste de Bomberaque, and what perhaps links the two books is that they both express an emotion. While Trial and Error chronicled one man’s obsession with flight, A Day in the Life is a haunting tale of isolation and the residual effects of bullying. This naturally makes it a far less charming and humour-laden read, but Hovland’s knack for layered storytelling, even when confines to just 25 images and less than 500 words, shines through nevertheless.
“Hovland’s art is similarly different from Trial and Error, at times resembling the frustrated scribblings of a troubled, possibly autistic individual. Alfred is a featureless figure throughout, dressed in Ignatius J. Reilly styled layers, his red overcoat and mittens the only colour in an otherwise monochrome book. Only on a second reading did I appreciate the layers of meaning in Hovland’s illustrations, the repetition of patterns and shapes that define his lonesome protagonist.
“As he embarks on his monotonous journey to work, A Day in the Life of Alfred’s crimson everyman becomes an increasingly tormented figure, with his need for daily routine all that justifies his solitary existence. But perhaps what’s most tragic about Alfred is just how familiar his perpetual suffering feels.”
8/10
Read the review on Shelfabuse.com here.

Thanks to Carl over at Shelfabuse.com for this great review of Hiyama:
“Hiyama’s depiction of 2019 London isn’t far removed from our present – which I found peculiar until I realised that England hasn’t changed drastically since 1999 – but with amplified levels of crime and an irrevocably corrupt police force willing to turn a blind eye. Tired of watching his superiors tolerate London’s criminal underworld, Officer John Torrent teams up with Chen Hiyama, a martial artist turned vigilante whose one-man crusade against crime soon becomes a family activity.
The first volume of Hiyama sees Chen Hiyama’s crime-fighting legacy passed onto daughter Mei when his wife is senselessly murdered by a member of a London crime gang. In volume 2: Devils Within, set two years later, Mei once again takes to cleansing the streets of scum when her daughter Bee is kidnapped. I originally planned to review both volumes of Hiyama separately, but after reading both thought it fairer to combine the two. Devils Within is a far more accomplished effort, with superior visuals and an overall more cohesive structure.
Gruff79 is reportedly an ex-serviceman, a musician in the British Army, who began working on the first book in 2003, which gives you a pretty good idea of how much patience and perseverance is required for such a project. Gruff79 isn’t going to garner much praise for his art, which is crude at the best of times but still has a certain charm to it. Fortunately, his murky imagery and punk approach also take the edge off of Hiyama’s frequent and graphic violence.
While I didn’t have a problem with Hiyama’s level of violence, Mei and her father’s vigilante efforts have disturbingly little impact on their day to day lives. While Gruff does weave the effect that Mei’s “hobby” has on her daughter into the second volume, witnessing Chen merrily dispense quips as he slices up scumbags willy-nilly and jokes about the previous night’s activities to his family the following morning over breakfast is disconcerting to say the least. Even if his victims do deserve it.
Hiyama has been published in the smaller Manga format, and with its hyperkinetic bloodshed, Eastern influences and breezy pace, that’s clearly where the series’ market lies. While Devils Within is by far the better book, you’ll need to read the first volume of this proposed six-part odyssey to appreciate what Gruff79 presumably hopes to accomplish; a serial that begins simple and becomes increasingly involving with each instalment.
6/10”
Check it out here: http://www.shelfabuse.com/graphic-novel-reviews/hiyama-graphic-review-vol-1-2/

Hi,

Thanks to Carl Doherty at ShelfAbuse for this great review of Thomas Wogan is Dead:

“Thomas Wogan is Dead is a little gem. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that you won’t find another book like this out there. Whereas many indie comic writers strive to emulate the mainstream industry, David Hughes has created something that probably couldn’t have existed were it not initially self-published.

The eponymous Thomas Wogan is an insipid, Delia Smith-obsessed office drone who mysteriously awakens naked in a featureless white waiting room alongside five anthropomorphic animals and an egg. As an ominous LCD screen counts towards their separate appointments, Wogan and the beasts (a frog, a bat, a fish, an anemone and a cuckoo) each recap the moments before their arrival in the white room. Yup, that title is in no way figurative; Thomas Wogan is quite dead.
As the book shifts between Thomas Wogan’s life and possible afterlife, we are taken through his bland existence, as Thomas drolly discusses his love for beans on toast and his love for “competent, methodical and safe cook” Delia Smith, which goes beyond disturbing (Thomas even owns a jar of Delia’s body hair), to the events that led to his presumed demise.
Hughes’ art is equally twisted, with some truly demented caricatures that fans of David Firth’s animations on www.fat-pie.com will absolutely love. Interestingly, Hughes adopts a more realistic visual style for the animals’ own finales, which range from comical to tragically pointless.
Thomas Wogan began life as a self-published title, and has justly made its way into a shiny, repackaged volume from Tabella Publishing. Thankfully, Tabella hasn’t gone to drastic efforts to cover the books handcrafted origins but for some snazzy new lettering, which may lack the original’s personality but should hopefully sell the book to a larger audience. Hughes definitely deserves the attention; his first graphic novel, The Immeasurable Adventures of Gorky Park, garnered only a humble audience.
At just £5.99, Thomas Woman is Dead isn’t going to take you more than half and hour to read, but it’s a book that will linger in your mind for much longer, and definitely merits a re-read. This witty take on Sartre’s No Exit has oodles of charm and a meek but sympathetic protagonist that readers might identity with more than they’d like to admit.
8/10”
Visit the ShelfAbuse website here:
http://www.shelfabuse.com/graphic-novel-reviews/thomas-wogan-dead-graphic-review/

Hi,

There’s a little review of Marilyn’s Painting Dorset in watercolour in this months Artists & Illustrators magazine - snapped today in WHSmith:



Cheers,

Kev.

Hiya,

Just been sent this great review of Thomas Wogan is dead, courtesy of the guys at Paradox Comics.

“Thomas Wogan is one of those archetypal British losers that are instantly recognisable due to their prevalence in homegrown popular culture over the years. He's the kind of unassuming guy that would go unnoticed in a crowd, but shine a spotlight on him and he becomes a unique and curious character to observe. Locked into a never-ending daily routine, his habits and hobbies are as bewildering as they are hilarious, and they're never anything less than fascinating.

The title might drop a bit of a hint about the plotline, but it's not quite as clear cut at that . Deciding - for reasons only known to him - to break his monotonous routine, Wogan inexplicably finds himself naked in a nondescript waiting room. Seated in the other chairs are a cuckoo, a sea urchin, a toad, a bat , a fish and an egg. What follows is a series of vignettes where the occupants relay to each other exactly what they were doing before mysteriously appearing in the waiting room. Unsurprisingly, a common theme begins to emerge.

Potentially depressing subject matter is enlivened by a large dollop of black humour as the general mundanity of the characters' lives becomes clearer, with the reasons they find themselves in the waiting room ranging from the bizarre to the ridiculous. Wogan himself is an endearing creation (despite himself), his obsession with the minutiae of Delia Smith's life being a particularly successful running gag.

Hughes’ witty script is packed with wry observations and his art is mixes it up to great effect: there's an air of realism to many of the animal cast as well as the backgrounds, while the human characters - particularly Wogan himself - have a far more cartoonish look about them, adding a layer of pleasing incongruity to the proceedings.

Thomas Wogan Is Dead is wonderfully witty little read that tackles one of the major, universal, unanswered questions. It theorises that, for all the human race's protestations of being the superior species, we are destined to end up in the same place as every other living thing once the lights go out for good. 8/10”

Click here to visit the site.

Kev.

Hi,

Thanks to Dan Berry over at the Comics Bureau for a great piece on Øivind’s books:

“Much of Hovland’s work is sparsely nar­rated but lav­ishly illus­trated. In format, both books are sim­ilar to children’s books. Don’t let this ana­logy fool you though, the storytelling shows a deft­ness and sub­tlety of visual nar­rat­ive that bears up to repeat read­ings. You don’t so much ‘read’ Hovland’s work as take in each ele­ment of the type, image, com­pos­i­tion and nar­rat­ive. Great stuff. Go and buy it all immediately.”

Read the full piece here.

Cheers,

Kev.

Thanks to Richard at Forbidden Planet for a very comprehensive review of Hiyama volumes 1 and 2 ...

“... Putting my dislike of the genre aside, the comic functions pretty well – it’s a manga style thing, both in artwork and pacing and the story certainly had me turning the pages, wondering where it was all going. The artwork, all greys and charcoals at first drops into darker hues when the real violence starts – possibly too dark at times, there are moments where these old eyes were straining to make out the details.
The art develops throughout and by volume 2 there’s a much better sense of control and composition which results in not only a better read but a couple of genuinely impressive images along the way ...”

Nor really Richard’s thing, but as he says ... “there was enough in there for me to finish it and for those of you reading this who like this sort of thing, I imagine you’ll enjoy this a lot more than I did.”

Read the full review here: http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2010/hiyama-dark-dark-vigilante-family-saga/

Cheers,

Kev.