the late ''s / early''s, when the comics industry was going through another one of it's "growth spurts" that caused all sorts of chaos and speculation with regards to the future of the medium, everyone was scrambling for a way to take advantage of a market that suddenly had a lot of publicity but not much new product.
Every publisher launched a number of new titles and developed many new ideas often letting writers and artists go nuts in an effort to be the first to have something new and edgy for audiences.
It was during this kind of fervor that DC launched their Vertigo line of comics, while eschewed the historic "G" ratings that comics usually ran with, in favor of allowing "adult themes" to enter into stories.
Most of the time, this involved the addition of characters swearing and talking about sex, Often, it also meant things got creepy,
Slipping under the radar at the time, Neil Gaiman amp Dave McKean collaborated on this book together, Not quite a comic and not quite a book it was published with odd, oversized trade binding that didn't match comics or novels, but evoked the feel of old newspapers, Mr.
Punch was published to little or no fanfare, lost in a see of Vertigo Titles that have become classics among DC Fans in the years that have passed.
In a way, it's easy to feel sorry for Mr, Punch.
To be honest, though, it is no wonder, It is not the best work Gaiman has produced, and while the story is compelling and interesting, his writing really only keeps the story moving, and reads as if the wind has been taken out of his sails with regards to the other writing chores he had at the time.
The really impressive part of Mr, Punch is Dave McKean's brilliant art, which began to flourish in Sandman and reaches a dizzying scale of beauty here.
His combinations of collage, photographs, painting, sculpture and yes, even that cartooning is impressive and beautiful to look at, I have often wished that there was no story, and that instead the book was just a collection of Dave's art,
Perhaps there will be a book like that someday, or there even is and I just haven't seen it, But if there is or were going to be, I'd recommend that first, Mr. Punch makes for a good lazyafternoon reading, but nothing you need to run out and buy anytime soon, Childhood is a dim, misty country, Facts and faces, people and places all flit in and out of the streetlight of memory, all mediated by the prism of emotion.
Neil Gaiman's Mr Punch captures that feeling exactly, through the eyes of a small boy Neil himself and it feels authentic because it is essentially sitelinkautobiographical, and because it also has a sense of place without being being too specific.
Dave McKean's atmospheric artwork matches young Neil's perspective in thes, ferried to and around Southsea in Portsmouth to stay with grandparents and where he encounters other strange relatives and their associates.
Self and space, adults and events are presented in a kaleidoscopic fashion that mirrors those confusing years when adults have control, violence may be around the corner and nothing truly makes sense, however much you try to fathom it out.
Boyhood memories link back to the inherent violence of the Punch amp Judy puppet theatre, featuring as it does domestic abuse, criminal acts and premeditated murder.
The acts of the traditional glove puppets are darker than the action in, say, a Tom amp Jerry cartoon, and one always wonders at the play's suitability for children, but it was long a mainstay of seaside attractions and may still occasionally feature during family summer beach holidays.
One of Neil's grandfather's runs a rundown seaside arcade, with slot machines, a fortune teller, a maze of mirrors, a mermaid in a tank and a menagerie of parrots.
But there are dark secrets in the family history, mysteries that are too insubstantial for the boy to grasp, and whispers of this history are soon bound up with the Punch and Judy man and his macabre comedycumtragedy.
Punch, his battered wife Judy, the baby, the law and other puppets become inextricable from people the boy meets, their lives or roles marching in parallel with the personnel in the play.
The sombre colours and noirish mixed media illustrations belie one's expectations of days spent at a seaside resort, and the fonts have been carefully created to perhaps suggest journal entries, in keeping with the style of a memoir.
While the story can stand perfectly well on its own or as a radio drama or audio book, being combined with a gallery of outline drawings, paintings and photographs both sepiatinged and colour of models, puppets and seascapes adds immeasurably to its impact.
And the spookiest thing is that the puppets at times seem more real than the people, After a quartercentury this graphic novel has lost none of its power to disturb, and it does it deliciously, As somebody or other is wont to say, That's the way
to do it! I wavered between three for the story and five for McKean's art, so settled on four.
This, like so many of Gaiman's tales, is about memory and how unreliable it can be when an adult is remembering his youth.
Bad things happen all the time, and despite the adults around children trying to protect them, they are still aware, Sometimes more so than seems possible, Examining memories of youth in adulthood often makes us remember fear and violence that we would otherwise have forgotten entirely,
Our narrator recalls childhood memories of visits with his grandparents, some of which take place at the beach, Mr. Punch is a focal point of many of his memories and when, as an adult, he encounters a man who resembles the Professor Punch puppeteer he knew as a child, his memories come flooding back.
He examines them with an adult's eye and realizes how seedy his grandfather's life was, How violence and dishonestly ran through every aspect of said life, and that as a child he simply was unable to fully understand.
I think part of my hesitance to embrace this story is the idea of Mr, Punch himself. I know this is a staple in British culture, but how does anyone justify the story of Mr, Punch as proper childhood entertainment It's so violent and actually kind of gross,
As a kid, and then later a mom watching with my children, I was always a little frightened of the puppets on Mr.
Rogers. As a child I had no idea they were based on those in Punch and Judy, Knowing that now, I look at those memories with more fear that I should, Punch and Judy are scary! Mr, Punch is one bad mofo and the fact that he is used to entertain vacationing children just feels incredibly warped, /
The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr, Punch is yet another iconic collaboration between Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, This graphic novel is essentially a retelling of Mr, Punch and Judy a traditional British puppet show from the point of view of our nameless protagonist,
The protagonist recalls his childhood as he stayed with his grandparents, went to various Mr, Punch and Judy shows, and ultimately witnessed violence, Everything blends and becomes a dreamlike blur as the protagonist's memory is unreliable, and his family story becomes intertwined with Mr, Punch and Judy story.
While it features the usual Gaimanesque themes the blur between realitydreammemorystories, childhood, and nesting stories and McKeanesque flair macabresurrealistic multimedia visuals, I feel they didn't reach their maximum potentials here like in Mirrormask or even Black Orchid.
I've read better Gaiman books that deal with childhood The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Coraline, and Graveyard Book.
I've read better McKean graphic novels that deal with madness and memory Arkham Asylum and Black Dog,
In the end of the day, The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr, Punch is still a compelling graphic novel about childhood memory and violence, but it falls short under the towering reputations of its creators.
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