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BIG CLAY POT
Highly Recommended (10/10)
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Top Shelf Productions
Writer/Artist: Scott Mills
Editor: Chris Staros
Price: $12.95 US |
I first ran across Scott Mills's work at the Big Easy Con, where I bought his Xeric-grant winning Cells and immediately resolved to get more of his work in the future. Flash forward two years to his release of a big graphic novel, Big Clay Pot, from one of my new
favorite small companies Top Shelf, and I'm happy I knew to be on the lookout
for this. It's a sweet, quiet story about a friendship between an old, gentle
man with tragedy in his past and a young, somewhat clumsy girl set in Japan in
200 B.C. It's rooted in the culture and time period, which is obviously what
inspired Mills in the first place, but it's really a universal story of youth
and age, and the story of an unusual friendship that benefits both people. It is
touching and funny and thought-provoking, well worth checking out.
What really makes this story
work are the personalities that Mills develops for Sun Kim and Kokoro, both of
whom are somewhat soft-spoken but clearly very intelligent and thoughtful. Kim
is the model of youth and adolescence, both in her clumsiness and in her
uncertain emotions and thoughts. At the same time, Kokoro is the model of old
age, or at least the more pleasant examples of old age, with wisdom, patience
and (in the early stages) just a bit of likable curmudgeon in him.
It doesn't hurt that Mills's
artwork is so perfectly in synch with the gentle, quiet style of the book. The
fuzzy panels give the whole thing a soft, human feel, and while his faces and
bodies are mostly defined by relatively abstract shapes, he manages to convey a
lot of humanity and emotion in those faces through positioning and exaggeration.
I must admit that while Mills's artwork for the most part seemed perfectly clear
to me, the dream sequences sometimes got a bit abstract, and I couldn't quite
follow what was going on. I felt as if I was missing some symbolism. The
positive side of this, however, is that I'm sure this is a book that will merit
rereading.
The pacing here is perfect.
Even though you can sort of see the culmination of Kokoro's arc, it never feels
like the story is drawn out or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, rushing
toward Sun Kim's inevitable maturation into a young adult. The book is somewhat
slow, depicting mundane events such as fishing, farming or talking (probably the
closest thing we have to an action sequence is the dream of the storm or the
chasing off of the raccoon dog) but Mills wisely intercuts each section with a
single page illustration that makes it feel like short vignettes that tie
together into an overall tale, rather than an overlong narrative.
It's also nice that Mills is
funny. Kim's clumsiness provides for many slapstick style gags in the fishing,
pottery and egg-hunting scenes, and this gentle and funny tone helps to
counterbalance the somewhat melancholy story of Kokoro's loss of Mei (including
the heart-breaking final interlude with the storm) or the impossible romance in
Kim's mind.
Top Shelf puts incredible
production values on their products. The paper quality, cover design and general
format is terrific, and the translation of the entire story into Japanese
characters in the borders is a beautiful touch that doesn't interfere with the
readability at all, but instead makes it seem as much an art object as a
story.
This comic book was not part of this week's new releases.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board. |
