I have written about my deep love for Nick Abadzis' Laika several times in the recent months and still can not recommend that book enough to fans of historic fiction. It is a gorgeously drawn graphic novel, but more significantly (to me anyway) it is a powerfully written story. Here's a bit from a recent post:

In his very detailed and near sumptuous fictionalized biography of the first living creature to orbit the earth, Nick Abadzis has written a touching story in Laika that is devastating in both its historical accuracy and emotional punch. He starts with the story of “Kudryavka� who was found as a stray and became part of the Russian space program. Abadzis reinvents those unknown early years in the dog’s life and the effect is that long before Laika is placed in her capsule, readers care deeply about this dog. Because of this early section, comparisons to such animal classics as Shiloh, The Incredible Journey and, dare I say it, Old Yeller, are spot on. But Abadzis’s book is about far more than a loveable dog; it is about why this dog was sent into space and what that mission meant to so many different people.

There is so much to be impressed by with this book, not the least of which that it shines a light on a relatively ignored portion of history. What I really loved though was the psychological insight into why we (all humans) went into space, and how political so many of our space decisions were. So much for doing the right thing, the safe thing, even the scientific thing - let's just get there first and put a metaphorical flag on it. Then we win!! (Except of course for the ones doing the actual "flag bearing" - they didn't win anything at all.) The space race was a lot like the polar races, the races across the oceans and into Africa and Central Asia. All of it was for rewards that never balanced the cost and yet still we feel that urge to be first. Nick explores this compulsion to win as he considers what specific decisions went into sending Laika on her suicide mission, and what that final outcome meant to all the people directly involved.

I also interviewed Nick for the WBBT where we had some fascinating discussion on 20th century history, the Soviet space program and decisions humans make for animals. Be sure to check that out. Now on to what Nick read and loved in 2007.

Most of the books I read this year were graphic novels. We seem to be going through something of a golden age of comics, and these were among the best I read.

The Salon by Nick Bertozzi. This is what I wrote about The Salon on my blog just after I’d read it:

“I’m not a great one for writing reviews or articulating in detail why I like something, or why I think it works, but sometimes you just have to shout about the good stuff that makes the world a better place to live in. This book certainly falls in to that category. I enjoyed reading this so much and urge you, dear reader, to go and find yourself a copy. Nick Bertozzi is one of those cartoonists who make it all look so easy; he's a master visual storyteller. The Salon has everything you could possibly want from a great comic – sorry, graphic narrative. It’s a murder mystery starring a bunch of modernist painters, among them Picasso and Braque, and has an eccentric, loony central conceit that I won’t spoil for you by describing here. The art and coloring are gorgeous, the writing is exemplary. If you’ve never tried reading a graphic novel before, begin here; if you have, then this is one of the best you’ll find this year.�

Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie. I bought this book twice this year and was so impatient for the second volume, I bought it in French. And I can only read French very slowly, with a French/English dictionary to hand to help me decipher the difficult stuff. Why did I buy the first volume twice? Well, I had a chance to have Clément Oubrerie do a sketch inside a copy, and I didn’t have my own one to hand. One is the British edition, one the North American and I’m keeping them both. The illustrations by Oubrerie are both funny and beautiful. He draws with such warmth and belief that you are instantly engaged in Aya’s world. And they’re only half the reason to love this book: Abouet’s writing is possessed of an enormous charm and truth, conveying the reader to the African Ivory Coast of her youth. Go there by reading this.

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan. I knew nothing about Rutu Modan or her work when I bought this graphic novel; I just really liked the cover and what the cover blurb said it was about. Instincts like that pay off; within its pages I found the sort of story that I long for in modern graphic novels. “Good Comics� are that rare thing as everyone’s idea of what makes a good comic is different. For myself, I like a bit of depth of emotion, of exploration of the human condition and the terrible humours, tragedies, beginnings, endings and loves contained therein.

I was lucky enough to meet Rudu at the Small Press Expo in Washington DC back in October. Indeed her lecture about her work immediately followed mine and we sat in on each other’s. I guess we immediately hit it off. She is not only an extraordinary artist, as daring and experimental as they come, she is an uncompromising cartographer of the human heart. Someone in the audience at SPX - I forget the exact wording of his question - asked why she hadn’t made more of the backdrop of modern Israel in this book – I think he meant war, terrorism, bombs and the like. I was surprised at this question, because as far as I was concerned, she had – it was there all the time in the background, omnipresent; it’s just not placed center stage. Indeed the whole story is kick-started by a person gone missing in a suicide bombing. But Modan is more concerned with the small, human stuff that ripples outward from this event, the sorts of stories that go unreported in the media.

Robot Dreams by Sara Varon. Am I allowed to talk about books that are published by the same imprint as me? Well, I didn’t commission them. This book hits the heartstrings in an endearing tale of a dog who builds himself his own friend and then has to deal with the guilt he feels at abandoning him. A lovely book.

Notes For A War Story by Gipi. A darker tract for the author of the excellent Garage Band, this is another tale of war where the greater battles don’t take center stage, just the small human ones. This one is about the cost of war upon three young men and of how the fracturing of society affects them.

Lucky by Gabrielle Bell. Gabrielle Bell wears many different hats. For this book, she is a stream-of-consciousness diarist whose humanity, sense of humor and ability of observation we should all aspire to.

Watching Days Become Years by Jeff Levine. I’ve described Jeff LeVine’s work before as “meditative existential nausea� but that doesn’t do justice to the lyricism he also instills in his pages. These four pamphlets, available from Sparkplug Comic books, are an unfolding marriage of picture and word; a kind of comics poetry. Seek them out.
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I have both The Salon and Exit Wounds and rank them up there as those books that make you think - are they enjoyable to read? I'm not so sure but they are pretty darn interesting from start to finish. I would consider them the more "literary" end of graphic novels - if that makes any sense - and challenge any reader with a love of great deeply thought out novels to give them a shot.

I'm holiday bleary at this point - back tomorrow with Nicola Griffith.