Gabriel BáBesprekingen

The entire tale contains different chapters about the same character's life. But they're not continuous chapters of the same life - since the main character dies in each story at different ages and after diverging paths. So, that would mean this is a pretty dark book. And yet...and yet....it's not. Alright, it is dark...there's some murder, a variety of accidents, lots of other ill fated life, but there's also hope for the future, there's a message to make the best of the life we have, wherever it finds us. And that's something to take with you.

Um dos livros mais importantes da literatura brasileira contemporânea, Dois irmãos vem, desde seu lançamento há quinze anos, conquistando novas gerações de leitores. E foi com o mesmo entusiasmo desses leitores que Fábio Moon e Gabriel Bá embarcaram na missão de adaptar o romance de Milton Hatoum para uma graphic novel. Entre os mais premiados da última década, os irmãos quadrinistas vêm igualmente arrebatando fãs e trazendo uma verdadeira legião de leitores às HQs. Suas obras foram publicadas em diversos países, atravessando fronteiras culturais e políticas. Ao mesmo tempo que preserva a força narrativa de Hatoum, esta adaptação evidencia o talento de Bá e Moon na construção de histórias que alternam entre a tragédia, a delicadeza, a brutalidade e o humor. No traço deles, a vida dos gêmeos Yaqub e Omar ganha novos contornos épicos. A Manaus dos quadrinhos, feita de um jogo de luz e sombras, acolhe este drama que cruza gerações e, seja nos grandes planos ou nos mínimos detalhes, carrega o enredo original de energia e vitalidade. Quem conhece a obra de Hatoum vai não apenas reencontrar, mas redescobrir com outros olhos personagens marcantes como Domingas, Halim, Zana e Dália. E os novos leitores terão contato com um riquíssimo universo ficcional, um drama que, ao esmiuçar a intimidade e a rivalidade de Yaqub e Halim, lança luz nas frestas das relações familiares, do amor e da história recente do Brasil.

I don't want to be at a loss for words. This book was drop dead wonderful. A work of art and literature from twin brothers. This is easily in the top 10 books that I have read. In graphic novels, it lies in the realm of Watchmen, Bones, and Blankets. Do yourself a favor. Read this book. Sit and absorb the artwork. You won't be disappointed.

CW: Blood, Torture, Fatphobia

What can I say? I'm absolutely loving this series!

I had mixed feelings about the show, but reading this has made me appreciate the changes they made and doing something different with the characters in a different medium.

I pretty much said everything I have to say in my review of the first volume, and can only really add that this is a lot more of everything and getting extra specially weird and wibbly wobbly timey wimey. It you enjoyed the first comics, I can't see you having a bad time, and if you didn't, would you expect to enjoy this?

It's utter glorious ridiculous chaos and I'm glad there's still more for me to dive into!

as a Gerard Way stan, im a little ashamed it’s taken me so long to read this. it was weird, wild, whacky, whimsical, and all around entertaining. i can’t wait to read the next!

I wasn't going to read this, after watching a bunch, but not all, of the show and enjoying it enough, but not being blown away. I am very glad it was sin my local library network because it's unbelievably different in form and tone to the show and I absolutely loved it!

This takes aesthetics and the veneer of the sensibilities of much older superhero comics and huge, weird premises, just go with it stylings, and updates the actual tone and writing to a very modern, fresh, and self aware look at superheroes, particularly child prodigy superheroes and how that effects their adult lives.

The DNA of the show is all there with some major changes, especially the portrayal of Vanya. The show fleshes out and deepens a lot of the characters and their relationships at the expense of the utterly ridiculous, rip-roaringnsess of the comic. There's just so much fun and herded-cat effective silliness and scale that just doesn't translate, and it's glorious to see in its original form, and to have both!

The art is great. The writing is really cool. This is just an absolute corker of a comic that wasn't in the least but spoiled by my already knowing the general beats of the story from the show. I will absolutely be checking out further volumes and kinda want to actually catch up on the show now too.

This was absolutely the cover to cover happy times, single-sitting read that I needed after BRZRKR was such a disappointment.

"I will never forget that moment, or forget the expression on Stella's face as she watched Vic hurrying away from her. Even in death I shall remember that. Her clothes were in disarray, and there was makeup smudged across her face, and her eyes-You wouldn't want to make a universe angry. I bet an angry universe would look at you with eyes like that."

In this graphic novel adaption of "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" which was nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Short Story and won the Locus Award for Best Short Story, Gaiman conjures up an eerie coming of age story that is not only about the differences between the sexes (men viewing women as foreign creatures or "aliens") but could also be read as a parable for how to treat girls (i.e. don't take advantage of them because, because after all, you wouldn't want to make the universe angry). It is also a great story that investigates (like so many stories from Gaiman have a tendency to do) childhood memory and the loss of childhood innocence through the lens of the fantastical.

The story is pretty simple. It is about a couple of British 1970s teen-aged boys, Enn and Vic, who go to a party to meet girls, only to find that the girls are very different from the boys' expectations. But the story goes deeper than that. Enn, who doesn't really know how to interact with girls (or so he thinks) encounters three "alien beings" who attempt to express their loneliness, their thirst for knowledge, imperfection, fear of death, and need to communicate their stories. His friend, Vic is a more superficial, takes off upstairs with the girl Stella (Star), and he gets more than he bargained for-as the universe finds him lacking.

Enn's last meeting is with Triolet, who pours her story/poem into his being. This story in the form of a poem changes him. Enn can recognize and access the story inherent in the music playing in the house amidst the stars and the universe. Just then, however, Vic dashes up and says they have to leave. Triolet is disappointed that she doesn’t get to finish her poem, but Vic is insistent. Enn looks up the stairs and sees the disheveled Stella, whose eyes he would never forget

Thirty years later, as Enn is telling the story, he recalls that Stella's eyes looked like an angry universe.

The boys run for a long time, until Vic stops and throws up in the gutter. He begins to sob as he tries to explain what he’s experienced. Enn says he still can’t imagine what Vic saw that night that terrified him so badly. Enn tries to remember the poem Triolet told him, but he cannot.

What is interesting about this story is the fact that both the girls and Enn seem to be travelers and in search of something. Enn seems like he searching for deeper connections and meaning and so are the girls. In contrast, Vic was only concerned with a more primal connection and well, upset a superior being in the process.

The story happens only through the course of a few hours yet encompasses eons of extrapolated human nature. How does Gaiman do it?

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, the folks who adapted this story into its graphic form, as they manage to create a strangely unique place in the everyday world that Gaiman has created. The artwork manages to highlight some of the stranger but subtle parts of the story well through its playful use of watercolors.

Highly recommended.

Interesting attempt at literary fiction, in comics. It's surprisingly a genre not that well represented in the artform, even in these modern times, with the "real mainstream". Anyhoo, it has a singular little conceit, a trope to structure the stories, which gets more grating as the story goes on. I suspect Moon and Ba found themselves regretting it at times. Still, it doesn't detract from what is a nice, engaging story about life and fate and romance and stuff like that. The art is pleasant and works well. I may be bumping up my rating a little for effort and originality.

I read this because of how much I enjoyed the Netflix series. While I still enjoyed the comic, especially the art, I have to say the Tv series had a far better story.

Fantastic graphic novel from Brazil.

Full colour throughout. Story of two young men, still teenagers who turn up to the wrong house party and encounter mysterious girls who seem to be from another planet. Funny.

The TV adaptation does it better. But this was still goofy fun.

Typical Gaiman-esque allegory

3.5 out of 5 stars
This was a weird story. Enn and his friend go to a party and Enn has a lot of random conversations with pretty girls and it never raises a single red flag in his brain that the things they are saying make absolutely no sense.

😭

Like all Hellboy, this was great.

A beautifully unsettling book. It reminds me of some of Ray Bradbury's short stories.

SO different (and yet not?) from the show.

2831

1771

Really interesting and fun story. Marred somewhat by problematic word choices and characterisations of women... which can somewhat be attributed to it's time ('06). I know Fraction is better than that now so I hope the subsequent volumes get past it.

I definitely loved the netflix adaptation of this series. The comic series is a little immature and confusing for my taste

Spring 2019;

Reread 2019, entry for Volume #1: Suite/Volume #2: Dallas (& 1st half of Volume #3: Hotel)

I was just post watching Netflix's Umbrella Academy. I still find these books rough around the ears, on the edges, with a good dose of kid needing to be lightly (and even in places not so lightly) thumped on the head. Which doesn't change that I still read it eons ago, and that I'd been excited since the moment the announcement for the show got made, even though I drug my feet for a week or so before watching after it was released.

I still love the utter zany comic-book-ness of the comics that the show doesn't have. More robots, and belts that let you fly, and statues that come to life and are your villains. This team of superheroes that are basically a team of superhero rejects in some ways, who we know so little about the childhood and adulthood of, only why they were suddenly brought back together.

The art is still rough, but I still have so much more association with the art than I expected. Even for their being drastically more in the show, I still felt more at home seeing the Umbrella universe through its original vantage point it was created for.

(I'm definitely still far more attached to the trio of brothers being stuck in the past together. I'm painfully glad Allison complicated relationship turned unswerving devotion to Vanya from the books stayed in. I'm glad the whole of Luther & Allison is still there. I'm glad they gave Klaus a bit more life, though I still go back and forth on the calming of Diego for the show. I'm still wondering if they actually nerfed Allison's powers, because that would be sad.

For Hotel Specifically - I still am dying to see what the comics do with the implications of Five & Vanya, too. And with what looks like it is leading toward the reveal of what happened to the other children who were not bought and collected by Reginald Hargreeves, which I'm both excited and hugely wary of having in my hands.)

Spring 2019;

Reread 2019, entry for Volume #1: Suite/Volume #2: Dallas (& 1st half of Volume #3: Hotel)

I was just post watching Netflix's Umbrella Academy. I still find these books rough around the ears, on the edges, with a good dose of kid needing to be lightly (and even in places not so lightly) thumped on the head. Which doesn't change that I still read it eons ago, and that I'd been excited since the moment the announcement for the show got made, even though I drug my feet for a week or so before watching after it was released.

I still love the utter zany comic-book-ness of the comics that the show doesn't have. More robots, and belts that let you fly, and statues that come to life and are your villains. This team of superheroes that are basically a team of superhero rejects in some ways, who we know so little about the childhood and adulthood of, only why they were suddenly brought back together.

The art is still rough, but I still have so much more association with the art than I expected. Even for their being drastically more in the show, I still felt more at home seeing the Umbrella universe through its original vantage point it was created for.

(I'm definitely still far more attached to the trio of brothers being stuck in the past together. I'm painfully glad Allison complicated relationship turned unswerving devotion to Vanya from the books stayed in. I'm glad the whole of Luther & Allison is still there. I'm glad they gave Klaus a bit more life, though I still go back and forth on the calming of Diego for the show. I'm still wondering if they actually nerfed Allison's powers, because that would be sad.

For Hotel Specifically - I still am dying to see what the comics do with the implications of Five & Vanya, too. And with what looks like it is leading toward the reveal of what happened to the other children who were not bought and collected by Reginald Hargreeves, which I'm both excited and hugely wary of having in my hands.)

Graphic Novel Book Club, Book #1

I didn't know anything about this graphic novel when I picked it up at all. I went into it only knowing there would be a series of obituaries in it. What I fell into was a n amazing twisting and turning story about little deaths, about choices and consequences, about lives that could have happened and death's that could have stopped them. I was confused and chilled and baffled and intrigued the whole through, torn entirely on whether I was even engaged and enjoying it.

Until I reached the last two issues and in the middle of them realized I was reading with rapt attention and goosebumps through them. It's an exquisite ending for a rollercoaster read. I would definitely recommend it to those who love graphic novels, epistolary writing, and navel gazing about the soul, life, death, love, betrayal, everything.