Tommy Redolfi

This graphic novel starts off with a young Norma Jean arriving in "Holy Wood," a place peopled by grotesque persons, with a couple known as the Wilcoxes pulling the strings. It's sort of based on Marilyn Monroe's life but takes huge liberties with the historical facts (e.g., showing her doing multiple nude photo shoots when she only did one; having her act in a commercial before her movie career takes off but the commercial is a fake ad from one of her real-life movies; ignoring her marriage to Arthur Miller completely; and so on). The eerie idea of some nefarious otherworldly entities running all of Hollywood isn't fully explained, and honestly isn't the real-life issue of sleazy men holding all the power horrendous enough?

I kept thinking while reading this book that if the author had come up with a fictional character (instead of playing fast and loose with an actual person's biography) and then set the story within this bizarre world, that might have helped a great deal. This feels like it used the iconic Marilyn Monroe as a ploy to pull readers in, but those same readers will ultimately leave disappointed because of how odd this story is, especially if they were expecting more of a straightforward graphic biography. Even so, the story was so peculiar and it felt like there were so many unanswered questions that I'm still not sure it would have been all that appealing. There were times when I could appreciate the artistry (both illustrative and the grander scheme of story-telling, symbolism, etc.) but that just wasn't enough to carry it for me.… (meer)