Word: masereel
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Though the term "graphic novel" originated with Will Eisner's "A Contract with God" in 1978, the first actual novel told in pictures appeared over 50 years earlier. A Belgian wood engraver named Frans Masereel created "Passionate Journey," subtitled "A Novel in 165 Woodcuts" in 1926. Through wordless tableaus it tells the story of a man's journeys across classes, cultures, depravations and indulgences. Politicized by the horrors of the First World War, Masereel uses the book, told in the universal language of pure images, partly as an anti-establishment, pro-democratic political parable. Now, nearly 75 years later, Masereel...
...years after his first book, "Flood!," appeared and won an American Book Award, Drooker has released a kind of follow-up, "Blood Song" (Harcourt, Inc.; 300 pp.; $20). (A new edition of "Flood!" is being concurrently released by Dark Horse Comics.) Both "Flood!" and "Blood Song" continue Masereel's idea of a silent journey. But where "Flood!" took place exclusively in the dehumanizing world of a biblically punished New York, "Blood Song," moves from a pastoral to a modern metropolis, exploring the role of the individual in nature and society...
...course, as a ballad, you also read "Blood Song" as much for the way it tells the story as for the story itself. With a traditional ballad you may notice the rhyme scheme or alliteration. Here you marvel at Drooker's skill as an artist. Reminiscent of Masereel's woodcuts, Drooker uses scratchboard, where you carve out the lines rather than draw them in. Over this he adds layers of slate-gray watercolor for tone and depth. Then, amidst this near-monochrome world, at sparingly particular moments, he adds a zap of color: a bird, a butterfly, or blood...
...Eric Drooker's elegiac, spiritual, and political "Blood Song" has no current peer. Written in a language that anyone can understand, exploring themes of universal interest, Drooker continues Masereel's profoundly democratic artwork...