Word: swains
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After an eight-year gap since her last major work, Swain has finally come out with a new, short graphic novel, "FoodBoy" (Fantagraphics; 72 pages; $9.95). A native of England, Swain creates characters that could be called "Trainspotting" types: mostly working class, they are school outcasts, unemployed and unemployable. Bored but never boring, they discover mysteries about the world or else make up their...
...calm only by stifling a churning agitation inside. While not so desirable in a personality, "muted" artworks have a long history. Brass horns with dampers stuffed inside are the most obvious example, but there are muted works in the visual arts as well. The comix work of Carol Swain, for instance, has a cool exterior that muffles an agitated, jangly inner life...
...Gareth and Ross check out the shrinking lake in Carol Swain's "Foodboy...
...Gareth, a typical Swain surrogate, finds it all a bit odd, but what the hell. The whole place is weird anyway. For instance, a reservoir created by a dam has been drying out, revealing a once-sunken village. Swain shows us the fish that have formed a churning mass, forced ever closer by the waning pool. The mystery of Ross - whether he's turned feral by choice or by circumstance or ill luck - remains unanswered. The reasons don't matter. For Swain the mystery of the world is what makes it interesting. You have to give in to her ambiguities...
...knew that Howard Dean was such a sugar-tongued swain? Al Gore's televised "I do" last week (not to be confused with Trista and Ryan's more lavish and much higher-rated nuptials) was the culmination of a secret but ardent yearlong courtship by Dean. Yes, it may be a marriage of convenience, but the hushed backroom cell-phone calls, the clandestine visits, the little apercus of agreement on global warming are all part of a modern political romance novel. Apparently the doctor has a bedside manner after all. But the relationship did not really get serious until Gore...