Tuesday, August 15, 2006

"Bummer man, that's a bummer."

I found myself half-way through Gilbert Hernandez' new graphic novel Sloth, thinking to myself, "This is fantastic! I want to option the rights to this thing and make it into a film." It felt very Lynchian at times and it seemed to be building to an amazing catharsis. Having lived through a coma myself, I was particularly taken by the nonchalant treatment of it as something that "just sorta happened" but, regardless, has completely altered the characters' lives in subtle ways. I completely identified!

Then suddenly there is a body-switch/parallel universe thing straight out of Lost Highway, and now I'm completely hooked. I start to get giddy and excitedly flip through the pages.

And then...pfft!

The story peters out in the third act and fizzles and loses its momentum, I feel. I was so bummed by the ending I almost felt like returning it. And that so rarely happens to me. I am pretty accepting of everything I read or watch and don't invest too heavily in any work of art to the point where I get upset if it fails to live up to my expectations.

But the first two thirds were great!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was in a coma and whatnot.

DaveO said...

You've been diagnosed with cancer and whatnot.