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Fluffy, now published in a gorgeous collected edition by Jonathan Cape, puzzled me a bit. Perhaps it's just the first-graphic-novel syndrome, where you see the creator's ability and confidence grow through the work, but it was meandering and incomplete.
SPOILERS, if anyone cares when it's not superheroes
The bits with Fluffy were enchanting, to use a rather Hallmark adjective. A little bunny chuntering on about a tractor while walking hand-in-paw with his distracted daddy down a London street. The upset it causes when Daddy accidentally lets slip that the French eat frog's legs. It's one of those fantastic sleight-of-hand tricks that comics do so well, putting a baby bunny where a child should be. If it had been a child this would have been an Andi Watson social realist story. With a bunny, the charm and innocence of childhood was contrasted against our own world.
The plot went nowhere much, though. To Sicily to meet the family where the individual interactions were good but nothing momentuous happened. Fluffy grew up a little. Her daddy's stalker dumped him, and he achieved a moment of happiness. The occasional narration by a dust particle was cute but added little apart from another layer which the book could have done without. The art was beautiful everywhere, with flowing, uneven brushwork on the cities and train stations, simply deliniated characters and Fluffy the anomaly in it all. Funny animals in a world of humans always succeed.
Any other readers? |
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