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Can you imagine Gaiman's story about Humpty Dumpty. What darkly whimsical delights.
"Stories are like eggs", it opens, in gorgeous calligraphy over a collage by award-winning Dave McKean. "You peel them open, and sometimes..."
"A NEW LIFE pops out."
Humpty is, in a twist from the gloriously wicked mind of Neil, a fat businessman who owns a tenement in The Village, NYC! The tenement is crowded with colorful, kind of "off-beat" characters. Over 24 monthly episodes, each with a dustcover by Dave (published in The Art of Four and 20 Blackbirds), you will get to know and love them all. We promise! ("signed, Karen Berger x". The last bit was in wonderful calligraphy, by Dave.)
On the top floor lives Missy Muffet, who designs dresses for dolls! And just so happens... to be a Lesbian. Shocked? Get used to it! It's Neil's world, and it happens in the real world too. Missy has been abused by an ex-lover, and her Father. We'll learn that through her dreams, which Neil writes and Dave will illustrate in beautiful but sad black and white inks.
Next, it's David and his big bear of a German lover, Wolf. Yes, they're both men... and? Get used to it! In Neil's whimsical world, people love whoever they like. (Some of us wish the so-called real world would be so generous... love, Karen x) You'll grow to adore Wolf and David, with their bitchy spats. It's like Jack from TV's "Will & Grace", meets Wulf Sternhammer from cult Brit underground comix, "Strontium Dog"... with the lashings of telling, so-real wit only Neil can provide. In episode 12, David buys a red hat and we discover Wolf isn't what he seems... I'm saying nothing, but it has something to do with a well-loved fairytale, passed through the astonishing imagination of Neil. Keep guessing! There'll be a prize for the letter that comes closest to discovering Neil's amazing twist ~ a collectable "Wulf" porcelain figure, hand-painted by someone in Dave's factory, and signed by that person, also.
In the basement lives a quizzical little girl named "Alice" with a darkly whimsical secret: when she talks, Dave really pulls out the stops with the calligraphy. Each individual letter is hand-crafted in a different color, with letters turned on their side, even upside-down to convey the wonderfully weird way Alice speaks! Some may find it challenging to read, but this isn't your usual comic book... and we know you wouldn't expect one, from multiple award-winner Neil.
Episodes 1-3 introduce Alice, and ask who is the darkly mysterious landlord who lives in the attic? (It's Humpty. Don't write in.) Neil deftly weaves in the tale of the Egyptian God Thoth, drawing occasional parallels with what's going on in the "real" world. Each issue comes with an epigram and closing quotation, both drawn from Literature, and four slightly different covers by Dave, which could perhaps lead you to discover a Golden Rabbit hidden somewhere in England, if you study the differences hard enough! (So what's to stop you buying them all?)
Episodes 4-10 explore the rest of this wonderfully funky household, leading up to the future award-winning single-issue tale of Wolf's real self, "Under the Fur". Watch out for #9, which departs from the house to relate the story of African "griot", or tale-teller, N'kame... a stand-alone fable that has intriguingly faint echoes of what's going on in Humpty's House! (Look out for the frame showing the landowner, H'umpti... you may find it familiar). Some readers may find it gives them insights into the main story, but it can be read on its own, or alongside #16, which takes us to the court of Christina Rosetti's Goblin King, for another amazing fairy-tale penned by Neil that features Monsieur Umptee, another version of a mystery character from an earlier era!
Episode 24 wraps up the whole wonderful series as the identity of the good-looking, leather-jacketed, mirror-shade wearing "Tale-Teller" (from the prologs of episodes 3, 9, 13) is revealed... no clues here but any lover of anagrams can get puzzling on this conundrum: "LEIN AIGMAN".
Special appearance in #23 by Tori Amos. Collect the ten figurines of Tori and her Dream King, each modelled on sketches by one of Neil's favorite artists, in December 2007. Prestige edition with stand and numbered box, £599. |
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