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Blood of the Virgin
“A story about storytelling...Conjures up the grindhouse movie-making scene in 1970s Los Angeles and tracks an ambitious young man’s flailing attempts to build a family and a career as a film arteest in that debased world...A book with a lot of heart.” —Art Spiegelman, bestselling author of MAUS
Fourteen years in the making, renowned and beloved graphic novelist Sammy Harkham finally delivers his epic story of artistic ambition, the heartbreak it can bring, and what it means to be human
YOU CAN BURN IN HELL
Set primarily in Los Angeles in 1971, Blood of the Virgin is the story of twenty‑seven‑year‑old Seymour, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant film editor who works for an exploitation film production company. Sammy Harkham brings us into the underbelly of Los Angeles during a crucial evolutionary moment in the industry from the last wheeze of the studio system to the rise of independent filmmaking.
Seymour, his wife, and their new baby struggle as he tries to make it in the movie business, writing screenplays on spec and pining for the chance to direct. When his boss buys one of his scripts for a project called Blood of the Virgin and gives Seymour the chance to direct it, what follows is a surreal, tragicomic making-of journey. As Seymour’s blind ambition propels the movie, his home life grows increasingly fraught. The film’s production becomes a means to spiral out into time and space, resulting in an epic graphic novel that explores the intersection of twentieth‑century America, parenthood, sex, the immigrant experience, the dawn of early Hollywood, and, shockingly, the Holocaust.
Like a cosmic kaleidoscope, Blood of the Virgin shifts and evolves with each panel, widening its context as the story unfolds, building an intricate web of dreams and heartbreak, allowing the reader to zoom in to the novel’s the bittersweet cost of coming into one’s own.
Fourteen years in the making, renowned and beloved graphic novelist Sammy Harkham finally delivers his epic story of artistic ambition, the heartbreak it can bring, and what it means to be human
YOU CAN BURN IN HELL
Set primarily in Los Angeles in 1971, Blood of the Virgin is the story of twenty‑seven‑year‑old Seymour, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant film editor who works for an exploitation film production company. Sammy Harkham brings us into the underbelly of Los Angeles during a crucial evolutionary moment in the industry from the last wheeze of the studio system to the rise of independent filmmaking.
Seymour, his wife, and their new baby struggle as he tries to make it in the movie business, writing screenplays on spec and pining for the chance to direct. When his boss buys one of his scripts for a project called Blood of the Virgin and gives Seymour the chance to direct it, what follows is a surreal, tragicomic making-of journey. As Seymour’s blind ambition propels the movie, his home life grows increasingly fraught. The film’s production becomes a means to spiral out into time and space, resulting in an epic graphic novel that explores the intersection of twentieth‑century America, parenthood, sex, the immigrant experience, the dawn of early Hollywood, and, shockingly, the Holocaust.
Like a cosmic kaleidoscope, Blood of the Virgin shifts and evolves with each panel, widening its context as the story unfolds, building an intricate web of dreams and heartbreak, allowing the reader to zoom in to the novel’s the bittersweet cost of coming into one’s own.
296 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2023
34 people are currently reading
1314 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 144 reviews
April 17, 2024
Pathetic and shitty people live out their pathetic and shitty lives working for a B movie studio in the 1970s making a slapdash horror film. The most pathetic is a film editor named Seymour who has aspirations of writing and directing his own film but will compromise to get ahead at almost every opportunity. Mostly though, he's doing the midlife crisis thing, getting drunk and high, butting heads with his wife and sleeping around on her.
The book has a couple of big digressions, first to the 1910s with some early filmmakers who play no role in the rest of the story and then to the 1940s to give a Holocaust backstory to a secondary character who also has minimal impact in the main tale. They're not bad stories on their own, but just feel like filler here, dragging out this already overlong and tedious graphic novel.
I had passed up on reading this book previously but gave it a go because it made Publisher Weekly's list of best graphic novels of 2023. I should have stuck with my gut reaction.
The book has a couple of big digressions, first to the 1910s with some early filmmakers who play no role in the rest of the story and then to the 1940s to give a Holocaust backstory to a secondary character who also has minimal impact in the main tale. They're not bad stories on their own, but just feel like filler here, dragging out this already overlong and tedious graphic novel.
I had passed up on reading this book previously but gave it a go because it made Publisher Weekly's list of best graphic novels of 2023. I should have stuck with my gut reaction.
August 7, 2024
The kind of book that makes you want to say shit like “an accomplishment” and “magnum opus” or “triumph of the medium,” even as one of its central tasks is to deromanticize artmaking. Art about art tends to get a little navelgazey for my tastes, but Sammy Harkam’s humbling story of a 1970s b-movie production turns its attention away from one artist’s struggle and lurches toward an unforgiving, unmoored view of mass narratives in the 20th century. Its scope makes it almost one of a kind. And it doesn’t hurt that Harkham’s craft is masterful — his storytelling instincts ringing as emotionally true as they are genuinely funny.
The book itself: Blood of the Virgin is a beautifully designed hardbound volume that collects six issues published over the span of a decade (four of which I’d already read). To read them all together is a breathtaking experience – odd narrative detours almost merge, images recur without aplomb, history does and doesn’t repeat itself. I cried, I giggled. It’s hard to believe the tonal control: For a book that opens with a splash page of an onscreen knife-wielding big-tiddy zombie and later chronicles a minor character’s experience of the Holocaust, it’s all surprisingly understated.
The central narrative follows Seymour, an aspiring director, as he juggles artistic ambition with his newborn baby and unhappy wife. Almost immediately, Harkham understood that a drama about a dissatisfied family man is emotionally threadbare, or at least run through, so Seymour’s immaturity is colored with sympathetic contempt, and the perspective shifts to his wife Ida’s and beyond. The comic is deepened by its dry sense of humor and vigilant attention to detail: the idiosyncratic minutiae of family scenes, the neon signs of the times, his would-be breakthrough movie’s budget-constrained improvisations.
Its cartoon world is a living, breathing space, and – despite its exaggerated style (think EC Segar and Herge) – steeped in the material reality of 1970s Los Angeles. This historicity is contrasted with the weird ahistorical Gothic vibe of the titular werewolf (?) horror movie our protagonist is helming. As visual languages, horror and humor go hand in hand – sight gags and jump scares alike rely on a first glance to jolt the nervous system into visceral reaction. At their most efficient, comics transmit meaning wordlessly.
Similarly, comics and movies share a visual language. In one deceptively simple sequence, a veteran Hollywood producer explains to Seymour the grammar of film editing at the same time it’s represented to us by Harkham’s pacing of their dialogue (“cut on the action”). This scene takes place in the only full-color chapter, a devastating rags-to-riches biography of a ranch hand set during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Still, I promise, understated.
In the end, nothing coheres, catharsis is postponed or premature, everything is subject to the impartiality of time – a climax incomplete, shot on reused sets, playing to a distracted audience that might notice the occasional flickers of invention. Blood of the Virgin is a masterwork of the medium. A masterwork is futile, or at least compromised, in the face of atrocity and dominant culture. Maybe the creative act at least holds power in its instant of becoming and reception. A reminder. Really we’re surviving, and trying to remember how to love.
The book itself: Blood of the Virgin is a beautifully designed hardbound volume that collects six issues published over the span of a decade (four of which I’d already read). To read them all together is a breathtaking experience – odd narrative detours almost merge, images recur without aplomb, history does and doesn’t repeat itself. I cried, I giggled. It’s hard to believe the tonal control: For a book that opens with a splash page of an onscreen knife-wielding big-tiddy zombie and later chronicles a minor character’s experience of the Holocaust, it’s all surprisingly understated.
The central narrative follows Seymour, an aspiring director, as he juggles artistic ambition with his newborn baby and unhappy wife. Almost immediately, Harkham understood that a drama about a dissatisfied family man is emotionally threadbare, or at least run through, so Seymour’s immaturity is colored with sympathetic contempt, and the perspective shifts to his wife Ida’s and beyond. The comic is deepened by its dry sense of humor and vigilant attention to detail: the idiosyncratic minutiae of family scenes, the neon signs of the times, his would-be breakthrough movie’s budget-constrained improvisations.
Its cartoon world is a living, breathing space, and – despite its exaggerated style (think EC Segar and Herge) – steeped in the material reality of 1970s Los Angeles. This historicity is contrasted with the weird ahistorical Gothic vibe of the titular werewolf (?) horror movie our protagonist is helming. As visual languages, horror and humor go hand in hand – sight gags and jump scares alike rely on a first glance to jolt the nervous system into visceral reaction. At their most efficient, comics transmit meaning wordlessly.
Similarly, comics and movies share a visual language. In one deceptively simple sequence, a veteran Hollywood producer explains to Seymour the grammar of film editing at the same time it’s represented to us by Harkham’s pacing of their dialogue (“cut on the action”). This scene takes place in the only full-color chapter, a devastating rags-to-riches biography of a ranch hand set during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Still, I promise, understated.
In the end, nothing coheres, catharsis is postponed or premature, everything is subject to the impartiality of time – a climax incomplete, shot on reused sets, playing to a distracted audience that might notice the occasional flickers of invention. Blood of the Virgin is a masterwork of the medium. A masterwork is futile, or at least compromised, in the face of atrocity and dominant culture. Maybe the creative act at least holds power in its instant of becoming and reception. A reminder. Really we’re surviving, and trying to remember how to love.
April 13, 2023
Obra maestra.
June 24, 2023
Thank you to Pantheon for providing me with a copy of this book.
I was honestly surprised I didn't like this. I'm a big fan of horror, and this book was rife with references to pre-70's horror, from Universal monsters to wacky grindhouse studio schedules. I think my main issue was my dislike of all the characters. Seymour and his wife were incredibly unlikeable. Their baby's one personality trait was screaming incessantly. I also thought the book would focus more on the movie Blood of the Virgin since it was the title of the book and Seymour's passion project. Instead, we only get references to what it might be about throughout shooting. The rest of the book focuses on Seymour and his wife's disaster of a life.
I read on the internet that this was part of a serial published over 14 years. I think this is why the narrative came off as disjointed to me. It's hard to be merciful, however, when most other serials I've read are much better at conveying a cohesive story over a long period of time. Additionally, the art just wasn't that good.
Overall, I don't think I can recommend this. Unless you're already a fan of Sammy Harkham's work, I would take a pass on this.
I was honestly surprised I didn't like this. I'm a big fan of horror, and this book was rife with references to pre-70's horror, from Universal monsters to wacky grindhouse studio schedules. I think my main issue was my dislike of all the characters. Seymour and his wife were incredibly unlikeable. Their baby's one personality trait was screaming incessantly. I also thought the book would focus more on the movie Blood of the Virgin since it was the title of the book and Seymour's passion project. Instead, we only get references to what it might be about throughout shooting. The rest of the book focuses on Seymour and his wife's disaster of a life.
I read on the internet that this was part of a serial published over 14 years. I think this is why the narrative came off as disjointed to me. It's hard to be merciful, however, when most other serials I've read are much better at conveying a cohesive story over a long period of time. Additionally, the art just wasn't that good.
Overall, I don't think I can recommend this. Unless you're already a fan of Sammy Harkham's work, I would take a pass on this.
dnf
January 2, 2024Hard to read and also boring.
May 4, 2023
A masterpiece of the comic medium right up there with Maus, From Hell, Love and Rockets, Persepolis, Blackhole, etc. Definitely my favorite read of the year so far. This is sort of the equivalent of Boogie Nights but for the grind house film industry in the early 70's. Harkham is a master of storytelling, dialogue, and characters. There's so much heart in this comic. I can't wait to read it again.
April 30, 2023
A look at the 1970s exploitation film industry in Los Angeles, seen through the eyes of a man named Seymour. Seymour is a film editor and script writer, 27 years old, and an Iraqi Jew who immigrated to the US. His dream is to direct his own film and he gets that chance when one of his scripts, "Blood of the Virgin" is purchased and he is chosen to direct his vision. This book explores the making of the film, but also its effects on Seymour and his young family. I felt every moment of Seymour's frustration with the industry and his personal life in this incredible graphic novel, and the illustrations are absolutely gorgeous, capturing Seymour's daily life along with the production of the film.
September 12, 2023
I think this might be case of just “this wasn’t for me” which sucks cuz I was really excited for it and felt the premise was right up my alley.
But idk this just felt disjointed to me. There were definitely moments where I was really pulled in. One character monologue in particular stands out.
I also very, very much think this story doesn’t use the unique lens of Seymour being an Iraqi Jewish immigrant nearly enough, most especially because without that lens, there’s very little that’s unique about this story.
This graphic novel started out pretty strong; however, ultimately I just feel like this wasn’t focused enough for me, and the two interludes kinda felt really tacked on.
It’s also very possible though, that I just didn’t ~get~ it, and I hope there are people that do and love this because I like graphic novels and want more representation for them.
But idk this just felt disjointed to me. There were definitely moments where I was really pulled in. One character monologue in particular stands out.
I also very, very much think this story doesn’t use the unique lens of Seymour being an Iraqi Jewish immigrant nearly enough, most especially because without that lens, there’s very little that’s unique about this story.
This graphic novel started out pretty strong; however, ultimately I just feel like this wasn’t focused enough for me, and the two interludes kinda felt really tacked on.
It’s also very possible though, that I just didn’t ~get~ it, and I hope there are people that do and love this because I like graphic novels and want more representation for them.
May 25, 2023
Somehow, all the things I love (i.e. film-making, camp, horror, LA in the 70s, great artwork, intergenerational trauma, etc.) were mixed together in this book and yet I was bored to tears by it. Reading this felt like watching a couple of seasons of an HBO prestige television series which is probably why I didn’t like it. That isn’t to say it’s not a masterpiece, because it most certainly is, however, this just didn’t do it for me.
September 27, 2023
I’d give the art work 5 starts and the story just 3. I found it very confusing and it didn’t really hang together. For example, what was wrong with Ida’s sister? Why did she hit Ida? Why did Seymour get beaten up. Beautiful at times but also very odd.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2024
Al estilo de la película Babylon pero de películas de terror de serie B. Un retrato de una época y una ciudad (Los Ángeles) que desde sus inicios ya estaba maldita y corrompida.
October 30, 2023
Blood of the Virgin has all the hallmarks of an "indie comic." It's a big, dense read filled with weird characters and a loose, sad plot. There are several lengthy excursions into another story entirely. The driving force of the primary story is barely defined: family, ambition, anxiety, ownership. The book sucks you in even as if never quite gels into coherency.
We mostly follow Seymour, an aspiring horror-schlock writer/director, and his wife/new mom, Ida. One of Seymour's scripts has finally caught on, but the filmmaking process is a litany of disappointments. Home life with a new baby is equally exhausting. Seymour finds solace in weird nights out drinking while Ida suffers at home before eventually decamping back to New Zealand, where her family is from.
Amidst all this, we tangle with a Holocaust narrative (bleak!) and an odd cowboy-turned-movie-mogul pastiche. The book's several sections are ill-defined, mostly just a series of depressing escapades.
And yet, it's all incredibly engaging. The artwork is dreamy and appealing. The dialogue is dense and realistic. Blood of the Virgin is simply an overwhelming read. I can't quite say that I enjoyed it, but I kept finding myself pulled back to it.
We mostly follow Seymour, an aspiring horror-schlock writer/director, and his wife/new mom, Ida. One of Seymour's scripts has finally caught on, but the filmmaking process is a litany of disappointments. Home life with a new baby is equally exhausting. Seymour finds solace in weird nights out drinking while Ida suffers at home before eventually decamping back to New Zealand, where her family is from.
Amidst all this, we tangle with a Holocaust narrative (bleak!) and an odd cowboy-turned-movie-mogul pastiche. The book's several sections are ill-defined, mostly just a series of depressing escapades.
And yet, it's all incredibly engaging. The artwork is dreamy and appealing. The dialogue is dense and realistic. Blood of the Virgin is simply an overwhelming read. I can't quite say that I enjoyed it, but I kept finding myself pulled back to it.
November 12, 2024
A depressing graphic novel about people's lives in LA in the early 70s. Life sucks. I'm bummed out. I had better read some fun shit to bounce back from this emotionally. FWIW I love graphic novels and comics, Fantagraphics, 70s gothic horror crap, weirdo movies in general. Regular drama about people's shitty lives where they are sort of losers just doesn't interest me at all. I feel like we're getting a big wave of depresso Gen X drama graphic novels where dudes are basically just Philip Rothing but with sequential art. I dunno. I'll check the rest of Sammy's work cuz I need and like to but this didn't resonate with me at all and probably never could because I'm just not the demographic. I'm just not a middle aged dude.
September 7, 2023
Sammy Harkham's comix messterpiece Blood of the Virgin is a kaleidoscope of hi-jinks, heartbreak, and broken dreams in the 1970s b-movie biz. Fans of Charlie Kaufman movies, Art Spiegelman (Maus), and Dan Clowes (Ghost World) will wanna check this out.
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March 10, 2024Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
What will we make of this one, I wonder.
What will we make of this one, I wonder.
August 24, 2024
This was mostly okay for me. I enjoyed the art, 1970s LA movie vibes, etc. I get the whole overarching theme thing, that when you’re so dedicated to something it kind of takes over and ruins your life and all that tortured artist business. But the treatment of women just left me with the stink face for most of this book. I guess I don’t know the full story behind this book; from reading other reviews it seems like this has been a 14 year project collected over that time period. I’m only pointing this out because the unlikable “ugh, my nagging wife who takes care of our son all day!” crap is mostly in the beginning (tastes have changed significantly over the past 14 years). The most compelling part was Ida’s return to her home in NZ and reconnecting with her roots; we even saw her mother’s journey through the Holocaust. But Seymour rears his bum head in the end and they ride off not quite happily but also not quite unhappily into the arms of a dilapidated old mansion previously owned by a Hollywood curmudgeon (whose story is interluded in the middle of the book). Meh.
January 19, 2024
This sucked.
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April 3, 2024Perhaps the thing I like most about Sammy Harkham’s work is what I perceive as a sort of off-kilter stillness. I don’t know if other readers feel this rhythm, but to me it’s as if Harkham is drawing on the off-beat, or that his narrative somehow moves between each beat of his characters’ hearts. Over the years Harkham has evolved into a superb cartoonist—his recognizable style an America ligne clair influenced by classic strip artists like Roy Crane and Frank King—but I find his visual pacing is what most distinguishes him.
Harkham is, of course, best known as editor of Kramer’s Ergot, a publication which could easily be called the most significant and influential American comics anthology since RAW. Where Spiegelman and Mouly successfully highbrow-ified their generation of Underground and European cartoonists, Harkham has essentially defined a post-brow canon of GenX/Millennial cartoonists such as Gabrielle Bell, Mat Brinkman, Jordan Crane, Kevin Huizinga, Anders Nilsen, Lauren Weinstein, and Lale Westvind. (If you can track down copies of Kramer’s, especially the huge #7, you will be a happy reader.)
Harkham’s new book, Blood of the Virgin, ran in serial form in Kramer’s as well as in his personal comic book Crickets. BotV, an impressive 300-page saga, is ostensibly about movie-making in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the studio system was giving way to the rise of independent filmmaking. But the movies here are not Hollywood blockbusters, and there’s none of the sexy slapdash of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. BotV’s protagonist, Seymour, works deep in the schlock world of “grindhouse” cinema, and even then far from the shops that produced auteurs like Roger Corman and George Romero. Seymour’s days and nights are spent thanklessly attempting to splice together films from garbage B-reels while hoping for a break that the reader quickly realizes is unlikely ever to come.
I wrote “ostensibly about movie-making” above, because I think the real themes of BotV are deeper and more complicated: the human drive and need to create; the demands and expectations of our personal and business relationships; the problematics of identity; how we deal with adversity; the accommodations we make for the people we love, and the excuses we make for ourselves; the perils of making money; and the cruel fact that even a happy life is full of sorrows and frustrations. And more—I’ve enjoyed talking about this book with friends who resonate with entirely different themes, including the weight of history, the different facets of Jewishness, and the silent sacrifices of wives and mothers. Indeed, while Seymour is the protagonist of this book it’s his wife Ida who is the hero. She’s merely a supporting character for much of the book (and, sadly, in Seymour’s own eyes), but the end she gets her own story and even provides the book’s heart of hope: that everything will be OK even if the journey is tough.
Many of us first took note of Harkham’s work via “Poor Sailor,” a wordless story in Kramer’s Ergot that was later published as a tiny book, one panel per page. The reformatting even further emphasized the off-kilter stillness I noted above. The book’s title is an understatement: the titular character endures a Job-like life, one misfortune piling atop the next. Seymour’s life is less a parable, less relentlessly tragic, and more fully and realistically psychologically detailed than the poor sailor’s. And in the end, there is a redemption of sorts, one far less melodramatic than the fantastic movies Seymour loves, but one more like real life.
Harkham is, of course, best known as editor of Kramer’s Ergot, a publication which could easily be called the most significant and influential American comics anthology since RAW. Where Spiegelman and Mouly successfully highbrow-ified their generation of Underground and European cartoonists, Harkham has essentially defined a post-brow canon of GenX/Millennial cartoonists such as Gabrielle Bell, Mat Brinkman, Jordan Crane, Kevin Huizinga, Anders Nilsen, Lauren Weinstein, and Lale Westvind. (If you can track down copies of Kramer’s, especially the huge #7, you will be a happy reader.)
Harkham’s new book, Blood of the Virgin, ran in serial form in Kramer’s as well as in his personal comic book Crickets. BotV, an impressive 300-page saga, is ostensibly about movie-making in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the studio system was giving way to the rise of independent filmmaking. But the movies here are not Hollywood blockbusters, and there’s none of the sexy slapdash of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. BotV’s protagonist, Seymour, works deep in the schlock world of “grindhouse” cinema, and even then far from the shops that produced auteurs like Roger Corman and George Romero. Seymour’s days and nights are spent thanklessly attempting to splice together films from garbage B-reels while hoping for a break that the reader quickly realizes is unlikely ever to come.
I wrote “ostensibly about movie-making” above, because I think the real themes of BotV are deeper and more complicated: the human drive and need to create; the demands and expectations of our personal and business relationships; the problematics of identity; how we deal with adversity; the accommodations we make for the people we love, and the excuses we make for ourselves; the perils of making money; and the cruel fact that even a happy life is full of sorrows and frustrations. And more—I’ve enjoyed talking about this book with friends who resonate with entirely different themes, including the weight of history, the different facets of Jewishness, and the silent sacrifices of wives and mothers. Indeed, while Seymour is the protagonist of this book it’s his wife Ida who is the hero. She’s merely a supporting character for much of the book (and, sadly, in Seymour’s own eyes), but the end she gets her own story and even provides the book’s heart of hope: that everything will be OK even if the journey is tough.
Many of us first took note of Harkham’s work via “Poor Sailor,” a wordless story in Kramer’s Ergot that was later published as a tiny book, one panel per page. The reformatting even further emphasized the off-kilter stillness I noted above. The book’s title is an understatement: the titular character endures a Job-like life, one misfortune piling atop the next. Seymour’s life is less a parable, less relentlessly tragic, and more fully and realistically psychologically detailed than the poor sailor’s. And in the end, there is a redemption of sorts, one far less melodramatic than the fantastic movies Seymour loves, but one more like real life.
April 21, 2025
Really spectacular graphic novel. Surprised to see so many people hating on it here. I thought the meditations on ego, art and money were uncomfortable but poignant. The story meanders but in a good way. Sets up the world of b horror in the 70s at a strange intersection of art and business. Funny at the end where that director has the big monologue about hollywood’s business executives no longer caring about art and how hollywood has become more insulated than it was in the past. I suppose everyone has always been feeling like that. Definitely a very good antidote to that dreadful seth rogan tv series. No “magic of movies” bullshit. Just scorched earth. The “execs” suck but so do the “artists”. The whole thing is unfair and spiteful and hollow.
February 3, 2024
A stunning comic, personal and epic, provincial and timeless. It’s circuitous and full of digressions, surprising at a dozen different points. It’s set in a highly specific time and place and milieu, but it goes a thousand miles away and stays itself. Masterpiece.
May 26, 2024
there’s a genre of graphic novel that’s just like. dam these ppl suck
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October 4, 2023Fell in love Harkham's art style after stumbling across Poor Sailor a couple years back. Adored that book, one of the best and most underrated comic short stories ever created (amazing short film also). Haven't loved his other work, or what I've read of it. Have been longing to read something of his more long form.
Lo and behold, we have this new book! Not only is it long form, it's about one of my favourite topics: Filmmaking! This book was made for me. I rest completely in the dead centre of the Venn Diagram that exists for the target audience of this book. A long form graphic novel about Filmmaking from one of my favourite artists? Sign me up!
But did I like it?
For the most part: yes! I think this a really good book. I wouldn't say I loved it, but this might change on a re-read. Wasn't expecting the narrative to be so sprawling, and it really opens up towards the end in a way I was not expecting. Not a bad thing, just caught me off guard. Knowing what this book is actually about now, might make for a better experience the second time around. Because it turns out it's not really about filmmaking. It's really about (Vin Diesel voice activate) 'family'. This sounds corny, but I think Harkham pulls it off.
The art is also stunning. The best his work has ever looked. Especially adored the colours of that side story in the middle.
Will absolutely be reading whatever he does next. An underrated talent.
Lo and behold, we have this new book! Not only is it long form, it's about one of my favourite topics: Filmmaking! This book was made for me. I rest completely in the dead centre of the Venn Diagram that exists for the target audience of this book. A long form graphic novel about Filmmaking from one of my favourite artists? Sign me up!
But did I like it?
For the most part: yes! I think this a really good book. I wouldn't say I loved it, but this might change on a re-read. Wasn't expecting the narrative to be so sprawling, and it really opens up towards the end in a way I was not expecting. Not a bad thing, just caught me off guard. Knowing what this book is actually about now, might make for a better experience the second time around. Because it turns out it's not really about filmmaking. It's really about (Vin Diesel voice activate) 'family'. This sounds corny, but I think Harkham pulls it off.
The art is also stunning. The best his work has ever looked. Especially adored the colours of that side story in the middle.
Will absolutely be reading whatever he does next. An underrated talent.
February 11, 2024
Blood of the Virgin by Sammy Harkham.
! This was a great graphic novel about a Iraqi Jewish immigrant who works for a exploitation film production company. He is writing scripts and struggling to make his own movie. Meanwhile he is trying to have a social life with his wife and small baby and he has some real issues with alcohol and everythingin the movie process as he finally gets the change to direct his film project, he gets really obssesed with it and you see his family life falter. Inbetween this story their are two others intertwined, a story about his wife's parents in the Holocaust with barely any dialogue and a story about a Cowboy who is an actor and gets fucked over everytime. This sounds weird and its kinda is, but you just see Sammy Harkin pour in all his love for the era and this project he worked 15 years on. This might not be for everyone, but i think this was highly original! And i hope we dont have to wait for another 15 years to see a new book by him.
! This was a great graphic novel about a Iraqi Jewish immigrant who works for a exploitation film production company. He is writing scripts and struggling to make his own movie. Meanwhile he is trying to have a social life with his wife and small baby and he has some real issues with alcohol and everythingin the movie process as he finally gets the change to direct his film project, he gets really obssesed with it and you see his family life falter. Inbetween this story their are two others intertwined, a story about his wife's parents in the Holocaust with barely any dialogue and a story about a Cowboy who is an actor and gets fucked over everytime. This sounds weird and its kinda is, but you just see Sammy Harkin pour in all his love for the era and this project he worked 15 years on. This might not be for everyone, but i think this was highly original! And i hope we dont have to wait for another 15 years to see a new book by him.
November 9, 2024
Löng saga um mann af persnseskum ættum sem er að reyna að skapa sér nafn í Hollywood með því að vinna við B-myndir. Lengst af fylgir sagan honum þar sem hann brasar á setti, lendir upp á kant við fólk, rífst við eiginkonu sína og er almennt að skíta á sig.
Í seinni hluta bókarinnar er skipt um sjónarhorn, fyrst sjáum við gyðingakonu sem flúði Ungverjaland (minnir mig) í seinni heimsstyrjöldinni og kom til Kanada. Saga dóttur hennar, sem er eiginkona mannsins í byrjun, tekur við og var hún nokkuð skemmtileg. Sagan rennur síðan hálfpartinn út í sandinn þó höfundur náði að hnýta þræðina saman í lokin.
Frábærar teikningar en sagan hefði mátt vera aðeins betur mótuð og meira meitluð.
Í seinni hluta bókarinnar er skipt um sjónarhorn, fyrst sjáum við gyðingakonu sem flúði Ungverjaland (minnir mig) í seinni heimsstyrjöldinni og kom til Kanada. Saga dóttur hennar, sem er eiginkona mannsins í byrjun, tekur við og var hún nokkuð skemmtileg. Sagan rennur síðan hálfpartinn út í sandinn þó höfundur náði að hnýta þræðina saman í lokin.
Frábærar teikningar en sagan hefði mátt vera aðeins betur mótuð og meira meitluð.
July 6, 2023
A rare non-Fantagraphics, non-Drawn and Quarterly graphic novel for me. Probably somewhere between a 3 and a 4 star for me. Deep tapestry of a story here, especially the tangential dream sequence (?) and backstory. Beautiful art.
August 11, 2024
A tense and jaded story, about Hollywood and about disappointed people generally.
The composition was gorgeous, and made good use of the large page sizes.
A significant drawback of this book was that it was often difficult to identify characters, tell characters apart, and interpret the action in some of the panels. In a story where characters reappeared, changed their appearance, and committed both sight gags and wordless acts of character, it took me out of the complex story to have to reread, stop, interpret, wonder if I got it right, and then move on.
The composition was gorgeous, and made good use of the large page sizes.
A significant drawback of this book was that it was often difficult to identify characters, tell characters apart, and interpret the action in some of the panels. In a story where characters reappeared, changed their appearance, and committed both sight gags and wordless acts of character, it took me out of the complex story to have to reread, stop, interpret, wonder if I got it right, and then move on.
September 6, 2024
Essential.
October 25, 2024
delighted at how very much my thing this was
July 17, 2023
Dark Bob’s Burgers
October 21, 2022
Soon come. Stunner!
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