The Friday Comics Review

Not to be confused with the semi-regular "Couch Pundit's Sunday Comix," this is a new weekly look at recent comic books and graphic novels that have impressed me, ones I think would be worthy of your reading time, whether you're a comics fan or not. And we start things off with a genuine artistic tour de force.

Nat Turner by Kyle Baker (Abrams, $12.95). I've been a fan of Baker's work since his hilarious debut as a graphic novelist, The Cowboy Wally Show. The same things that made me enjoy his work so much then-- fast-paced storytelling, imaginative panel layouts, and (especially) stylish artwork with wonderfully-rendered facial expressions-- were on blazing display many years later in the four-part series, Nat Turner, that he self-published in 2005. Now it's been collected in one volume, to take its place with the best serious comics work ever done.

Baker tells the story of the Nat Turner slave revolt with no dialogue whatsoever, only (spare) sound effects and quoted text. The text is from "The Confessions of Nat Turner," wherein the literate slave told both the story of the revolt (he and his fellow slaves killed 57 white people) and his own history. With illustrations both heartbreaking and terrifying, Baker depicts the life and treatment of Turner so well, more words aren't needed.

To prove it, here are three panels from the harrowing scene where Nat and his family are separated by their owners. Who needs dialogue with pictures like these?

The book is filled with emotional moments like that, and the final long scene depicting the revolt is remarkable. Baker must have known before he started that he could pull it off, but I wonder if even he wasn't surprised by just how good Nat Turner ended up, and how inspired his artwork was.

It gets the highest praise I can ever give a graphics novel: I'd recommended this to anyone who wanted to read a really good book, and you don't have to know anything about comics to see-- feel-- how good it is.

(Email Steve at couchpundit@yahoo.com.)