2016, English edition 2018
A dreamlike biography of Marilyn Monroe? Not what I consider the Humanoids brand.
Just from seeing the front cover blurb by David Cronenberg, you would know this isn't going to be a normal book. The tone of Marilyn's Monsters isn't Cronenberg by any experience I've had of his movies, but it is very much in the tone of David Lynch. Normal people doing normal-ish things, but everything is off and everything is a little too intense.
There are some parallels between Betty Book and Marilyn |
The story is Marilyn Monroe's story, but it isn't. It's emotionally Marilyn Monroe's story told through a dreamy, fairytale style window. It wasn't what I was expecting, but even if I was told in advance what this was, I would have had a hard time grasping it. It's just outside of my frame of reference for comics.
Holy Wood isn't very glamourous |
Graphic shifts like this add to the atmosphere |
"36 days to M.M." |
It's kind of gross |
Another shift |
Whether you like this or not may come down to just how much you like the movies of a filmmaker like David Lynch. I like Lynch's movies, and have seen most of them... but in the 90s. Mulholland Drive was the last I watched. I thought they were really exciting, I watched them, and didn't have much desire to rewatch them or follow up on his work after a point.
Likewise, I liked this book a fair bit, and read it in two days or so. I wasn't so blown away with it that I looked up what else Redolfi has done though. It's a good piece of work that isn't what I get excited at reading. I could imagine a lot of people, especially people who avoid mainstream comics entirely, really liking this.
As a Humanoids book, it is a world away from Jodorowsky. I know they put out a variety of books in France, but it's nice to see some of that variety in their English bookline as well.
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