The Birthday Riots

A graphic novel tells the story of Max Collins, a campaign advisor to a London mayoral candidate, whose life takes a drastic turn when his teenage daughter gets caught up in a wave of political unrest, and Max is torn between his current political allegiences and his radical past.

This short but ambitious graphic novel tells of a series of crises in the life of Max Collins, a campaign adviser to a London mayoral candidate. A former radical, Collins has sold out to middle-class comfort. Over the course of several weeks, a series of political events forces him to dramatically confront his past. England is in an uproar with mounting protests against the Land Law bill, a controversial legislation that prevents the homeless Gypsies in particular from squatting or loitering on vacant land. Collins, at odds with his now politicized daughter, becomes mired slowly in a growing web of domestic strife, infidelity, city politics, homelessness and racism. British cartoonist Kanan (Lost Girl) develops his story with an eye to personal detail and the nuance of social conflict in contemporary Britain. However, as the tension between Collins's past and present grows, Kanan opts for a grand, emotionally cathartic ending a violent but unlikely confrontation with a mob of protestors where a more personal denouement might have been more powerful. Although Kanan's b&w drawings suffer from an overdependence on gray tones, his stylized line work is simple and often elegant. He's produced a mostly rich and readable work marred only by an unsatisfying ending.

Middle-age regrets over life's compromises may not seem promising material for a graphic novel, but British cartoonist Kanan manages them well in his portrayal of Max Collins, an erstwhile political radical who is now a pragmatic advisor to a London mayoral candidate, whom he counsels to ignore riots over antisquatting legislation and concentrate on less incendiary issues. Although Max is central in most of the story, its pivotal figure, as befits Kanan's more familiar theme of teenage alienation (see Lost Girl, 1999), is Max's teenage daughter, Natalie, whose disillusionment with him as her fifteenth birthday approaches precipitates actions that lead to a tragic ending. The book is more dialogue-heavy than most comics, but Kanan's economical drawing style and restrained use of gray tones ensure that it remains visually arresting. If the main themes--betrayal of youthful idealism and children's disappointment with their parents--are hardly fresh, Kanan's storytelling skill compensates. Libraries developing diverse graphic-novel collections should consider this prime example of a talented comics creator successfully tackling a story atypical for the medium. Gordon Flagg
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