Can't Get No

Written by Rick Veitch Art and cover by Veitch Corporate exec Chad Roe had the perfect modern life. But the trophy wife, the prestigious job and the pills have always threatened to overwhelm him, and things go from bad to ugly when one night of debauchery hits the sobering light of September 11, 2001. Comics iconoclast Rick Veitch (SWAMP THING, Brat Pack) writes and illustrates a graphic novel as singular in its execution as it is in the events it portrays. Half the height of a standard comic, told in landscape format with over 350 pages of story, Can't Get No features Veitch inventing a poetry unique to the medium to tell the story of a man and nation torn by tragedy. Reeling from the financial collapse of his business, Chad Roe descends into a night of depravity, only to wake up a marked man - literally - his body covered in a permanent tattoo. But Chad will be only one of the many whose lives are forever changed after that Tuesday morning of September 11, 2001. Instead of picking up the pieces, he takes to the road, heading straight into the shell-shocked heart of America on a desperate search for salvation.

Grade 10 Up–Advertising executive Chad Roe is working on the new Eter-No-Mark permanent marker when its indelible nature causes its stock to plummet unexpectedly. Reeling with shock and disappointment, Chad wakes from ones prescribed poison binge to find himself tattooed from tip to toe with his own marker. This transformation takes place immediately before the destruction of the World Trade Center, and the combined experiences send Chad on a surreal, bacchanalian voyage of exploration of America and the inner self, culminating at a celebration modeled on the Burning Man festival. The books horizontal format creates a series of easily accessible layouts without the complicated panel tiers that can render an ordinary comic page difficult to follow. Combined with the bold line work, which effectively showcases the contrast of Chads intricate tattoo, the artwork is very legible, telling its story clearly without the need for any additional verbal narration. And good thing, too, as the narrative captions are lumbered with a series of complex metaphors and ruminations, all of which are presented in most purple prose. One of graphic literatures unique features is its ability to have two narratives take place simultaneously, one in the words and another in the images. The parallel verbal and visual narratives here have interesting conjunctions, but the short phrases and constant churn of reference make the verbal portion extremely difficult to absorb. This is a bold experiment, but its unlikely to provoke the sort of emotion or awareness for which its clearly aiming.–Benjamin Russell, The Derryfield School, Manchester, NH
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Starred Review. Within this oddly shaped book lies one of the most remarkable achievements in recent comics history. Veitch (Maximortal; Swamp Thing) has given the graphic novel medium what may just be its first long-form poem. The drawings tell the story of corporate drone Chad Roe, who is given a new outlook when a weekend bender leaves him tattooed on every inch of his body. His life is further upended when the World Trade Center, where his office is located, is destroyed. This book's distinct style shines through with the narrative captions that accompany Veitch's remarkable art. They don't contain the main character's inner monologue or a narrator's comments on the actions. Instead they present a satirical yet lyrical commentary on the modern American life Roe was very much a part of, but is suddenly removed from now that he is a walking piece of abstract art. It's a biting evisceration of the comfortable place many Americans convinced themselves they had, a conviction that was challenged on 9/11. The words and pictures move in and out of synch with each other, sometimes exemplifying the power and possibilities of comics. When they seem to be telling two different stories, it goes even further to show how several ideas can be communicated at once. Fortunately, Veitch's ideas are strong enough to justify the treatment. (June)
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Vaughan and Henrichon recount, from the escapees' perspective, a real incident of the Iraq War in which lions escaped from the Baghdad Zoo. Beautiful watercolor panels display the lion pride's individual personalities as well as their natural zeal for freshly killed meat. When bombers lay waste their artificial den, two lionesses, a cub, and the pride's patriarch wander through the broken zoo landscape and then into town. They confront wonders, many of them nightmarish: dead humans, a captured and mistreated lion (used as a symbol of the Iraqi forces), the horizon, and, eventually, their assassins, American soldiers. Although this is in many respects a talking-animal comic, the politics and science of captive creatures and a war-torn land are respectfully limned by Vaughan's characterizations and Henrichon's attention to anatomical movement and architectural detail. The lions' particular viewpoints--male, female, old, young--allow moral questions to be considered from several experiential bases. This has the potential to become a crossover discovery for readers unfamiliar with or unconvinced of the graphic novel's literary capabilities. Francisca Goldsmith
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