The Red and Black

Issue date: 5/1/09 Section: Variety

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Koren Shadmi's "In the Flesh" is a dark, sometimes brilliant collection of comics about relationships that don't quite work, including a boy trying to have a relationship with a headless girl and a woman fixated on a children's TV personality.

The wonderful thing about these graphic shorts is the characters' sense of wonder at why things go wrong, from mismatched intentions to financial issues. Shadmi's art is powerfully expressive. His rough pencils and bleak palette illicit a grim tone of both the characters and the world in which they live.

But Shadmi's visual storytelling is lacking. He doesn't employ techniques unique to graphic novels - there's rarely a juxtaposition of words only possible in comics. The text is almost entirely driven by word balloons from characters in that panel. It almost reads like a film. I would have liked to see more experimentation with the strengths of the medium.

The dialogue is strong. Even in the bizarre personal situations, Shadmi consistently creates real conversation that resonates well with the characters and their environment.

The "schtickiness" of the stories may irk readers. Though they all have a unique take on relationships, they follow a very distinct formula: "normal" people finds themselves with someone they're into, but due to a very unusual complication, it cannot work out. Each story works well on its own, but near the end I wanted to say, "Alright, I get it."

Ultimately, I found "In the Flesh" quite lovely. It's not perfect, or a landmark in graphic novels, but it's different and demonstrates the growth of the medium. I'd recommend it for any fan of surreal fiction and anyone who's on the fence about comics as literature.

- Christopher Taylor is a senior majoring in newspapers

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