sphinx reviewed Baby's in Black: Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe, and The Beatles in Hamburg on + 97 more book reviews
This book suffers painfully from "talking heads syndrome". The vast majority of the panels are filled with... you guessed it... talking heads! We don't get much of an idea of the world these people are living in, as there are few interior or exterior details included, and the stylisation the author uses to draw his characters is limiting, as it restricts facial expressions. The characters don't really make any facial expressions, they just look the same from panel to panel, no matter what they happen to be feeling, and some of the characters are a little difficult to tell apart at times.
There are very few panels without speech bubbles, and this reveals the author's lack of understanding of the medium he is working in: graphic novels are about the /images/, the ability to tell a story in pictures - pictures being worth a thousand words - and this author needs a lot of practise at that skill. He does a whole lot of telling, and not much showing, even when a particular story (such as George and Paul lighting a condom on fire in the hallway) would lend itself perfectly to being fully illustrated. Even the beautiful Rudolph Nureyev doesn't get shown, only talked about, even though the characters go to see him perform!
The band dynamics are also not as, well, dynamic as they probably ought to be. Everyone seems to be in a calm, rosy mood all the time, when actually the Beatles were under a lot of stress, playing around 8 hours a night, seven nights a week. Slave labour, really, though they loved their music. John's well-documented rudeness and outre behaviour in Hamburg is barely touched on, and none of the others are particularly well-characterised.
For hardcore Beatles fans this will still be interesting to read, as the author apparently spent a lot of time interviewing Astrid to gather facts for the book, so there are some details here unavailable elsewhere, especially regarding Stuart.
Recommended for serious Beatle die-hards only.
There are very few panels without speech bubbles, and this reveals the author's lack of understanding of the medium he is working in: graphic novels are about the /images/, the ability to tell a story in pictures - pictures being worth a thousand words - and this author needs a lot of practise at that skill. He does a whole lot of telling, and not much showing, even when a particular story (such as George and Paul lighting a condom on fire in the hallway) would lend itself perfectly to being fully illustrated. Even the beautiful Rudolph Nureyev doesn't get shown, only talked about, even though the characters go to see him perform!
The band dynamics are also not as, well, dynamic as they probably ought to be. Everyone seems to be in a calm, rosy mood all the time, when actually the Beatles were under a lot of stress, playing around 8 hours a night, seven nights a week. Slave labour, really, though they loved their music. John's well-documented rudeness and outre behaviour in Hamburg is barely touched on, and none of the others are particularly well-characterised.
For hardcore Beatles fans this will still be interesting to read, as the author apparently spent a lot of time interviewing Astrid to gather facts for the book, so there are some details here unavailable elsewhere, especially regarding Stuart.
Recommended for serious Beatle die-hards only.
