Review: Between Gears (Graphic Novel)

Simply put, BetweenGears is an intimate look at the creator’s daily life during her senioryear of college. That’s literally all that needs to be said about the book. It’snot a story for you to figure out, it’s just a unique look at creator NatalieNourigat’s life through a daily art page.  There may notbe a complex story, but this graphic novel adaptation from Nourigat’s blog ofthe same name, is deeply compelling and will suck you in with each page turn.

I’m sure people are wondering why this graphic novel iscompelling if there is no traditionally told story. It has to do with the factthat it’s relatable. You may not come from the same walk of life as Nourigat,but there are plenty of aspects to her life that anyone can find some relationtoo. For comic readers that will be picking this book up, they’ll especiallyattach themselves to moments in which Nourigat herself discovers such wonderslike Darwyn Cooke’s Catwoman or thecritically acclaimed Manhunter. Infact in just the parts I read there are tons of comic book and cartoon referencesthat relate or apply to my life alone.

What’s truly enjoyable about the format of the book is thateach page is just one day in the life of the creator and while you’re givien the complete story of that day, the entirety of her life is unfolding beforeyou. Elements of Nouriat’s day to day life are slowly introduced until thepoint that their casual mention becomes a treated follow up to somethingmentioned previously. I particularly enjoyed the small details like thecleaning panels or watching TV on the computer while drawing. It gave the booka Scott Pilgrim feel even though thisisn’t a work of fiction.

What will catch your eye and in fact caught my eye to beginwith is the art. The art is a brilliant experiment that show-cases Nourigat’srange and skills. It also helps that it’s bloody entertaining and beautiful tolook upon. Nourigat’s style is mostly consistent but as the book goes on you’llnotice subtle changes or random experiments in styles. It gives the book asense of life and being fluid. It doesn’t feel locked into any one style whichallows Nourigat to practice with what does and doesn’t work for her. My friendJason instantly sited Ghibli animation and there is even a page in whichsomeone else compares her style to Ghibli as well. To that I have to say kudosfor having a style that is comparable to a top Japanese animation studio.

This is not the Nov. 4th page fyi

A great page to check out is November 4^th’s page.One this page we have not one, but three different art styles. We start offwith Nourigat’s personal style and then move into a Darwyn Cooke inspiredCatwoman style and then we finish the page with a very detailed close up of men’sboots. I personally found that panel to have a Ryan Kelly and Becky Cloonanlook to it. That’s also how I would describe Nourigat’s style in general: Kelly+ Cloonan + Ghibli/Manga. I could really just go on and on about the art styleand the different techniques used, but it’s a better experience to see it foryourself and absorb the different styling.

I have a back handed compliment for Image about thisbook, this is nothing like anything else they’ve published before and that’s avery good thing. This book honestly gives them more credit as a publisher ofall types of comics than a lot of other books they’ve published. It’s as ifsomeone realized that they didn’t need to publish their own superhero books inorder to make it as a successful comic book company. Between Gears has an art house feel to it that one would typicallyfind from a Top Shelf release and yethere it is from Image.

This is again not your typical Image release and as such I wouldn’trecommend it to everyone. I think a 

percentage of you wouldn’t be interested init, in the least. For me, the guy who is always digging deeper and trying tofind comics that are more and more underground and indie this is fantastic. Itreminds me of Local or Scott Pilgrimbut with real and personal experiences attached to it rather than a fantastictale. If you’re willing to take a chance on something that doesn’t involvepunching someone else, killing someone else, figuring out a murder, surviving ahorrific circumstance or exploring space while falling in love then maybe you’reready for something like this book offers… intimacy between the creator and thereader. It’s not something offered often in comics, but when it comes aroundyou should definitely give it a chance. For me, this book is a rare find that Ihave waiting anxiously to read and even after reading a review copy will bebuying a personal copy to read again.

Score: 4/5

Writer/Artist: Natalie Nourigat

Publisher: Image Comics

Release Date: 2/22/2012

Comments

[Ed A.]

I just checked and this hasn't had a UK release yet but it's going on my 'buy' list. I cannot emphasise how much I enjoy books that try to do something different with the comic form, so thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I like Image, I really do. Even though every time I think about Thief of Thieves #1 my opinion of it drops a tiny bit lower. When they aren't publishing superhero books (that's just what the comics world needs, more capes...) they put out a lot of quality, in a decent range of genres.

Speaking of which, if you're interested I did a review (sadly featuring a horrible typo) for a site called Tastes Like Comics about a recent Image one-shot/mini-graphic-novel called 'The Last Battle' which had incredible art by Dan Brereton: http://www.tasteslikecomics.com/2012/01/the-last-battle-zero-spoiler-review-2/" rel="nofollow">The Last Battle: Zero Spoiler Review ;)

[Dustin Cabeal]

Ed,

My pleasure. I really enjoyed this book a lot and hopefully you do too. Thief of Thieves was terrible... it was. I check out the review and it was quite good. I read the first part of that book and it was not for me. Loved the art but couldn't get into the story. Also Caligula was out around the same time and I really liked that book a lot more. Thanks for sharing with us!

[Ed A.]

Thanks for checking it out! Yeah The Last Battle definitely isn't for everyone, but I'm on a mission to find more books illustrated by Dan Brereton.

Yeah I'm waiting for the UK release of the Caligula TPB, can't wait for that one.

I've re-read Thief of Thieves, only this time I applied the 'count the number of moments, panels or pages that you thought were good examples or storytelling or made you glad you were reading this comic instead of another' test and came up with only 1 (the line where Redmond likens political science majors to "natural thieves") when a 30 page comic should have a bare minimum of 5 (for example I counted 14 in Mondo #1). It did have some pretty colours though. Needless to say I think I'll leave ToT #2 to the Kirkman Fan Club.