Margot in Badtown

Margot #1

by Jerome Charyn

Book by Charyn, Jerome

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels

48 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1991

About the author

Jerome Charyn is an award-winning American author. With more than 50 published works, Charyn has earned a long-standing reputation as an inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon calls him "one of the most important writers in American literature." New York Newsday hailed Charyn as "a contemporary American Balzac," and the Los Angeles Times described him as "absolutely unique among American writers."

Since the 1964 release of Charyn's first novel, Once Upon a Droshky, he has published thirty novels, three memoirs, eight graphic novels, two books about film, short stories, plays, and works of non-fiction. Two of his memoirs were named New York Times Book of the Year.

Charyn has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He received the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was named Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture. Charyn is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the American University of Paris.

In addition to writing and teaching, Charyn is a tournament table tennis player, once ranked in the top ten percent of players in France. Noted novelist Don DeLillo called Charyn's book on table tennis, Sizzling Chops & Devilish Spins, "The Sun Also Rises of ping-pong."

Charyn's most recent novel, Jerzy, was described by The New Yorker as a "fictional fantasia" about the life of Jerzy Kosinski, the controversial author of The Painted Bird. In 2010, Charyn wrote The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, an imagined autobiography of the renowned poet, a book characterized by Joyce Carol Oates as a "fever-dream picaresque."

Charyn lives in New York City. He's currently working with artists Asaf and Tomer Hanuka on an animated television series based on his Isaac Sidel crime novels.

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I make allowances for the different storytelling conventions of European comics because they're sometimes jarring to me due to my different cultural background, but this comes from an American writer and still doesn't land for me. The art is fantastic and if you frame it as a kind of sexed up modern urban fairytale it almost works, but that's a pretty big "almost".

[Cristian · Rating 1 out of 5]

bought this for under 2 euros and overspent. one of the most crappy things i ever encountered, but not without potential. it could have succeeded, with all the sexual undertones, the conflict of sexes and classes combined with bold cheesyness and drama would have lead to something, you know, like in a andrzej zuławski film, but: it just stayed crappy. should be avoided.

[Chris Patrick Carolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember seeing the ads for this in Heavy Metal magazine back in the 90s, and I was always intrigued by the art, so finally ordering a copy recently when it was on sale for about $6 on the Heavy Metal website was an easy decision. Having now read it, though, rating this one is a tricky thing. The art by Massimiliano Frezzato is simply incredible. Every panel is a masterwork, and if I were rating it on the art alone, it would be an easy five-star.

That said, the actual storytelling from panel to panel is very uneven, and scene transitions sometimes happen mid-page with no caption to let you know what's going on. Margot will just suddenly be in a different place with different people. It's confusing as heck, made worse by some of the worst dialogue I've come across in a comic. At first I assumed it was a failed translation, as so many of the comics put out by Heavy Metal back in the day were first published in Europe (I believe in this case the book was first published in French). But it turns out the writer, Jerome Charyn, is American, with a heck of a bibliography to his credit... maybe the dialogue was translated from English to French, and then back again for the US release without consulting the writer? Who the heck knows?

The story itself falls pretty flat, again leaving me wondering if it's just a bad translation or if pages were cut for the American release (either for length or content). It was frustrating as I feel there's the seed of a good story here, but it never made it to the page. I like to call movies like this "dollar store meatloaf served on fine china."

So... six bucks well-spent? Meh. I'll probably never read it again, but I might take it down to look at the art. There's a sequel (Margot, Queen of the Night) and I really only think I'd pick it up if it were as cheap and I was ordering other stuff already.

Art: 5/5
Story: 1/5
Overall: 2.5 rounded to 3 stars to give an allowance for translation issues.

[StrictlySequential · Rating 3 out of 5]

Massimiliano Frezzato: *****

Jerome Charyn: *

Art: What I had to put up with to delight in one of the best artists in the business. His ten or so graphic novels in English are so hard to find for any modest amount and I see why. If you know of Stefano Tamburini (RanXerox) then you know the perfection of which I speak. It's breathtaking.

Story: I remembered why I have such a problem with Charyn- he does the worst type of "magic realism" laziness, in rude fashion, to achieve ^whatever^ >whenever he wants and skips over huge story gaps with no explanation of what conspired.

In his other three books that I've read, the plots were saved by Loustal and Boucq (x2) but NO ARTIST could make THIS story any good. A few nerdy grins here and there sum up the accolades.

[Bernard Convert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Scénario nul. Et le dessin de Frezzato, que j'aime plutôt bien d'ordinaire, est ici très inégal.