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Outside: In tribute to David Bowie - a graphic novel, murder mystery, detective story, inspired by the album, 'Outside'
A dark graphic novel inspired by David Bowie’s enigmatic concept album, ‘Outside’. Detective Nathan Adler is investigating a macabre the body of a young girl has been discovered displayed like a work of art. Whilst Adler interrogates his suspects, disturbing memories are resurrected. As the mystery unfolds, Adler realizes he is battling an uncontrollable force – a monster. One that has gone to the extremes and now must be stopped … whatever the cost.
144 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 24, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 22, 2023
The "in tribute" part of the title is really the problem with this graphic novel, which tries to tell the story in Bowie's album "1. Outside," a concept album that was only meant to be a "part one" of the story. This book is comprised largely of Bowie's own lyrics from his entire discography, which distracted me because I am very familiar with his music. Each time another lyric of his was part of the text, I thought about the song it came from instead of the meaning inside the book. The art depicts the different characters in the album but as well-known celebrities/characters from other films (including Harry Potter and Blade Runner). With the central mystery surrounding a murderer called "the minotaur" who commits "art crimes" (similar to the corpse art of the show "Hannibal"), I expected the visuals to be much, much darker than the soft pencil drawings this book includes.
August 31, 2016
Superb interpretation of David Bowie's album, 'Outside'.
Great story, driven by Bowie's strange characters, and staying faithful to the spirit of his brilliant lyrics. Dark, moody and atmospheric illustrations. So great to see original images of Bowie as Nathan Adler! Love it!
Great story, driven by Bowie's strange characters, and staying faithful to the spirit of his brilliant lyrics. Dark, moody and atmospheric illustrations. So great to see original images of Bowie as Nathan Adler! Love it!
April 9, 2017
If I'm fully honest, I did not like this adaptation much at all. But the adaptation student in me find it an intriguing, though failed, exercise (hence, two stars instead of one). I'm sympathetic because of my own love for Bowie's 1. Outside album, and the interesting challenge of adapting it into another medium. But I tend to think what many claim is honoring or adhering to the "spirit" of the original, ends up simply slavish fidelity exercises forming lackluster copies of an original; copies that somehow frequently reach for the surfaces of the original, while misunderstanding the essential core that makes the original matter in the first place--how can your love of a thing be so influenced and shaped by such a massive misreading? Consequently, I found myself halfway through wishing I was just listening to the album, and sad that I had to continue limping along with such a poor substitute.
Skinner's desire to pay tribute ends up being the biggest stumbling block. Shoehorning Bowie lyrics and song names from across his catalog becomes a painfully futile attempt at . . . I don't know. In virtually every case, the reference rings thematically and formally hollow--rather than adding to the themes of 1. Outside, these references were discouraging distractions. But Bowie is an incredibly intertextual, self-referential artist. So on the surface, the references sound like a good idea. But, boy, are there different ways to drop a reference; Bowie's way works marvelously; Skinner's not at all.
Bowie's 1. Outside collapses past, present, and future into a dystopic cybergoth otherwhere in which abundance and information overload abound, fracturing our concentration, focus, and sense of unity. The music careens every which way, piling styles onto each other, with hints of conventional pop structures, which then dissolve into confounding strands both immaculately constructed (that's Eno's production influence) and totally unhinged and illogical.
In contrast, the structure and approach of this adaptation strips the album down to an almost hyper-simplistic presentation--sparseness rather than abundance. This intrigues me. But it doesn't endear me. The frames and pictures are so often static, offering little to no action. The story contains almost no propulsion, seeming to drift heavily from section to section. The vacancy within this adaptation hollows out the heft of Bowie's album--the emotional draw, the propulsive mystery, and bizarre characters and landscape--leaving every character passionless and ambivalent. While with some adjustments this might be a very illuminating approach, as it presently sits, it's mostly inert due to this slavish need to connect to Bowie's whole career and drop reference after reference, which instead of expanding the thematic heft and narrative scope, implodes the entire project, stifling its potential.
Alas.
Skinner's desire to pay tribute ends up being the biggest stumbling block. Shoehorning Bowie lyrics and song names from across his catalog becomes a painfully futile attempt at . . . I don't know. In virtually every case, the reference rings thematically and formally hollow--rather than adding to the themes of 1. Outside, these references were discouraging distractions. But Bowie is an incredibly intertextual, self-referential artist. So on the surface, the references sound like a good idea. But, boy, are there different ways to drop a reference; Bowie's way works marvelously; Skinner's not at all.
Bowie's 1. Outside collapses past, present, and future into a dystopic cybergoth otherwhere in which abundance and information overload abound, fracturing our concentration, focus, and sense of unity. The music careens every which way, piling styles onto each other, with hints of conventional pop structures, which then dissolve into confounding strands both immaculately constructed (that's Eno's production influence) and totally unhinged and illogical.
In contrast, the structure and approach of this adaptation strips the album down to an almost hyper-simplistic presentation--sparseness rather than abundance. This intrigues me. But it doesn't endear me. The frames and pictures are so often static, offering little to no action. The story contains almost no propulsion, seeming to drift heavily from section to section. The vacancy within this adaptation hollows out the heft of Bowie's album--the emotional draw, the propulsive mystery, and bizarre characters and landscape--leaving every character passionless and ambivalent. While with some adjustments this might be a very illuminating approach, as it presently sits, it's mostly inert due to this slavish need to connect to Bowie's whole career and drop reference after reference, which instead of expanding the thematic heft and narrative scope, implodes the entire project, stifling its potential.
Alas.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews