No, I didn't blow off work to read all day -- though that would have been nice. Young Stalin was finished last night, Notes was started last night and finished before work this morning.
Notes for a War Story is a graphic novel -- a genre that I've really taken to in the last few years. Gipi's artwork reminds me of Ben Katchor, whose work I love. But this volume is dark and in tone reminds me more of Nikolai Maslov's Siberia (jesus, it's those damn Soviets again!!) than anything Katchor has produced.
Notes is relatively simple and painfully worldly -- unlike Katchor's rather delightful (if often melancholic & strangely both pedestrian and surreal) flights through the not quite familiar urban landscape. It is also quietly effective and affecting, and those last few panels of Giuliano (and the photographers) watching the nameless amnestied militiamen stepping off the train will stay with me for long while.
You can read a 10 page excerpt on the publisher's website (:01 First Second Books).
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