The Green Fields of France
By Clîodhna Ni Laighine

It may be blue, but it's a nice image.

I think I picked this up from the SVA table at MoCCA. It was full of minis (a lot of them screen-printed and handbound and whatnot), most attractively packaged if not appearing particularly dense content-wise. This book was available in two versions, an expensive letterpressed hardcover and a less expensive photocopied book with a heavy cardstock, silk screened cover.

One of the noticable things about conventions, especially MoCCA was the shortage of handmade wares that seemed like the future of alternative comics before the big chain bookstores discovered them. In that respect, the SVA table (or rather, the table with many artists from SVA) seemed as much like a throwback to an earlier era as it did an introduction of a whole slew of previously unheard of cartoonists. And by slew, I mean to say that there were a lot of books. A person could spend half the day looking through each one, if they were so inclined, but the overall effect was one of overwhelming quantity and underwhelming quality. A lot of the kids making the work also failed to grasp the notion that not many people will want to shell out cash by the tens for a chance to see an artist that may never develop in their earliest stages of growth.

I did try to sample a bunch of the books, and Green Fields seemed like something that was working in the right direction. Less comics work than artist book, Green Fields features etchings illustrating the titular song about the tragedy of war (World War I). Most pages feature a single etched illustration of etched out lyrics except when the chorus comes 'round, which is typeset. It's intentional, but doesn't serve the book in any visual or thematic way. Maybe the art plates and the letter plates were the same size? (editor's note, I've since learned that the pieces were drawn on scratchboard, a medium not much more forgiving than letterpress)

Simply impressive.

The art itself is very nice, notably the first page. An image of a half-empty, walled in cemetary with a sort of triumphal arch at its entrance. I won't pretend to know if it is an authentic cemetary. The sun is shining throught the center of the arch and, in a nice bit of graphic design by way of Will Eisner, the book/song title appears as shadow in in the light. It is as if the song is so heavy and so dark, that even the sun can't illuminate it. This is followed by a strange, Buhdda-like figure entering the cemetary and setting down against a gravestone, presumably to recite this song (maybe it's the artist's father, credited with taking her on a tour of WWI battlefields).

We then get some WWI imagary: doughboys and trenches, gasmasks and bayonettes. The etching is fairly accomplished, and a stilllife of old-timey paraphenalia really stands out as being quite excellent, but for some strange reason all of the characters in this little tragedy have these goofy, cartoony faces neither befitting the song nor the alternately graphic and realistic artwork it supports. Things get really bad when a little girl shows up, the word "DAMNED" scralled across her forehead to denote her victimhood. If that wasn't bad enough, the girl looks suspiciously like the donut pitchman from the Simpsons. The one that came to life in an electrical storm and had to be put down by Paul Anka...

Things pick up towards the end. A soldier loses his hand, and judging from the slight smile on his face, he did it to himself. While most of the characters look a bit dopey, this one seems to have an actual personality You can almost believe he is mad enough to injure himself if it means being free of the war. Especially if he is just fighting to protect future donut shills. After the hand, someone may have had the sense to put a Thomas Ott book in the artist's hands, because the macabre final image of Willie McBride is equally disturbing and darkly comic, and the artist seems to feel more comfortable in allowing the blacks of her medium to tell more of the story for her.

Then the goodwill is lost on a series of flags letting us know that we haven't learned anything since the tragedy that took poor Willie McBride and so many others away from us. It's the sort of cheesy Memorial Day message we're treated to once again.

One of the best things any teacher did for me while at art school was to look at the work I was producing and introduce me to the work of an artist I was unfamiliar with, but who had been doing what I was trying to accomplish for decades. In that case, the artist was Frank Auerbach seeing his paintings was like having the rug pulled out from under me, only to discover that the floor beneath it was much more satisfying. In Ms. Laighine's case, I would strongly suggest seeking out Jaques Tardi's work, for a look at the cartoonist dedicated to keeping WWI fresh in our minds, and Thomas Ott, the aforementioned scratchboard artist. Not to rub their success in her face, but to expand her horizon's and possibly sharpen her approach to future endeavors. Of which, I hope there are many.

And, while this review is probably riddled with spelling and gramatical errors, I'm not selling it and I don't intend for it to stand as a final project for any class. Ms. Laighine seems to be doing both, and there was nothing written in this book that a halfway decent proofread couldn't correct.

—Justin J. Fox