Susan: an ordinary young woman employed by the Reynal Import/Export Agency. A company that seems to do no useful work, and has only one interest; quizzing Susan about her previous job at Fern Ltd, a factory closed down under mysterious circumstances.
Jimmy: the man in a helmet marked with two figure IIs, which he never takes off. An enigma driven by unknown forces.
Mauretania is a striking and haunting graphic novel from an exciting British talent whose work evokes the cinematic images of Andrei Tarkovsky and Wim Wenders as well as the graphic genius of Frans Masereel and Michael Cherkas.
Just quoting what’s on the back of this graphic novel. I’ve checked the internet what other people thought of this book and it seems that people either really like it or just hated it. There seems to be nothing in between. I thought the story was quite good. There’s suspension throughout the whole story, but at the end I was confused. What was it all about? Was it a conspiracy? Writer and draughtsman Chris Reynolds raises more questions than he answered with this graphic novel.
The drawings are realistic, but it seems that Reynolds took a big brush and splashed his characters on the pages. This makes the drawings also powerful. It’s not the sort of illustrations that I’d go for in a comic book store, but I guess that’s why there’s the appealing writing on the back. I always think that the story matters more than the drawings.
Is it a recommendable comic? I can’t be sure, because, as I haven’t quite formed an opinion about it myself and as I said there are people who love it and people who hate it. For me the jury is still out.
