Oscar-Worthy Graphic Novel Films: A History of Violence

This post is the final part of an article I was asked to write for the Houston Public Library blog. The final article will be posted some time in the near future, in its entirety, on that website.


A History of Violence

A crime thriller with a uniquely-executed plot by John Wagner and art by Vince Locke, this story was first published in 1997 by Paradox Press.  The film was made in 2005, directed by David Cronenberg and stars Viggo Mortensen with a script adapted from the graphic novel by Josh Olson.


The film received two Oscar nominations at the 78th Academy Awards, including Best Actor -- William Hurt, and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) -- Josh Olson.  It won neither award, losing Best Actor to George Clooney for Syriana, and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) to Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana for Brokeback Mountain.


Plot: Tom Stall, a diner owner in Milbrook, Indiana, lives a peaceful and relatively low-key life until a pair of killers enter his establishment.  He defends himself and his co-workers with remarkable skill, and is hailed as a hero for the incident.  But his fame attracts more trouble, as mobsters from out of town have identified him as a man who crossed them a long time ago.  Tom maintains his ignorance of these men, but as they target his family, he is forced to defend them, raising further questions about Tom’s past and who he really is.  When he confronts the truth about his youth, Tom finds he has unwittingly made targets out of his family, and must do whatever it takes to make sure they don’t have to pay for his mistakes.


Differences from the graphic novel: Considerable, in places.  The first half of the film is pretty faithful to the source material, with only cosmetic changes like Tom’s last name (it’s Stall in the film, McKenna in the graphic novel) and the location (Indiana instead of Michigan).  Later in the story, however, things diverge significantly from the original narrative.  The pivotal character of Richard, for example, is nothing like the character from the graphic novel.  There, he was Tom’s childhood friend who helped him double-cross the mob.  In the film, he’s Tom’s brother, who is a mobster, albeit one whose life was made more difficult by Tom’s youthful actions.  The reaction of Tom’s family to finding out about his past is also handled differently in the film.  Whereas in the comic he is quickly and heartily forgiven by his wife and kids, the film seems to handle it more realistically, with his wife especially reacting with shocked outrage at how he kept his past from them and endangered them because of it.  It’s one of the few instances where I praise the veracity of the film more than the graphic novel.


As one might argue from their now regular rate of adaptation to the big screen, graphic novels have clearly become a more acceptable form of literature and entertainment by mainstream society.  With their recognition from entities like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, graphic novels are solidifying their status as viable source material for popular audiences.  If you haven’t done so already, it may be worth it to consider browsing your local library or bookstore’s collections of these easily digestible and artistically expressive tomes.


You never know--you may end up reading a story that someday wins an Oscar!

GN Review -- A History of Violence / John Wagner & Vince Locke

I've been enjoying a lot of the graphic novels I've been led to read lately, and continue to be pleased that the sequential art medium has branched out so effectively beyond just superheroes for its storytelling successes.  You can experience a graphic novel, in its way, as intensely as you do a "regular" prose novel, and walk away feeling the same sense of fulfillment from it.  Such was the case with me when I finished with John Wagner and Vince Locke's story, A History of Violence.

When of couple of killers come to laid-back family man Tom McKenna's small-town diner, they find that they've bitten off more than they can chew when he ably defends himself and seriously injures the assailants.  Hailed as a hero and receiving nation-wide recognition for his act, McKenna simply wishes the media attention would go away so he could be left alone to raise his family in relative anonymity.  His fame makes him a highly recognizable figure, and it begins to cause serious trouble for him when he receives a visit from some "admirers" from New York City.

When a couple of out-of-town gangsters identify McKenna as Joey, a man who apparently crossed them years ago, McKenna initially denies the accusations, but as they continue to stalk and harass his family, he is forced to defend them.  At the hospital, he admits to his wife that he is the Joey the mobsters spoke of, and tells his family about the events of his youth, when he and his friend Richard assassinated a group of mobsters in revenge for their killing of Richard's brother.  He barely escaped the city, losing a finger and seriously injuring another mobster in the process, and spent the rest of his life creating a new identity and building a new life while trying to stay as obscure as possible.  With his cover now blown wide open, McKenna must return to the city he fled and confront his old ghosts in the hopes of saving his family's future.

The overall story plot is pretty well done, and the execution is performed impressively.  The lengths to which McKenna will go to deny his connection to his former life is both very convincing, even causing some of the mobsters to doubt their mission to harass him, and understandable, when he'd been able to leave his past behind so thoroughly up until his brush with fame.  He's no longer Joey Muni, a solitary young man on the run from vengeful criminals, but Tom McKenna, a man with a diner and a family to protect.  The situation he finds himself in is an unenviable one, but as the narrative shows, he's a man who's willing to fight back against extremely bad odds, leaving you turning each page quickly to see what happens next.

The tension generated by the events in which McKenna participated are also considerable.  From his family to the town he's made his home, it seems no one knows enough about Tom McKenna, or Joey, or whoever he is, and now McKenna must keep his past from destroying them.  There's quite a bit of direct and bloody violence in the narrative, including a horrific scene in which McKenna discovers the final fate of his childhood friend Richard.

My only real gripe with the writing involves the swiftness with which McKenna's family seems to forgive his keeping secrets from them.  I'd want much the same reaction he got from them in the same situation, of course, but I have a feeling it really wouldn't play out that way.  I have yet to see the film, but I've heard the fallout from that particular decision is much more realistically drawn out.

The art varies in this story.  It's not impressive in a lot of places, with its simple, incomplete-seeming line work, but then you get to a particular scene or see an expression on a character's face, and it's done so well as to be striking.  Locke does dramatic scenes expressively, and action scenes in a way that draws you in, but a lot of the slower scenes seem to languish in art that seems, in places, hastily drawn.

Overall, I have no problem commending this as a good story for comic readers.  It's involving, the art is serviceable enough to the narrative, and the ending leaves a gut-wrenching sense of finality.  Crime thriller lovers will very much enjoy this story, and so likely will anyone who's seen the film of the same name.  Highly recommended.

GN Review -- Road to Perdition / Max Allan Collins & Richard Piers Rayner

I'll start off this review by saying, before anyone asks, that as of this writing, I've yet to see the movie adaptation of this story, starring Tom Hanks.  After having read this story, however, I can guarantee you that I'll be seeing it in the very near future.

The basic premise of Road to Perdition is very simple.  It's a revenge story, in which Michael O'Sullivan, a violent but surprisingly honorable enforcer for an Irish mobster, takes revenge on his former employer for murdering his wife and youngest son.  Through a stroke of cosmic luck and mistaken identity, his older son, Michael Jr., is away from the house when it gets hit, and O'Sullivan--known in mob circles as the Angel of Death--comes home to find Michael tending to the bodies.  Keeping many details to himself and teaching his son whatever he believes he needs to know to survive, O'Sullivan takes his surviving boy on a road trip to avenge their loss on the men who did this--as well as anyone else who would help them or obstruct O'Sullivan.

I really enjoyed the writing employed in telling this story.  The plot of the story, however basic, was engrossing enough to get me to crack the book and start reading.  The amazing execution via Collins's deft research and storytelling did the rest.  He does a good job of not only capturing the feel of Prohibition-era gangster times and settings, but also in keeping the narrator's voice at the forefront of the story.  Told through the younger Michael's viewpoint, we see his initial lionization of his father; his shock and disillusionment as he comes to realize his father's occupation and what it means; and finally his understanding and admiration for his father's honorable nature and kindness despite his grisly trade.  There's genuine affection between father and son, despite their tragedy and the elder O'Sullivan's general terseness, that shows a large disconnect between what he does and what kind of man he is.

Aside from the characterization, there are plenty of plot and action sequences to praise.  Unable to go after his betrayer, Looney, directly, O'Sullivan starts hitting Looney where it hurts: his pocketbooks, his lawyers, and his son, who Looney must now hide in order to keep alive.  O'Sullivan is shown in several high-intensity, bloody action sequences that show him gunning down and killing multiple mobsters--usually on their own turf--or initiating deals that will legally or financially ruin his foes with equal aplomb.  Looney's vicious resentment of his life's "interruption" due to the Angel of Death's vendetta is alternately hilarious and viscerally satisfying when compared to the travesty he inflicted upon O'Sullivan that began the interruption.

The art in this story is unbelievable.  Rayner's illustrations look like they could have been done directly from genuine photographs of the era.  They're realistic, they're cinematic, and they're consistent.  From small towns to casino boats to the urban sprawl of Prohibition-era Chicago, you feel every bit of verisimilitude conveyed in the writing in no small part due to Rayner's work.

Overall, I can't say enough good things about this story.  The premise is excellent, the portrayals of time and space are genuine and engaging, the characters are believable, flawed, and despite everything, easy to relate to.  The artwork is both breath-taking and haunting, and an amazing enhancement of the narrative.  Anyone who likes stories about crime, revenge, mobsters, or father-son relationships would do well to pick up this very well told and illustrated story.  Very highly recommended.