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Feb. 7th, 2007
Rima the Jungle Girl
Feb. 7th, 2007 01:05 pm(Thanks, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadowlass.)
About fifteen seconds ago, somebody called Rima the Jungle Girl "the best comic hardly anyone remembers." I barely remember it, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. This is going to be personal and idiosyncratic.
Nestor Redondo did the art, which is superb. It's not really like anything else, to my eye- it comes closest to Neal Adams, but not very close. It struck me, the first time I saw it, as a kind of visual foreign language. There's an American comic-book "artistic tradition" that is exemplified by, let's say, Jack Kirby. That's my "native language" when it comes to reading comics. Rima seemed to come from somewhere else. When I thought the art was Joe Kubert, I was really impressed by his ability to be "bilingual."
(The art is a powerful argument in favor of cartooning as opposed to photorealism. There's plenty of detail, and it all hangs together and makes a nice "world"... that looks nothing like the real one.)
Ordinarily, I'd talk about the story first, but the plot and dialogue and what all seems to be much more forgettable than the art. Rima lives in the jungle with her grandfather. She was born there, she is part of it, and all the various denizens of the jungle do her bidding. The primary difference between Rima and characters like Mowgli or Tarzan is that Rima does not personally fight. The jungle protects her, and within it she is unassailable... but there is no scene comparable to Tarzan's fights with wild beasts. It's all very harmonious and lovey-dovey in the jungle until the wrong kind of people blunder in.
The "pacifist" aspects of Rima are not to my taste, but she is far from passive. She is always the motivator of events. The series begins with her rescuing a strapping young man, and continues as an odyssey into the outside world in search of Rima's origins. Both the rescue and the search are unquestionably Rima's idea, even when presented from some other character's point of view.
There is an enormous temptation for both the reader and the characters to view Rima as some kind of ethereal jungle spirit, and according to local legend, that's exactly what she is. But Rima herself is always quick to assert her personhood. She says in quite a few places that she is flesh and blood, just like anyone else. For me, that kind of sums up what the whole series is about: seeing the "exotic" from its own perspective.
Rima isn't even remotely a super-hero book. It's pretty good.
(She did make it on to one season of "Super Friends", though. I can't wrap my head around that one.)
shadowlass.)About fifteen seconds ago, somebody called Rima the Jungle Girl "the best comic hardly anyone remembers." I barely remember it, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. This is going to be personal and idiosyncratic.
Nestor Redondo did the art, which is superb. It's not really like anything else, to my eye- it comes closest to Neal Adams, but not very close. It struck me, the first time I saw it, as a kind of visual foreign language. There's an American comic-book "artistic tradition" that is exemplified by, let's say, Jack Kirby. That's my "native language" when it comes to reading comics. Rima seemed to come from somewhere else. When I thought the art was Joe Kubert, I was really impressed by his ability to be "bilingual."
(The art is a powerful argument in favor of cartooning as opposed to photorealism. There's plenty of detail, and it all hangs together and makes a nice "world"... that looks nothing like the real one.)
Ordinarily, I'd talk about the story first, but the plot and dialogue and what all seems to be much more forgettable than the art. Rima lives in the jungle with her grandfather. She was born there, she is part of it, and all the various denizens of the jungle do her bidding. The primary difference between Rima and characters like Mowgli or Tarzan is that Rima does not personally fight. The jungle protects her, and within it she is unassailable... but there is no scene comparable to Tarzan's fights with wild beasts. It's all very harmonious and lovey-dovey in the jungle until the wrong kind of people blunder in.
The "pacifist" aspects of Rima are not to my taste, but she is far from passive. She is always the motivator of events. The series begins with her rescuing a strapping young man, and continues as an odyssey into the outside world in search of Rima's origins. Both the rescue and the search are unquestionably Rima's idea, even when presented from some other character's point of view.
There is an enormous temptation for both the reader and the characters to view Rima as some kind of ethereal jungle spirit, and according to local legend, that's exactly what she is. But Rima herself is always quick to assert her personhood. She says in quite a few places that she is flesh and blood, just like anyone else. For me, that kind of sums up what the whole series is about: seeing the "exotic" from its own perspective.
Rima isn't even remotely a super-hero book. It's pretty good.
(She did make it on to one season of "Super Friends", though. I can't wrap my head around that one.)
