- Paperback: 496 pages
- Publisher: Dark Horse (Oct 5 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1595823166
- ISBN-13: 978-1595823168
- Product Dimensions: 28.7 x 21.6 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 2 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #104,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Best known for his work with Neil Gaiman, McKean is also an accomplished cartoonist in his own right. This is his magnum opus to date: an immense, pulsing graphic novel that's also a treatise on art, creativity and the uses and misuses of technique. Originally serialized between 1990 and 1996 (and collected in 1998), it's been out of print for several years. The book's plot is fairly rudimentary: a painter, a writer and a musician who live in the same apartment building find their lives intersecting. But the book's gradual shift from literalism to fanciful allegories and stories-within-stories mostly serves as the springboard for a visual tour de force. For most of the book, McKean restricts himself to wobbly, jagged two-tone pen-and-ink drawings, occasionally in the manner of Egon Schiele. But he often signals shifts in storytelling mode by switching media or style (to ink-wash brushwork, airbrushed photography, white-on-black "woodcuts," bold near-abstractions or whatever seems appropriate); when the artwork erupts into full-color paintings and collages, the effect is explosive. Even when the story falters or drifts into endless philosophical chitchat, McKean's artwork saves the day. His characters, built out of crazily bent lines and splatters, have perfectly choreographed body language, and his daring visual experiments serve the ideological goals of his writing.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
McKean is possibly the most widely known of the current artists creating comics for adults; he painted the covers of all 75 Sandman issues and has also drawn The Black Orchid and Violent Cases. Cages is the only work that McKean has both written and drawn, and he uses the opportunity to present a dialog on the rewards and hazards of creativity. Cages tells the story of three artists: Leo Sabarsky, a painter in need of inspiration; Angel, a nightclub musician who seems oblivious to the adulation of his fans; and Jonathan Rush, a writer whose novel Cages so enraged his readers that he now lives in captivity. How these characters break free of their mental cages forms the central conflict of this book, which evolves into a meditation on creativity and godhood. The artwork is dynamic and changes form as McKean feels appropriate. This is as much an art book as a narrative. If your library is only going to buy one graphic novel for adults this year, make it this one. For public and academic libraries.?Stephen Weiner, Maynard P.L., MA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
You do it to yourself, and that's what really hurts,
By Quexos (South FL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cages (Hardcover)
I read this book a couple of years ago, and reread it a few weeks ago. I have never come across a story like this, in particular a story TOLD like this. With an incredibly impressive array of visual/narrative techniques, McKean presents an allegory (if that's what it is; the book can be ambiguous concerning certain developments) of creativity as well as despair, abandonment, frustration, and above all, the realization that things are actually pretty wonderful, if we can manage to alter our self-imposed perspectives.This is one of the crowning achievements of the graphic medium, and a landmark in literature.
5.0 out of 5 stars
"That's a nice thought." "It isn't mine.",
By Sam Thursday (APO, AE United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cages (Hardcover)
There are really no words I can write to do this one justice. It's one of the single most moving experiences I've ever had reading anything, never mind comic books. McKean's line art is breathtaking, and the painted interludes and photo montages are every bit as fascinating, disturbing, and touching as anything he's done with Neil Gaiman or Grant Morrison. The story is about a tenement and its various occupants, but it's also about inspiration and love, and the things that drive us to create. Go read it.
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Most Rewarding Books Ever Written,
By
This review is from: Cages (Hardcover)
My first experiences with Dave McKean were as illustrator for the Sandman comic books, and the Vertigo tarot cards, eventually leading to my strongest appreciation for a contemporary artist. Imagine my surprise when I came across of a copy of Cages, complete with traditional McKean artwork, on my comic-shop shelf. I wasn't even aware McKean wrote graphic novels, let alone one of such size (it's 500 pages long). I knew from the minute I saw it that I had to buy it, and after saving my pennies and dimes, I finally got the chance. Not a moment of the time spent earning the money to buy this book was wasted.In a style that fluctuates somewhat based upon the character being portrayed (although most of the story is told from the artist, Leo's, point of view), Cages tells a tale of three creative people together in an apartment building, set in some parallel-dimension London, or a similar city. Leo, the artist of paints, canvas, and sketches, moves in and meets John, a novelist, writer, and critic whose work Cages earned him the ire of a public that misunderstood his point. John must also contend with a pair of goons intent on making his life miserable, which Leo gets a chance to experience firsthand when he tries to save a young girl from their harassment. The third is Angel, a blues and jazz musician at a local bar, whose poetry-slam style lyrics and dangerously emotional playing style set him apart from the other musicians, both as an artist and a pariah. Rounding it off is a mysterious woman who poses as Leo's model, a landlord on the verge of insanity, a woman with a foul-mouthed cockatoo, and a naked homeless man who fell out of the sky five years ago and has been delirious ever since. Round that off with a black cat who serves as a kind of Puck figure for God Himself, and McKean has laid the groundwork for a one-of-a-kind comic novel. The story fluctuates from that which is grounded in reality (although that reality is certainly questionable) to a dreamlike semiconsciousness where poetry, advertising, and McKean's signature artistic style merge to create points of meditation for the story at large. The drawings are almost entirely black-on-white, although the book has shades of blue running through it, and some of McKean's more intricate works are in color. The story is introduced by a series of poems about God and artistic creation, and comes together as a cohesive whole if taken as more than the sum of its parts. That being said, Cages is not for everyone. It is not a comic book. Its plot is small, and serves more as a vehicle to attempt to understand the process behind creativity and the reactions of people around the artists to that creative struggle. Cages requires a substantial investment in time to read, contemplate, read again, meditate, go back and read some more, appreciate, and so forth. For anyone up to that kind of challenge, or anyone who likes McKean's art, or anyone who is looking for a different take on the artistic process and how it is viewed by people outside of the artist, Cages is one of the most rewarding books available. My only complaint (and it has nothing to do with the content) is that the black ink easily picks up fingerprints, so if you aren't careful, you could leave smudges everywhere. It's too nice a book to ruin. Final Grade: A; ALMOST an A+
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