Bodies 1 (Dc Black Label Bodies)

Right, first of all, I don't recall ever having read a graphic novel before and know almost nothing about the form, so forgive me if I review Si Spencer's Bodies (originally released in eight episodes but now brought together in a single volume) in completely the wrong way: the last book I read that had speech bubbles was probably a Monster Fun annual so essentially I have no other graphic novels as a reference point. Anyway. The initial set-up of Bodies is an absolute belter: there are four detectives, operating in four different time periods ... investigating what appears to be exactly the same murder. Same corpse, same position, same location and the same elements of what appears to be a ritualistic killing. The only thing that seems to connect the detectives is that they are all to some degree outsiders. Shahara Hasan is a hijab-wearing Muslim police officer in the present day. In Victorian London, Inspector Hillinghead is trying to conceal his homosexuality from his colleagues. In the Blitz-ravaged East End of 1940, Karl Weissman - or Charles Whiteman, as he prefers to be known - has escaped the Warsaw ghetto only to become a corrupt copper. Finally, far in the future, a young woman whose name may or may not be Maplewood has a brain so addled that she's barely aware what a corpse is at all. Throw in the cult of Mithras, apocalyptic pulse waves, neo-fascist terrorist groups, Jack The Ripper, psychogeography, potential shamanism and cryptically repeated instructions to 'know you are loved', and you have a dizzying, high-concept mystery with immense scope and ambition. Unlike a lot of high-concept fiction, however, Bodies doesn't skimp on character: each detective has a strong individuality that comes through in the dialogue as well as their actions, and there isn't a stereotype in sight (this, in itself, is significant to the story). Neither does its undeniable cleverness come at the expense of a heart: there's plenty of humour, and also some genuinely affecting moments, not least in the final pages. If you don't feel find yourself a little misty-eyed at the ending, you may well have something wrong with you - especially if you happen to be English. England and Englishness are central to Bodies - it's essentially a story of identity and culture. I don't think I'm giving too much away when I say that this not really a murder mystery at all, and the corpse, reappearing in the same location to different people at different times - people whose speech and thoughts carry occasional echoes of one another - has a symbolic significance to England. And yet, as is clearly evident by the diversity of the characters and their circumstances, English identity can mean a million and one things to any and all of us, and is inextricably entangled in our endlessly complicated history and melting pot of cultures and influences, in our finest moments and our most shameful. This is reflected in Bodies not just in character but also in language and setting. Throughout the book you'll find countless hints, clues, references and allusions, not just in the dialogue but in the names of people, places and things - and indeed within the artwork. In fact, by the time we reach Maplewood in 2050, her consciousness seems to consist of almost nothing else as she struggles to piece together snippets of memory and language into anything of which she can make some sort of sense. And is the murdered man re-appearing over and over again, like a reverberating echo through time? Or does he appear once, but in simultaneous time periods? Most importantly, are you confused yet? If not, you probably should be, because if you finish Bodies without wanting to go straight back and look for more things to try to understand, you've seriously missed out on the fun. I've now realised that I've got through this whole review without mentioning the artwork, which is clearly incredibly important to the book. Each of the four detectives' stories has its own artist and its own colour palettes, which gives each time period a distinctive atmosphere. There's a smoky, noirish feel to the 1940s sections, which are visually my personal favourites - you can almost hear the eerie wail of distant air-raid sirens, and every frame is rendered with incredible detail. The Victorian storyline has hints of Hammer and steampunk, with a fantastic dark colour scheme with splashes of Ripper red. In 2050, Maplewood wanders through a disorientating, far more stylised world filtered through unnatural, suitably sickly neons, as befits her confused mental state. Shahara's investigation takes place in a gritty-looking environment of concrete blues and greys, as if we're looking at news footage or even CCTV. Despite the clear visual differences between each section, the different colour palettes used for each (the work of colourist Lee Loughridge) are carefully chosen to give the whole thing a sense of continuity and cohesion that isn't just visually pleasing but is also symbolically significant. If you want a clear and straightforward mystery with all the loose ends tied up, you won't find that here: this book is strange, ambiguous, complicated and open to interpretation, like a jigsaw puzzle that constantly shifts and expands as you try to complete it, and occasionally turns into a crossword puzzle or a treasure hunt just for larks. However, I personally found it no less satisfying for that, and this is a book that I'll re-read over and over again.

I got this after watching the recent Netflix adaptation, and having loved that, was keen to see how the original panned out. And I’m not disappointed- the graphic novel is just amazing. The story - multiple murders over the course of a hundred years, all connected in terms of their situation, tied together through time travel… The artwork - a different artist for each time period, is great as you’d expect from some of the best artists in the business, and the writing by the sadly passed Si Spencer is clever, funny and gripping.

Visually striking and very engaging. The art and tone work perfectly together and it’s an easy read while still being thought provoking. Really enjoyed this.

Story started well, excellent build up but silly ending. I can't decide whether the series cut short and the ending changed or it was always just a poor ending - disappointing.

I hated this, the pictures are vile. The producers of the televised version made it cleaner than the book. I've torn this up and put it in the recycling, only managing to read the first quarter. Learned my lesson, research on Google before I buy a book again!

Art was good. The story,however, was confusing, it was a real effort to finish and I had stopped trying to make sense of it by the end..

I was intrigued by the basic outline of this series -- four detectives in four different timelines all investigating the same murder (ie, the same body with the same wounds discovered in the same part of London's East End). The four settings (1890, 1940, 2014, 2050) are each rendered by different artists with distinctively different styles, but in each case, the detective is an outsider. The punctilious young detective of 1890 is a homosexual, the corrupt detective of 1940 is a Jewish Polish refugee (how such a person might become a London police detective is one question I pondered), in 2014 there is a hijab-wearing Muslim detective, and the woman in 2050 is mentally shattered. So in that sense, the story appears to be trying to make a point about English identity, but it's such a convoluted tale and contains such a heavy dose of weird, almost Lovecraftian, elements that it's hard to really grasp. I personally found it to be just too baroque to enjoy as a narrative, but some of the art is fantastic. I quite liked the fine lines and monotones used by Dean Ormston for the 1890s sections, and the more muscular and craggy work of Phil Winsalde for the 1940s portion. But that's down to personal taste, and others may find the other artists more to their taste. Overall a failure, although a fairly ambitious one with at least some great visuals at times.

Enjoyed it a lot together with Netflix series. Recommend👍🏼

Fue para un regalo y le gustó mucho

Nice graphic novel

I bought the comics because I loved the TV show, even though I knew it had differences between the two. The artwork is beautifully done, it’s nice that it had one artist for each era, but the story itself is VERY confusing and doesn’t explain anything. Also it has a lot of old slangs, so it’s a bit hard to read even if you’re normally fluent in English. Is it good? Yes-ish. Did I understand it? No.

Un ottimo fumetto che attraversa la storia con un filo comune: i delitti di Jack the Ripper. Spedizione puntuale e precisa, oggetto consono all'originale mostrato su Amazon.

I love the book in fact in many ways it explained back stories that were missing from the series. On Netflix it more sci fi, its still sci fi but with a more logical ending at least to me... Very well written and only one of the four artists style bothered the future style as it seemed hurried compared the the other three artists stories.