Other Side: moving, haunting Vietnam War comic

I found Other Side, Jason Aaron and Cameron Stewart's gripping, savage, thoughtful Vietnam War comic, by going into

It was a well-deserved fan-letter. Aaron is the cousin of Gustav Hasford, the Vietnam War correspondent who wrote the book that became "Full Metal Jacket." Through Hasford, Aaron found himself spending a lot of time in the company of other old Vietnam correspondents, hearing their stories. This inspired him to travel to Vietnam and research the experiences of Vietnamese soldiers who fought on the other side.

The result is Other Side, which tells the parallel life stories of an ARVN font color="red">NVA irregular and a US Marine who join up at the same time and visit the seven hells of a pointless war engineered by liars who tempted boys to war with propaganda and scaremongering.

The story follows some of the conventions of a traditional Vietnam story, but quickly veers into new territory as both of them experience numinous hallucinations -- the Marine is haunted by the ghosts of other dead Marines (including a spirit that makes his rifle whisper obscene, suicidal messages out of its barrel) while the ARVN NVA soldier is haunted by Buddhist ghosts brought on by the scorching fever of malaria. These spirit visitations tell another parallel story, about the real reasons each of them is fighting.

The artwork is superb, reminiscent of the most graphic of the EC Comics -- cartoony but not silly, exploiting the wide-open nature of comics graphics to tell a story that couldn't ever be adequately captured in film or in mere words.

This is Jason Aaron's first graphic novel, but I'm sure it won't be his last. I know I'll be actively hunting down the rest of his work as it emerges. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:08:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

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