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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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Sunset City: For Active Senior Living
For those of you who collect graphic stories set in old folks' homes,
Rob Osborne's Sunset City finally gives you something to file
beside A Sunset in Sunshine City by Will Eisner, originally
published in Will Eisner's Quarterly #6 and still available in
The Will Eisner Reader.
Sunset City's main storyline is intriguing, although not as
developed as it could have been. This is a very brief story (aptly
termed a "graphic novella" by AiT/PlanetLar), and it could have been
improved with some fleshing out. A subplot involving the ongoing saga of
Bonko the Clown and his adventures with the community president's
daughter would have made for a highly entertaining full-length treatment
in itself; Osborne's sense of humor shines through here as in many
places throughout the book, particularly in the newspaper clippings that
provide back-story and give a nice insight into the setting and daily
life in Sunset City, Arizona. Osborne's artwork is uneven in places,
reminding me on occasion of the illustrations in my high school Spanish
textbook, or those little line-drawings that you might find in your car
owner's manual showing what could happen to you if your airbag deploys.
Certain scenes lose their impact because of the quality of Osborne's
drawing, especially one scene that depicts a car plowing through a crowd
of people, and its aftermath. It is more effective in other places,
though, and his rendering of Sophia's aging beauty is especially
well-executed.
According to his website, Rob Osborne's goal is to "conquer the world
through comics." His 1000 Steps to World Domination mini-comic
was a promising start in that direction, and Sunset City brings
Osborne another tortoise-step closer to his goal. He's got the tools,
and he's got the attitude. But only time will tell if Osborne's dreams
of grandeur will come to fruition.
-- Jim Witt
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Is it entirely fair to compare a relatively new player in the world of
"sequential storytelling" with the acknowledged master of the art form?
Probably not, but given the similarities between Osborne's work and
Eisner's story, from the title onward, it was difficult for me to read
one story without having the other in the back of my mind. In A
Sunset in Sunshine City, Eisner employed his usual tightly woven,
compact and economical storytelling style with his trademark twist to
tell an endearing tale. In Sunset City Osborne doesn't really
give us any surprises, and even the ending, which is meant (I presume)
to surprise the reader, doesn't come as much of a shock. In the end,
what Osborne has given us is something that starts out as a pleasant
little story peppered with quirky and amusing minor subplots, and ends
suddenly with a couple of gunshots and a... happy ending? In ancient
societies, the wisdom of the aged was respected and taken seriously,
while in Osborne's retirement community (reflecting, I'm sure, many of
its real-life counterparts) the elderly while away their "sunset years,"
reverting to second childhoods while wishing to accomplish something
important and meaningful. Our society's ambivalent relationship with its
elders begs treatment and examination in whatever form, and, to a
certain extent, Sunset City does just that.