Graphic Novel Review

Review of Flood! A Novel in Pictures

by Hubert Vigilla

November 2004

Flood! inundates its readers with images. From its initial hurried dart through stairwells to its dreamlike subterranean journey, from its drift through a rain-filled skyline to its apocalyptic finale, Eric Drooker's novel in pictures is a stirring work of sequential art worthy of its praise and accolades. Scrawled in scratchboard and originally published in 1992 by Four Walls Eight Windows, Flood! conveys the hopes and fears of the new millennium in three loosely connected chapters. The results are at times chilling and at others downright depressing; but even as Drooker's work is saturated with an uncanny sense of impending doom, it still offers glimpses of renewal and even hope.

The stand-alone first chapter, "Home," introduces Drooker's vision of a crumbling New York and the sense of solitude that permeates the other chapters. The story follows a down-on-his-luck guy who leaves his apartment for work only to find the plant shut down. When he returns home after a seedy evening with a prostitute, he finds an eviction notice slapped across his door. After a bizarre childhood memory or nightmare, the remainder of "Home" follows the character's fall into despair and penury. As the chapter progresses, the pages pack with panels emphasizing the protagonist's overwhelming desperation and spiral into anonymity. Full-page arrangements and splash pages are followed by two-panel pages and so on, increasing exponentially to a 256 panel page (only half of which are filled). Some images are unclear on the 64 panel pages, though Drooker makes up for some blotchy panels with an interesting juxtaposition between zoo and jail. "Home" closes with a full-page picture of poverty and isolation, one that literally dwarfs the cityscape.

"L," the second chapter, introduces a new protagonist, whose descent into the subway symbolizes a liberating trek into the subconscious. Apart from the ubiquitous loneliness and desolation of Flood!, there are some subtle visual connections to "L" and "Home.". The links are composed of a few minute details and recurring images, including a particularly pleasant one not fair game for spoiling. The art in this second chapter is much more defined than "Home," much cleaner and more angular. "L" is brimming with archetypes and primal imagery including wide-hipped fertility figures and ancient hieroglyphs. Several life-affirming images splash and rejoice across the pages of this chapter; a fire-lit cave erupts with rhythmic dancing, a crane soars into a glimmering night sky, and bodies entwine in a garden teeming with life. "L" closes in downtrodden fashion as the ancient, fundamental joy of life gives way to cracked, mundane concrete and cold rain.

The last chapter, "Flood," is by far the most ambitious as it tackles a narrative within a narrative and makes the most overt proclamations concerning human nature and politics. The main character from "L" exits the subway and treks the smutty, rain-soaked streets much like the protagonist from "Home." He enters his leaky apartment and proceeds to illustrate a tale that begins in the snow but soon drifts through the open air. The story descends into carnival attractions and rioting streets, bearing witness to a history of violence before both the artist and his work are overtaken by a catastrophe of Biblical proportions. "Flood" offers the book's sole use of color as well as its only dialogue. Both are striking when they first appear, though the words, as brief as they are, undermine the work's subtitle "A Novel in Pictures." The text is credited to "a young Inuit seal hunter who survived the cold -- alone."

Flood! is a work that has lost none of its urgency, unlike other works that situated themselves at the verge of the 21st century. Drooker's nuanced art and symbols draw readers back to his book's pages where new details may be found on subsequent reads. It continues to feel timely, its vision still contemporary, the images hopeful despite the finale. Even as the metropolis in Flood! is crumbling, it still seems that Drooker's fate for a callous, crumbling world isn't that bad; perhaps everything's leading to a promising new beginning.