Review: Kafka

When I saw the Kafka trade paperback on the shelf of Liberty Comics, the first thing I thought was that the publisher was using the name of one of my favorite writers just to lure me into buying the book. I had passed it up when it originally came out as a six-issue series. But I glanced at it to make sure it was not connected to Franz Kafka so I wouldn’t have to buy it. Unfortunately, the frontispiece faced a quote from The Trial. OK, so I had to buy it to prove that the creators were using a flimsy front to invoke Kafka so they could sell something without having a basis in his work. With luck, I might be wrong and pleasantly surprised.

Things aren’t always as they appear, and this Eisner-Award-nominated series, collected for the second time in a trade paperback format, is one thing at first glance, something else at second glance, and when you stop glancing, you’ll see a depth that emerged from the creators’ hands even as they rushed to complete the work for the original publisher, Renegade Press.

The story: Daniel Hutton runs a small history museum in Dagenham, England under an assumed name. In the middle of the night, two gentlemen claiming to be from the Central Intelligence Agency knock on his door. They tell him his cover has been blown: someone knows his true identity — and that he and his wife, who he had to leave to keep her safe, are in danger. Hutton possesses special powers that are too valuable to be compromised. While the agents speak with Hutton, another knock sounds at the door and Hutton ushers the agents out the back door to let in two other people claiming to be from the CIA — carrying the same message for him. Thus the weirdness begins.

The plot is too intricate and sensitive for me to spoil it further for you. A suspense-crime-noir feeling pervades the story, which takes place over six days. The action is enthrallingly balanced with periods of revelation and explanation that add layers to the reality Hutton thinks he knows. The art is expressive, impressionistic and moody and at points surreal or illusory. Tree branches evoke Edvard Munch, just a panel before a character screams. I see Van Gogh-ish strokes in Guadiano’s pen.

The interviews included in the back of the book reveal the history of the Eisner-nominated series (it lost out to Watchmen). Steven Seagle (Y: The Last Man) was in college at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and found artist Stefano Guadiano (Daredevil) right on the same campus after a wide search for an artist. He filled a last-minute hole

“Kafka” is how people in concentration camps referred to those who vanish from their midst when the authorities take them.

in a production schedule with a risky promise to get the first issue out in 30 days and each successive one out every 30 days. Those of us who create know that the time of production does not equate to the finished product. Sometimes, for example, one can slave over a poem for weeks and then the final product is only adequate. Others strike one out of the blue and are perfect in minutes. Kafka is similar to the latter.

This is an original work, though elements of the story have been used elsewhere repeatedly. Hutton is interesting and sympathetic enough to carry us through the story. We want him to get out of his bind and we want to see him use his special power.

“Kafka” is how people in concentration camps referred to those who vanish from their midst when the authorities take them. They couldn’t utter the real names of those who disappeared because they didn’t want to be targeted as colluders. Hutton’s disappearance from his life is similar and he has a connection to the camps. Yet there are even some shades of Franz Kafka here. As in “The Trial,” the character is accosted by a pair of mysterious figures representing authority who spin his everyday life out of control without him knowing the reason why. As in Amerika, the character travels from place to place with no resolution. And, in Kafka’s own words, we see a vague outline of this graphic novel if we think of the two agents knocking on Hutton’s door:

…perhaps these two have organized the chase for their own amusement, perhaps they are both of them pursuing a third man, perhaps the first man is being unjustly pursued, perhaps the second man intends to kill him and we would be implicated in the murder, perhaps the two know nothing of each other and each is simply running home to bed on his own initiative, perhaps they are sleepwalkers, perhaps the first man is armed... .

The mystery prevails until the climax of the story. I recommend this novel; it is certainly worth the Eisner nomination.