Translated French import Why I Killed Peter (NBM) presents some peculiar difficulties to me as a reviewer of comics. You see, a large part of the experience of reading this book was finding out exactly what it was about while I was reading it.

I skipped reading a couple of reviews of it I knew were online as I usually do when I know I’m planning on reviewing a new book, and NBM’s book design seems to encourage reading it without knowing too much about it—the only summary or text of any kind on the jacket is a few lines of not all that revelatory narration on the back, and both the title and the cover image are rather mysterious.

Going in not knowing exactly what the story was about heightened the impact of every new development as I read, puzzling over an odd narration structure in which the narrator keeps repeating “I Killed Peter Because I’m 7 Years Old,” changing the age on each instance as he grows up; wondering about how the disparate elements will connect and where this is all going; worrying and dreading where it seems like it’s going; getting so swept up in the story that the events near the end seem so perfectly constructed that you have to double check to make sure this is indeed autobiographical.

Reviewing the book runs the risk of preventing another reader replicating that exact same experience, which is why I feel kind of weird about reviewing it, but, on the other hand, not reviewing it runs the risk of not calling attention to an extremely worthy work.

So, let me try it this way. First, let’s talk about everything about the book that doesn’t directly involve the plot.

It’s written by Oliver Ka, who is also the protagonist and narrator, and it’s drawn by top-billed artist Alfred. The two work in such perfect harmony that “perfect harmony” sounds a little too week. It’s more of a perfect synthesis, as if it were a single creator writing and drawing everything.

They work in some rather exciting visual techniques, but do so subtly that they never really draw attention away from the story. That is, you feel the effects without necessarily noting and dissecting them while they’re occurring.

At least until the very end of the book, where the tense slowly shifts into something approaching present tense, and photography becomes an element of the image generation.

The story spans much of the writer’s life, from the time he was seven until he’s 35, and during his 35th year he’s no longer telling about something that happened long ago, but is relating it as if he just got done experiencing it himself. (On page 100, a character reads the first sixty pages of the comic itself).

The early focus is on young Olivier and his relationship with religion and God, and how’s he finds himself receiving very mixed signals on its importance and interpretation from the people in his life: his devout grandparents, who go to church every day and tell him that people that play with their peepees will go to hell, his libertine parents, who admire a bohemian lifestyle and have a rather open relationship, and friend of the family Peter, who is a priest (which Olivier’s grandparents like) and a regular, down-to-earth, non-preachy good guy (which Olivier’s parents like).

On a craft level, it’s pretty much a perfect work, taking full advantage of what’s unique about the medium to tell elements of the story in ways that couldn’t be done in other mediums. In general, it’s a powerful and, unfortunately, relevant and timely work.

But it’s not always an easy read, due to the specifics of the subject matter, so at this point, at the bottom of the review, I guess it’s time to cover that: About midway through the book, Peter sexually abuses 12-year-old Olivier one night while they’re at summer camp. After a ten-panel chat the next morning, that’s the last Olivier and Peter speak of it, and the former grows up, thinking whatever damage it did was something in the past, something he was over, and eventually finding out that wasn’t really the case at all.

Because we’ve spent about 50 pages reading about what a nice, cool guy Peter is in Olivier’s eyes, the incident is all the more potent, as Ka and Alfred show us everything through young Olivier’s eyes, and it’s a lot more complicated (and terrible) than those who have never had to experience such a thing would know from childhood lessons of stranger danger or news articles about more abuse scandals in the church.

NBM’s site has a preview up here, which highlights the way Alfred depicts the perception of adults through Olivier’s eyes. NBM’s Terry Nantier talks about the book at Blog@ here. And my colleague Michael C. Lorah reviewed it as part of the Best Shots@Newsarama column here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Caleb's reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.