Rough Trade Friday: Black Orchid
I'm on a Gaiman kick again, so today's recommendation is Gaiman's brillant reconstruction of the Black Orchid, a classic DC Silver Age heroine. Dave McKean's unique art style mixes with Gaiman's engaging storytelling changes Orchid from a normal run-of-the-mill throw-away character into a human-plant hybrid with a connection to the Green, linking her with Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy.
The trade is a basic origins flashback story running parallel with a murder/suicide mystery and in typical Gaiman style makes sense in the last few pages. In his recreation of Black Orchid, Gaiman introduces asexual reproduction. He kills of Black Orchid, only to have her reborn as a "sister" that is identical and a pattern is established which would allow this character regeneration to happen in perpetuity.
Black Orchid is a quick read, very engaging and very dark. I see shades of inhumanity awash in the turmoil of what it means to be human; a struggle to retain motility of thought and emotion in light of the tendancy to put down roots, as it were.
The Boy Blunder
Posted to Trade Paperback on 27 July 2007
Other stuff like this: Alan Moore, Black Orchid, comics, Neil Gaiman, Rough Trade Friday
