What a quirky little book! It straddles the line of academia in brief vignettes... I've never experienced something quite like it before. It was an added bonus that I was unfamiliar with some of the book's subjects which made it a more engaging experience for me.

As a film and book blogger combined, this seemed like everything I was looking for. However, when it came down to it I just wasn't captivated by this title. The illustrations were fine but, as a graphic novel, they didn't really stand out from the crowd. All in all, this is a unique and interesting title but I was expecting so much more from it.

You may end up loving this one - just don't expect a typical comic book. In "So Long, Silver Screen" Blutch eviscerates his Hollywood dreams, nightmares and memories, leaving us with a bunch of mesmerizing pictures and killer one-liners - but not much of a real story. Are you open-minded enough to be fine with it?

A really interesting and provocative look at the effects of film stardom on audiences captured in the form of a graphic novel that is both classical and innovative at the same time.

This wasn't enough a graphic storytelling exercise to engage my students. Interesting but not engaging.

I loved the illustrations and cover is beautiful. There are lots of cinematic informations. But something is missing.

Giving a firm, hard "no" to art that opens with violence against women (even in what I assume is a fantasy of whatever this protagonist is) and just spends a lot of time showcasing women's genitalia for no other reason, I assume, than Blutch enjoys drawing them. It's trite, boring, and tired.

Utter claptrap, of the unforgivably bad kind. Not recommended at all.

Utter claptrap, of the unforgivably bad kind. Not recommended at all.

Now I love the cinema, especially those films that were on Sunday afternoons growing up. I sneaked into movie theatres to watch the larger than life images on show, long before I was old enough to watch the film. In those days you could enter at any time during the screening, so if you missed the first half hour you could stay in your seat and watch the whole thing through again and make sense of what was happening.
That said I have lost my way with big blockbusters and repeats like Rocky 1,2,3,4 to the nth repeats but find I often liked the original one like Jaws.
So here seemed a perfect book, a little French but then we always kidded our parents we watched foreign films to learn the language by reading the subtitles.
The problem here for me was the amount of knowledge expected, as the in jokes and humour needed a reference point. While I could recognise screen goddesses and captured images or appreciate Burt Lancaster films like Trapeze or a clever William Holden characterchure. Overall, I was lost and confused.
Further the storyline holding the piece together didn't seem believable and a little too violent.
I wondered if the sexual images and violence was intended as irony like the move through King Kong to Tarzan and beyond.
I tried to pay attention like when Peeping Tom was mentioned but missed the point completely.
The artwork and illustrations were patchy, some excellently drawn actors easily recognisable and alas others I did not know so cannot praise the likeness or judge it. The words are annoyingly in various written styles from creative to readable to barely legible.
This was perhaps the best medium for this homage but I was not quite on the same page. This comic book was not for me.

'So Long, Silver Screen' with script and art by Blutch is more of an essay in graphic novel form, but that seems to suit it just fine.

At times, this felt a bit stream of consciousness in nature, with odd bits flying in from nowhere, but it's an essay about our love of film. How we sometimes fetishize it, and really, it's just another industry at it's heart. With references to Tarzan, Burt Lancaster, Luchino Visconti, and more, the author shows how film has informed his life, sometimes to an obsessive level.

It's pretty original in nature, but I felt like it meandered a bit at times. The artwork is good, and there is definite shock value of sorts along the way. I like the page of gleaming teeth of Burt Lancaster at various stages of his life. I liked it.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.