Lewis Manalo's Reviews > The Filth

The Filth by Grant Morrison
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it was amazing

A truly excellent and somewhat transgressive book, this dimensional-hopping sci-fi spy story, dressed in S&M leather and a fluorescent afro wig, aims to challenge the reader's values and expectations. And it might, if you're young and fairly conservative.

Some of the book's scenes are truly distasteful while others will only make you cringe, but THE FILTH is only somewhat transgressive because most of those lines of decency are crossed by the story's villains. The protagonist, though not a conventionally decent or heroic man, mainly cares about his sick cat. To use the phrase from screenwriting, the protagonist spends the entire book trying to "save the cat," making him incredibly sympathetic and making his values ultimately conventional (i.e., peace, love, and harmony, etc.)

That's not wrong or bad writing; however, though THE FILTH may aim to challenge the status quo, like "Progressive" politics the work does little to challenge core values. The book's ending leaves the reader with a breathtaking sense of hope, but ultimately nothing new.

That said, THE FILTH is a great read and a graphic novel (originally mini-series) that should be held up as an example of comics as literature. Though it may fail to offer a true challenge to the standard values of the Western world, THE FILTH is more complex, lyrical, literary, moving, political, and entertaining than nearly every other graphic novel or mini-series to come out in recent years.
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Reading Progress

Finished Reading
February 11, 2013 – Shelved

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