The Mirror of Love

Rating:
Summary: An eloquent and powerful book
Review: Alan Moore originally wrote THE MIRROR OF LOVE in 1988 as a response to Great Britain's infamous Clause 28, which prevented local authorities from "promoting" homosexuality. In actuality, its intent was to banish all trace of homosexuality. It was one of many stories included in the comic book anthology AARGH! (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia), and drawn by Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch. This new edition of the work is a hard cover book published by Top Shelf.

Moore's desire to chart the length of homosexuality from the infancy of life and onward to the cradle of Middle Eastern civilizations and through the path of Western society is a grand ambition from which he doesn't falter. The narrative is a steadfast declaration of same-sex love, poetic in construction, at turns whisper-quiet as a lover's voice, outraged, tender, hopeful, defiant, determined. In tracing the course of our love and persecution over the millennia the persistence of our culture as well as highlighting its achievements.

Photographer Jose Villarrubia illustrates the writing with his classical sensibilities and keen eye. Each image provides a resting-place for the eye while the reader contemplates Moore's metered prose, in much the same way that paths in Japanese gardens are often crooked to induce a new rhythm and experience in the visitor. The book is a history and celebration of same sex love and romance. Villarrubia's work is appropriately erotic in places, but again, his aesthetics are classical. You won't find images of hot naked men in this book though I hope you'll be curious enough to browse a copy at a local bookstore before completely deciding against this book. One image that consistently attracts my attention is of an ancient Greek sculpture of nude youth's torso, its arms and penis lost to history, but the hand of his lover still resting on his stomach.

Rounding out the volume are four appendices. The first is a "Who's Who" overview of the figures mentioned in the book, followed by the various poems quoted in it; a short of list of suggested readings (an excellent idea for those now curious); and the last concerning Clause 28 itself. Villarrubia and Paul Ryan impeccably designed the book. The front dust jacket image is a balancing act of ornate black script against stark white, and a luscious red rose as anchor. An image of a sculpture of a pair of idealized young decorates the end papers. One last mark of quality is the choice in bookbinding. Top Shelf went an extra step to have the pages sewn to the spine rather than having the pages glued, a less expensive and less permanent option. Additionally, this means that the book lies flat when opened instead of annoyingly trying to close itself.

Advancements have been made since its first publication in 1988. Thankfully, Clause 28 was repealed in 2003. In the same year, the US Supreme Court in a landmark case struck down state sodomy laws. Gay characters, albeit often played by straight actors, are almost a staple on American television. Several European countries and Canadian provinces allow for some type of state recognition of same-sex couples. After fits and starts homosexual couples can, for now, marry in Massachusetts. Despite these and other gains there are tragic reminders in the brutal murders of people like Matthew Shepard and Gwen Araujo and President George W. Bush's uncompassionate desire to legislate discrimination into the US Constitution to bring us back to reality. This book is invaluable as a poetic reminder of the journeys made by those before us, so that we may hopefully have an easier road ahead.

Rating:
Summary: A poetic history of same-sex love.
Review: In 1988, Alan Moore, fresh from the success of Watchmen, self-published AARGH! (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia), an anthology designed to fight the infamous Clause 28, one of the more homophobic moves of the Thatcher British Government. Moore's own contribution to the anthology was The Mirror of Love, an eight-page strip recounting the history of homosexuality, drawn by Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch, his collaborators on Swamp Thing.
José Villarubia, a photograph well-known in comics for his coloring and his sequential work on various comics including Moore's Promethea, has now created over 40 photographs to illustrate the original script in this new version of The Mirror Of Love.
Moore's text is among his most beautiful and most accomplished. With few words, he manages to engage his readers' brain with a lot of information about gay & lesbian history, all the while grabbing their heart with the lyrical qualities of his prose and his depiction of same-sex love throughout history.
Villarubia's illustrations are up to par with the writing: sometimes illustrative, sometimes tending toward the metaphorical or the poetic, they are always starkly moving without being melodramatic.
Top Shelf's production values are always good on their graphic novels, but this time, they're simply impressive. The annexes, which give further reading resources and sources for the quoted poems, add to the feeling that The Mirror of Love deserves to be in every queer thinking person's library.