We Called Them Giants
Lori’s found herself a new foster home and her new parents are promising to get her a cat. Sounds great, right? Well, Lori has been through this kind of thing enough to know that the promise of a cat usually doesn’t pan out – and that’s before she wakes up one morning to find out that her parents, and nearly everyone else in her neighborhood have just up and vanished. Now she has no choice but to rely on herself this time, along with (maybe) a couple friends, against the people left behind who are quickly consolidating things. At least until the Giants show up.
“We Called Them Giants” is the first original graphic novel from writer Kieron Gillen, and it’s illustrated by his “Die” collaborator Stephanie Hans. Which means that it looks beautiful. From the jump, Hans’ gives the world of the story an ethereal, otherworldly feel to it that’s well-suited to the kind of fantasy story it’s telling. The actual bits of fantasy are also well-conveyed, with Lori and the other members of the cast coming off as appreciably sympathetic as they run a wide gamut of credible emotions in all the drama that goes on.
As for the writing, well, it’s Gillen. So it’s definitely not a badly written story. It does feel like he’s subduing his trademark wit for this one, much as he did with “Die.” Not so much to the narrative’s detriment this time, however. Things are dramatic when they need to be and playful in the same measure. The world is also sketched out as much as it needs to be with an appropriate amount of threats and some bits of comfort packed into surprising places. It also preaches a message of understanding across apparently insurmountable barriers without being explicitly preachy and that’s always welcome.
All of which leaves me wondering why I didn’t like this more than I did. I get the message they were going for at the end, but it didn’t hit me in the same way that “Look Back,” another one-off graphic novel from a creator I love, did. Was the story too predictable? Maybe. Am I still feeling the after effects of “Die,” from the same creators, being the Least Good creator-owned work I’ve read from the writer? Possibly. Did it not have enough cats in it? Yeah, about that…
I honestly think that Gillen wrote an entire fantasy story about his cats and got Hans to draw them as people and the humans as the giants here. That may sound ridiculous, but seeing how Lori and her fellow (female) humans act around the giant, and vice versa, it really does feel like I’m watching how an owner behaves around their cats. I can see myself and Boots (who is my cat) in their shoes, in other words.
Is this the correct interpretation of the story? It could be, but I just can’t say for sure. That’s mainly because “We Called Them Giants,” with all of its ethereal fantasy trappings, comes off as something that feels like it’s meant to be interpreted rather than enjoyed for what it is. The rapture-esque opening pages keep the story from feeling like it has any grounding in the real world and we spend the entire story in Lori’s head, making her feel more genuine at the expense of everyone else. It all has the effect of keeping me at arm’s length from the story itself as I think to myself, “Is it really about cats and their owners, or is it something else?”
Maybe that was Gillen and Hans’ intent here. To create a quasi-puzzle-box of a story that told a straightforward story, yet left enough unsaid for the reader to chew over on their own after it was done. Which is what I’ve been doing, but it has felt more like work doing so than fun. Not enough to make me regret picking this up, but probably enough to make me feel less unreservedly enthusiastic for the next Gillen/Hans joint.