Dial H #13 "Open-Window Man"

Dial H #13

by China Miéville

Dial H #13 "Open-Window Man"

Genres: Comics

Comic

First published June 5, 2013

About the author

A British "fantastic fiction" writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" (after early 20th century pulp and horror writers such as H. P. Lovecraft), and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird who consciously attempt to move fantasy away from commercial, genre clichés of Tolkien epigons. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party. He has stood for the House of Commons for the Socialist Alliance, and published a book on Marxism and international law.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like China Miéville and I like comics – what could go wrong with Dial H? As it turned out, not much. I haven't bought any comics for years, having finally kicked the habit soon after university, but back in October we were being shown around Boston and our guide insisted that we had to visit this comic shop while we were there. She was very convincing, and two issues of Dial H, a Doctor Who and a Game of Thrones later and Louise and I left with a brown paper bag between us. I think I got off pretty lightly considering...

This is issue #13, so the story has been going a while without me. Open-Window Man is one of a number of heroes watching a wall of chalk graffiti where whole lives are being lived out for the stick figures drawn there. Open-Window Man is training up a young boy, whose parents have been killed in front of him, to be a hero for his own chalk world – sound at all familiar (Open-Window Man even draws him a nice lair under his house)?

Being China Miéville though, it's a number of fairly surreal concepts smashed together – firstly the 'real' world that we see in the comics juxtaposed with the graffiti world of the chalk wall. Both worlds think they are the real one – the boy doesn't even understand the word graffiti – and only the boy can hear Open-Window Man (we assume other people can hear the other heros that we can see in the 'real' world). Open-Window Man himself appears to be a hero in the style of The Tick: you're not quite sure if he actually has any real powers or is just a little self-deluded. The style feels a little like a mixture of The Tick, with its sense of humour, and Watchmen, with it's fresh take on the superhero genre. I've got another issue to go, although it's issue #15 which means I miss an issue, but even though I'm still fairly confused about the larger story, I'm pretty sure I'll be picking up more of these in the future.

[Ming · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this! I liked the Graffiti world and the backstory of the dials (much better than issue #0) - if this had come earlier, I would've definitely given this issue a higher rating and be happier about the series overall.