As a writer it’s great to receive positive reviews from insightful critics. It’s somehow more special to get them from readers. I put this down to incentive. Good critics get compensated for their efforts by gaining renown. But readers who take time out to write a review are doing so for no other reason than they were simply compelled to express how a particular work has affected them. One such reader is Michelle Kasparian. Michelle purchased Volume 1 of The List back in 2007 from Sydney Supanova and tells me that she had been seeking further volumes since doing so. Having recently acquired Vol II she took it upon herself to go to all the effort of writing a review - no easy task, I can tell you. Michelle didn’t tell me that she was doing this; it simply appeared in my inbox. As I began to read it was apparent that she wasn’t skimming the surface. A writer herself - she won the Nolan Award for Creative Writing in four unit English (Year 12) - Michelle drew a deep breath and plunged fearlessly into the dark heart of my story. I could give my views on how incisive I consider this review to be (I wish I had been able to write like that at her age), but my words of praise are simply not required to support such a strong critique:

You cannot read The List with a headache. Don’t attempt to, I have and it really doesn’t work.

The List comes with a clarity, head straight forward, eyes completely opened. Most comics opt to invert this, at first everything is blurry, only vivid colour and landscapes strike the audience, then over a very lengthy twenty-issues or second trade paper back, we realise that the protagonist or our beloved anti-hero isn’t the bastard he wants to be. Paul Bedford (writer) hasn’t done this and neither has Henry Pop (illustrator) or Tom Bonin (colourist).

The List presents us within the first few pages all you’ll need to know about The List in regards to if it’s yours. The stark contrasting inks, hard jaw lines of father and son and the straightforward dialogue has already embedded itself in your mind. Other comics or trade paper backs, the audience cannot wait to turn the page, in the end each page as a single entity becoming powerless and trivial. Every single page of The List is important—no, omnipotent. Our eyes linger on each frame and word comprehending it knows more than us, and that it is not afraid of the audience. There is no placation, no softening the edges, no justifying back stories. Just the images, the ink, words and most prominently the List itself.

We as the audience enter the hidden taboos of social morality. Religion and its control over us, all the little bits of contradiction that is censored or omitted from public speeches or churches. The List shows us our commandments, reveals to us true transgressions and the most enticing part is the List is aware that we believe it is ours.

I didn’t write this little, what—review, feature article—to justify to you why The List should be read, I could include all the out of context quotes, linguistic and visual techniques or allusion to verify my opinion. I didn’t recount in detail the plot or current story line of volume one and two. Because The List wouldn’t want that and I don’t think any of the composers would either. The List and its creators offer and seek no justification, unlike the world that the high rollers want you to believe in, that religion wants you to believe in.

This comic is not for idealists or Marxists, or any philosopher that believes in progress. When you actually for the first time look at the true world, it stares back. This is The List and it is not for the placators.

So don’t try to read The List with a headache, it requires more from you, and it deserves to be seen as it is told and printed. With no blurriness or impatience.

Michelle Kasparian.

October 2009.