Lost Girls - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
For more than a century, Alice, Wendy and Dorothy have been our guides through the Wonderland, Neverland and Land of Oz of our childhoods. Now like us, these three lost girls have grown up and are ready to guide us again, this time through the realms of our sexual awakening and fulfillment. Through their familiar fairytales they share with us their most intimate revelations of desire in its many forms, revelations that shine out radiantly through the dark clouds of war gathering around a luxury Austrian hotel. Drawing on the rich heritage of erotica, Lost Girls is the rediscovery of the power of ecstatic writing and art in a sublime union that only the medium of comics can achieve. Exquisite, thoughtful, and human, Lost Girls is a work of breathtaking scope that challenges the very notion of art fettered by convention. This is erotic fiction at its finest. Similar to DC's Absolute editions of Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lost Girls will be published as three, 112-page, super-deluxe, ovesized hardcover volumes, all sealed in a gorgeous slipcase. It will truly be an edition for the ages.

Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Moore proves that anything that can be done can be done well. September 5, 2006
188 out of 199 found this review helpful

Just about the oddest preconceived notion in literature is that sex--generally a positive experience in real life--is widely considered dirty, low brow, and smutty (to list very few adjectives), whereas violence--generally a negative experience in real life--is considered exciting, entertaining, and, in some form or another, a remarkably suitable metaphor for the human condition.

I'm sure this puzzles lots of us, but thankfully Alan Moore was puzzled enough to write something about it. Melinda Gebbie nudged the grizzly author into just the right position, and together they got down to business. After sixteen years in production, the world is presented with the fruits of their efforts: Lost Girls.

Lost Girls, you've no doubt heard, is a 240-page, 3 volume story about Lewis Carroll's Alice, L. Frank Baum's Dorothy, and J.M. Barrie's Wendy meeting in 1913 in a curious hotel in Austria near the borders of Switzerland, Germany, and France. To any interested student in European history, this time and place should ring a bell as a geographical ground zero for World War I. Not coincidentally, Moore works with the relationship between sex and violence throughout Lost Girls, arguing beautifully that sex is just a reliable a tool in fiction as anything else.

As always, Moore's writing is beautiful and new. He's one of the great formalists of our time. Lost Girls is told in 30 chapters of eight pages apiece, with intelligent panel work that Moore fans have come to expect. Gebbie's art is gorgeous and colored without computers--you won't see coloring like this in any other comic. To be fair though, there are a few instances in the story where it's noticeable that Gebbie was drawing in overtop of older drawings: in chapter 30 specifically you can see the outline of Alice's mirror through all foreground objects, making the foreground look translucent and ghostlike.

Overlooking that, the art is warm and colorful like a children's book, which gives the narrative a unique (and I mean unique--not better or worse) personality among its graphic novel peers. This book isn't comparable to other comics because it's unlike other comics. Nobody tries to compare Citizen Kane and Eraserhead, after all. It's not even comparable to Moore's other work, because the literary merits of a pornography and of an occult look at the Jack the Ripper story, or a Cold War-era superhero murder mystery, are completely different. At any rate, I like the book.

As a last bit of reviewer's advice: this book is (again, as you know) an unabashed pornography, not a story with some nudity in it. Moore and Gebbie delivered on their promise in every way they could. Men with men, women with women, men with women, masturbation, anal sex, oral sex, pedophilic sex, bestiality, orgies, and more besides. Even if you're ready for this, as I thought I was, be prepared. It's quite a ride. And it's quite a step for Moore, who has enough mainstream popularity to send his idea of free sexual expression in literature straight on til morning.

5 out of 5 stars

Worth the Wait September 6, 2006
93 out of 102 found this review helpful

I have waited almost 15 years for this book and I have not been disappointed. A beautiful work for book lovers and important work as erotica for women. Lost Girls boldly looks at the lines between fantasy and reality, desire and fear, the essential honesty of stories and the hypocrisy of social reality. This is a story about all the horrible and wonderful things that we (especially women) are told we mustn't think about "for our own good".
Melinda Gebbie's artwork, using bright pastels and occasional collage, is lush, warm and inviting. As always, Alan Moore's story is incredibly multilayered with literature, history, and rich characters. A particularly beautiful chapter involves the women watching the performance of Stravinsky's ballet "Rite of Spring". The scene alternates between phantasmagoric images of the ballet itself and the erotic excitement it inspires in the viewers. My favorite aspect of the story is the intertwined accounts of Alice, Wendy, and Dorothy's sexual awakenings. Couched in references to the more well known versions of their tales, each woman recalls the curiosity, terror, ecstasy, and violence of the loss of innocence. By sharing their similar adventures they help each other and allow their selves to become free and whole, free from being victims and whole as sexual women.
My only wish would be for an edition with notes on all the references, but that could easily double the size of the box. I will be content with doing my own research.

4 out of 5 stars

Thought-provoking and Haunting September 12, 2006
48 out of 50 found this review helpful

When I first heard about Lost Girls several months ago, I was almost immediately turned off. Alan Moore, I thought, has more important things to do than show readers underage, make-believe boobies. But as he and his partner gave more and more interviews, I found their enthusiasm for the project infectious and anticipated the release for weeks.

I read the entire tome in one, four-hour sitting and was not disappointed, but I don't know if I'm ready to call this Moore's masterpiece.

The elements of fact, traditional fiction (the fairy tales and folk stories the work draws on) and Moore's own story are blended together seamlessly. You are challenged to examine your own concepts of that which is truly beautiful, that which is truly perverse, and what is just plain sexy.

While the story is smart and unique, I found that often the dialogue was outshone by the art on the page, and not just because of its explicit nature. The artwork is so beautiful and lovingly crafted that the dialogue seems flat and inadequate in comparison, instead of working with the pictures. I wanted what the characters were saying to match the sparkle and humanity of the overall plot and art.

The greatest testament to the strength of the book, however, is the fact that it stays with you - the parts that didn't excite you, but that challenged, offended or made you feel funny keep coming back to visit you. I will probably be rereading it very soon, after I've had some time to chew on it.

I can understand if you're not willing to pay $75 for a massive porno you're not sure if you'll dig, but I consider this a sound investment. Highly reccomended for anyone willing to put their inhibitions aside for just a moment to learn something new about sex, lying, trust, love and fantasy.

Just keep it away from the kids.

4 out of 5 stars

where should I put this? September 19, 2006
31 out of 33 found this review helpful

I read this whole thing as soon as I got it, which was weeks ago now. And yet, I still can't decide if I like it. The whole work was beautifully done, though the dialogue just didn't match with the illustrations. It felt flat and stilted. The illustrations could have told the whole story probably without words and they were beautifully crafted.

But... I realized what truly bothered me later. I enjoy comics and graphic novels. Not too many people actually bother collecting or reading them. When I mentioned to a friend during conversation what I had been reading recently the obvious question "what's it about" came up. I couldn't decide how to answer. Admitting to reading a comic book about orgies, childhood sex, and all sorts of other interesting topics just isn't the best thing to talk about over dinner. How do you explain something like this to people not 'in the know' with comic books? This question has bugged me enough that I truly question whether it will go on my shelf with other great comics or be hidden away like the pornography that Moore claims it to be.

If nothing else, it defintely makes you think.

4 out of 5 stars

Adults Only Reimagined Fairy Tales September 20, 2006
27 out of 30 found this review helpful

Suppose you actually met Dorothy from Wizard of Oz or Wendy from Peter Pan and they sat down to tell you the strange sordid tales of their lives before and after the worlds found in the books that made them famous. Then suppose they invited you up for a spot of tea and some sexual adventures. Sound strange? No more than this tome of sexually explicit tales that the most famous characters in childhood literature recount to one another over tea and crumpets. Well, not really cumpets, but it sure sounds British, doesn't it? Buy this only if you have a deeper understanding of sexual literature and the dark world of Alan Moore, one of the greatest authors in the history of the comic book. This is not a book for children or even young adults, but it's also not the illustrated Ribald Tale that used to pop up in Playboy. It delves deeply into the psychology of sex and hints that our favorite characters from Peter Pan etc. were actually quite mad. Moore tries his best to acknowledge Freud's tenet that all of human emotions are derived from the depths of our sexual core and that such dreams and thoughts reflect the very basis of all human behavior. This is not for children or even young adults as the illustrations, which are very graphic, can obscure the very witty and intelligent dialogue when viewed by the immature mind. It is the storyline that makes this effort so attractive and at the same time potentially repulsive to the reader but it is at the very worst stimulating reading and worth the investment.

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