‘Guilty’ Pleasures From Fogg to Cellar

“Oh my god, it’s Quinten.”

Students will recognize the distinctive face of Quinten, owner and bartender of The Cellar, on the pages of Karl Stevens’ new graphic novel “Guilty.”

The Cellar—for those of you who are underage and unaware—is a basement-level bar on Mass. Ave., between Harvard and Central Squares. And Stevens—for those of you unacquainted with the staffers who stand guard over Harvard’s art collection—works in security at the Fogg Museum (when he’s not producing art of his own).

Students will likewise identify with the tone of the novel’s storyline, which as Stevens wrote in an e-mail interview, is about “young people doing dumb things in beautiful surroundings”—specifically, the blocks surrounding Harvard Yard.

These sites—namely the Cellar and the Fogg Museum, where most of the story’s main characters work—are strikingly and realistically represented in Stevens’ pen-and-ink crosshatchings. And the characters who pass through these places do behave dumbly, providing a stark narrative counterpoint to the dramatic black and white imagery.

The story follows Ingrid and Mark, two ex-lovers who find themselves reunited—reluctantly, for one of them—through their work. Like the author, Mark works in security at the Fogg, while Ingrid works at the front desk in visitor services. The awkward and uncomfortable dance these two perform around one another as they try to work through their shared past and deal with the present microcosmically captures the post-college, twenty-something lifestyle. Stevens refers to this time, marked by indecision and a reluctance to accept responsibility for one’s actions, as a “drifting stage of development, between college and career.”

As he seeks to jumpstart his own career as a graphic novelist, Stevens seems well-positioned to portray this phase of a young person’s life, imbuing it with an air of reality and truth. Although Stevens says that “Guilty” is not an autobiographical work, it feels as though the events that unfold in this book could have happened, even if they never actually did. While this makes for a story where less happens, it gives the work a subtle, textural quality of wordless image and emotion that slows the narrative, forcing the reader to recognize the humanity of the characters.

Graphic novels, by nature, are a visual medium. As a result, a significant portion of the emphasis normally placed on a novel’s writing is shifted over to the artwork. In this case, this shift is a very fortunate move as, sadly, the writing in “Guilty” can sometimes verge on the mediocre and there are also a number of misspellings in the dialogue. However, Stevens’ drawings are often so realistic and subtly attention-grabbing as to render the dialogue almost entirely irrelevant.

Although this aspect can occasionally be inconsistent as well, it is Stevens’ attentive pen-and-ink renderings that carry the work. Accordingly, Stevens often abandons the dialogue-driven narrative for an entire page, favoring a cinematic style of slow, atmospheric visual observation.

Fittingly, Stevens cites the medium of film and particularly the directors of the French New Wave as a major influence on his work. While I’m reluctant to juxtapose “Guilty” with “The 400 Blows,” Stevens work definitely has an element of that same detachment and disaffection among its characters that infuses the oeuvres of Truffaut and his contemporaries. Further, Stevens’ visual style is reminiscent of cinematic montage, which wordlessly hints at a complexity of character and adds depth and texture to an otherwise straightforward story by injecting disparate, non-sequential images into the narrative.

But perhaps the greatest charm of this book for the average Harvard reader is the sense of familiarity one feels with the character types and locations. As an introspective senior preparing for my final departure from these hallowed halls, the imagery offered by “Guilty” nicely complements my pre-nostalgic state of mind.

The scenes in the Fogg bring me back to my first year here, when I was taking a freshman seminar on several works displayed in the Harvard Art Museums. Stevens’ depiction of the Cellar—and his beautiful and uncannily accurate portrait of Quinten—fast-forwards me to this year, inviting me to reminisce over all the fun nights out I’ve had with all the people whom I’ll soon have to refer to wistfully as “my college friends.”

With that in mind, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed “Guilty” as much had it taken place somewhere more foreign to me, but I guess that’s immaterial. It does take place here, and I am a Harvard student, so it would be impossible to discuss the quality of the book outside of that context.

Stevens’ work does show promise, as is indicated by his acquisition of a grant from the Xeric Foundation, a non-profit corporation offering financial assistance to self-publishing comic book creators. Although “Guilty” does not entirely live up to its potential, its artwork and the narrative it embodies hold the kind of profound and simple truth that could one day make for something great.

—Staff writer Steven N. Jacobs can be reached at snjacobs@fas.harvard.edu