This is one of those great surrealist stories that eludes direct interpretation. I always had a sense of what the book was gesturing towards: reality, unreality, creation, destruction, art as invention, art as translation...I could never fully grasp it or put it into words but I knew that it was there and was touching upon a nerve of truth within me. I loved it all, even if the final info-dump was a tad rushed. It would have been better if this information was spaced out a little more, or if the...

Frickin' *****MIND-BLOWN!*****Wow!

When I copped Cameron Stuart’s Sin Titulo, I was immediately grasped by the title. With some training in the Spanish language, I gleefully (if not reductively) translated it as, “without [a] title.” Although the Google Translate results have shown that I’m right (more or less), whether or not you know an iota of Spanish, the eponymously emblazoned Sin Titulo cannot be decoded from its title alone.Interestingly enough (Abre los Ojos) a companion piece (of the A&V variety) and it’s spiritual succe...

What a bizarre story. I would have appreciated a little more explanation but it was entertaining overall. Quick read and good art.

ARC provided by NetGalleyThis is the collected volume of the Eisner award winning webcomic.After the death of his grandfather, Alex Mackay discovers a mysterious photograph of a young woman with him...a young woman that Alex doesn't know. This photo leads Alex on a journey to discover who she is and down a rabbit hole that he never intended to enter. A rabbit hole where dreams and reality merge together and secrets are revealed...secrets that should never have been brought to light. And lives ar...

In Cameron Stewart's Sin Titulo, Alex Mackay finds himself in a living nightmare. The kind you might find in a David Lynch movie. Strange and nightmarish events descend on Alex's life and culminate in a surreal ending.When Alex's grandfather dies, Alex finds a strange picture of a young blonde woman in his grandfather's belongings. When he sees the same woman at the funeral, he pursues and then loses her. The mystery deepens and he finds his life being turned upside down. He makes allies and ene...

This is a tale that draws on surrealism, dream state, the reality vs fiction divide, the nature of art, horror, noir and autobiography (Stewart says some of what transpires in his graphic novel actually happened to him) to create a pretty satisfying mix. Reminds me of Bunuel, Kafka, Lynch, as events spiral out of control… only to be explained in some sense by a guy near the end who probably works a little too hard and long to tell us what the tale is about. Still, I say again, I liked it. The ar...

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/ When reading other reviews of this title, certain terms/words kept coming up: creepy, moody, surreal, tour de force, odd, and beautiful. All are true: this is a story that grabs you from the first page and doesn't let you go as it takes you on one heck of a bumpy ride across the landscape of one young man's troubled mind. There's a good reason Sin titulo has won the prestigious awards it has.Alex Mackay finds his worl

The highlights here are the three-color art, the way Stewart keeps readers off-balance through the disturbing exposition that unravels in the first two-thirds of the story, and the noir sensibility that ratchets up the tension. Alex, the main character, shifts through timelines and realities in search of a mysterious woman who posed for a photo with his now-deceased grandfather. Stewart creates a mystery in part because, for most of the story, the reader doesn't really know for sure what's going...

Are you awake, asleep, dead, alive; what is indeed real or a hallucination? Sin Titulo is an experimental examination of our inner psyche as each new nugget of information for the lead character is an overwhelming and dangerous piece in a puzzle with no clear solution. Cameron Stewart’s webcomic turned printed book pushes the boundaries of the medium by challenging comic storytelling with narrative misdirections and incongruent transitions in a widescreen, 8-panel format. It’s impressive.The sto...

I'd been meaning to read this for a while, and I'm glad I did, since it's quite good. It's a strange noir story with surreal elements and an interesting metaphysical plot, but it works best as an experience, a series of odd things happening to some guy after he discovers some secrets related to his recently-deceased grandfather and starts having recurring dreams and meeting sinister characters. It's one of those stories where all manner of craziness keeps happening, with each new twist digging t...

Alex Mackay visits his grandpa at a nursing home only to discover he’s been dead for over a month! He begins looking through his grandpa’s leftover belongings and chances upon a photo of the old fella with a mysterious blonde wearing shades. As Alex looks deeper into the identity of the lady and what her relationship to his grandpa was, his journey will take him down a very twisty rabbit hole and possibly even another dimension – but will he survive? I was looking forward to Cameron Stewart’s Si...

Very Lost-ish twisty-turny, rabbit-hole story, beautifully illustrated.I wanted it to make a little more sense, but that could be my own taste/preferences. I'd love to see what Stewart did with a more realistic story.

This was my first time reading a webcomic from start to finish. I usually give up on webcomics because I still prefer reading physical copies of comics. (The only other webcomic I've read is the delightful "Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant", but I just read the first few pages online and then I decided to get the book as soon as it came out).Two things kept me hooked on this series: 1) the beautiful art- Cameron Stewart's work is really nice to look at and that three-color palette style h...

Based on this comic, I think Stewart is a really good artist and a decent storyteller. The only problem of this story is the story itself. Vague ideas, too many subplots not necessarily tying up together and all in all I am not sure I understood what this comic was about and what actually happened. Three stars for the art and the lively and gripping writing and I will be surely rereading this to try to make up my mind about the story.update: Almost one month later I reread this graphic novel and...

Sin Titulo is quoted - lauded - by many critics as a surrealist masterpiece. Call me a killjoy, but I think there's a fine line between "surreal" and "I have no idea what's going on anymore." There's simply too much happening too quickly, and too many things that don't connect, leading to an ending that isn't very satisfying. You're left with the constant feel that the story is constricted and was capable of being more than it wound up being, and nothing pains me more than reading someone who cl...

I thought this had really cool potential but it lost me in the end. Definitely a cool idea, I just wish it had been expressed a little more clearly.

This review will be divided into a general and a signposted Spoilers section. It is written from the perspective of a writer/artist (me, I do a comic called Moth City, not a pro reviewer.Sin Titulo (ST) is a rollicking crime adventure that grabs you by the lapels before taking your off-road into a mysterious world of memory, imagination and obsession. While for me it doesn’t hit every note, it takes risks that a lot of graphic novels or webcomics don’t and dares to be more than your standard, wh...

“When someone in World-Building presents you a summary of their world, trace back the inspirations and influences and treat their world only as a combination of those sources.” [Panels from “Adel’s Return” in Spera, vol 3]In the third volume of Josh Tierney’s Spera, the author concludes with a short story, “Adel’s Return,” a bit of a coda in which Tierney (among other things) explores briefly the nature of the worlds we create versus those who would hope to diminish those worlds. His investigati...

Alex Mackay has just learned that his grandfather has passed away and while visiting the nursing home to retrieve his relative’s belongings, discovers a recent photograph of the deceased with a mysterious young woman in black sunglasses. In his attempt to learn the woman’s identity, he is pulled into a shady, underground conspiracy that threatens not only his life but also that of reality itself.Sin Titulo is about the ways we either intentionally or unintentionally create our own image and proj...