SOURCE: "Honey I Nuked the Kids," in The American Book Review, Vol. 14, No. 6, February-March, 1993, p. 5.

[Cohen is a nonfiction writer, poet, and critic. In the following review of Bone Saw and Akira, he remarks on their tone and subject matter, arguing that although both works violate cultural tabus, both fail to shock or "move" the reader.]

The heart of the graphic novel beats with the violation of tabu. Starting from the postliterate premise that pictures, rather than words, can be the primary carrier of meaning, artists of the graphic novel movement take something from the Sunday funnies, something from the 1960s underground comics, something from surrealist montage, and plenty from Saturday matinee serials, Warner Brothers cartoons, and The Terminator, to wallow in the rag and bone shop of art and culture, asserting themselves with fury and sardonic detachment.

There are violations, and then there are violations. The difference...