A lushly illustrated comic that explores bisexuality, queer culture, and unconventional sex through the upbeat story of a...
In this graphic novel, the simple story of two weeks in the life of a young woman provides insights into the complexities of polyamorous relationships.
Away from her New York home and boyfriend while visiting her parents in Portland, Oregon, for the holidays, Hazel feels a little insecure walking into a queer dance party on her own. But her nervousness disappears when she makes a connection with the warm and friendly Argent, a lesbian sex worker, whose dominatrix handle just happens to be Hazel. As flirting turns into affection, Hazel tells Argent about Gregor, a New York graphic artist with whom she has an open relationship (“We’re open, or poly, or whatever”). Hazel is equally honest with Gregor, who, between phone calls and Skype sessions with her, is enjoying a visit from his other girlfriend, Rebecca. While Hazel seems calm about this situation, she confesses to Gregor at one point: “I’m irrationally worried you’ll ditch me for her.” Negotiating the fine line between attraction and jealousy, Hazel ultimately manages to accomplish the tricky feat of launching a loving bond with Argent while strengthening her connection with Gregor. Newlevant’s (If This Be Sin, 2013, etc.) vivid illustrations show the clear influence of Japanese manga style, with its stylized portrayal of facial features and character poses. The author’s subtly colored panels are attractively detailed, and her characters are well-drawn, both literally and figuratively. Hazel’s innocent idealism and Argent’s sexy warmth are conveyed in dialogue, body language, and costumes (the bunny romper Argent wears for her birthday date with Hazel being a prime example). Their nontraditional relationships are presented in a straightforward manner as both normal and successful. In fact, the major thing missing from their story is convincing narrative tension. Hazel’s moments of jealousy and anxiety are brief and easily overcome, and Argent and Gregor seem almost too open and accepting to be true. Hazel’s up-close encounter with Argent’s dominatrix side ends with pain medication and cuddles but little insight into the passions that draw lovers into sadomasochistic play. But the comic format is especially appropriate for providing a peek into alternative romance, and Hazel’s story is a sweet and positive look at youthful experimentation.
A lushly illustrated comic that explores bisexuality, queer culture, and unconventional sex through the upbeat story of a woman’s vacation romance.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68148-587-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Alternative Comics
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An exemplary demonstration of the transformative possibilities of graphic narrative.
A powerful, unsettling use of the graphic medium to share a profoundly disturbing story.
If a boy is not born a monster, how does he become one? Though Backderf (Punk Rock and Trailer Parks, 2008) was once an Ohio classmate of the notorious Jeffrey Dahmer, he doesn’t try to elicit sympathy for “Jeff.” Yet he walks an emotional tightrope here, for he recognizes that someone—maybe the other kids who laughed at and with him, certainly the adults who should have recognized aberration well beyond tortured adolescence—should have done something. “To you Dahmer was a depraved fiend but to me he was a kid I sat next to in study hall and hung out with in the band room,” writes the author, whose dark narrative proceeds to show how Dahmer’s behavior degenerated from fascination with roadkill and torture of animals to repressed homosexuality and high-school alcoholism to mass murder. It also shows how he was shaken by his parents’ troubled marriage and tempestuous divorce, by his emotionally disturbed mother’s decision to move away and leave her son alone, and by the encouragement of the Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club (with the author a charter member and ringleader) to turn the outcast into a freak show. The more that Dahmer drank to numb his life, the more oblivious adults seemed to be, letting him disappear between the cracks. “It’s my belief that Dahmer didn’t have to wind up a monster, that all those people didn’t have to die horribly, if only the adults in his life hadn’t been so inexplicably, unforgivably, incomprehensibly clueless and/or indifferent,” writes Backderf. “Once Dahmer kills, however—and I can’t stress this enough—my sympathy for him ends.”
An exemplary demonstration of the transformative possibilities of graphic narrative.Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0216-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
“Life is the biggest bargain. You get it for free,” reads one of the Yiddish sayings that introduce the chapters, in a book...
Memory comes alive in this compelling amalgam of drawing, narrative and archival photography.
A prolific illustrator of children’s books and an artist whose work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review and other magazines, the author made a major leap into memoir with Mendel’s Daughter (2006), his debut in the genre. Where that well-reviewed volume focused on the Holocaust from the perspective of his mother, this follow-up continues the story of Lemelman’s family through the author’s Brooklyn boyhood. Though there’s an innocence to his tales of working at his father’s candy store—squashing cockroaches, playing pranks and exploring the worlds of the streets (“There was always something going on at the Market…Life was everywhere”)—this was not an idyllic childhood, nor is it rendered sentimentally. After immigrating to America following World War II, Lemelman’s parents turned family life into an ongoing battle as they balanced the nonstop demands of a neighborhood shop with the challenges of raising two rambunctious sons. “Deh Tateh” had served in the Soviet army after surviving the Holocaust, complained incessantly about life in America and barely hid his alcoholism. “Der Mameh” refused to back down to her husband, insisted she was more of a help in the store than he thought she was and left her son feeling deprived. The author and his brother Bernard became both allies and antagonists within the family dynamic. It all comes to vivid life through the artist’s drawing and through a narrative that conjures the voices of his dead parents to complement the author’s perspective, which retains a childlike spirit. The family chronicle unfolds against the backdrop of a tumultuous era—the assassination of a president, the escalation of the war in Vietnam and, perhaps most significant for the family, the changing demographics of a neighborhood that initially brought new waves of customers but saw a rise of anti-Semitism that drove so many families and businesses from what had long been their home.
“Life is the biggest bargain. You get it for free,” reads one of the Yiddish sayings that introduce the chapters, in a book that is both a celebration and an affirmation of life.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60819-004-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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