PEACEFUL REMISSION

In this graphic novel by French animator and artist Djob Nkondo, an elderly couple faces marital strain.

In the far future, Jerry and Marlene live inside an asteroid somewhere in the depths of space. An older couple, they’ve been married for 47 years. Djob Nkondo’s artwork pans through the couple’s home, carved from the inside of the asteroid but full of the mundane, everyday items expected in a contemporary house. Rumbling and shifts in gravity wake the couple from their sleep, and Marlene immediately suspects their neighbors are to blame and insists that Jerry confront them. Marlene lets out a long stream of criticisms of Jerry, complaining about a lifetime of his bad choices and not helping around the house when she works full time, all peppered with an excessive amount of cursing verging on comical. Djob Nkondo takes his time allowing the argument to unfold, with artwork that takes up entire panels, with only a few words per page. When characters leave their homes, there are long stretches with no text at all, negative space utilized to emphasize the emptiness of outer space and the emotional distance between the main characters. Jerry’s hesitation to return home is viscerally felt in several wordless pages that slow the pacing. As soon as he re-enters, speech bubbles weigh him down and take up the entire frame, with only a few words readable, leaving the rest blurred as Marlene’s tirade continues. Specific elements of the story are never described, only shown. Through a flashback nightmare of Jerry’s, readers glimpse an enormous city of large buildings and people when suddenly a rain of missiles falls from the sky. Djob Nkondo’s visual storytelling lifts most of the weight of the narrative. Race isn’t mentioned, but characters have a variety of skin tones.