BOTH SIDES NOW

Joni Mitchell comes of age on the prairie.

Mitchell is undeniably one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, capturing the ache, thrill, and wild majesty of life in every lyric and chord. Chronicling her Saskatchewan childhood, this graphic biography explores the settings that sparked young Joni’s sense of wonder—“listening to birdsong fill up the empty skies,” watching “the sun flashing deep pink against the grain elevators.” Corry also considers her subject’s formative feelings of artistic isolation: Her parents were bemused to see her painting on her bedroom wall; her piano teacher rapped her knuckles and scolded her for creating her own compositions. After contracting polio, Joni was hospitalized for months—a period captured here entirely in blue. The loneliness of her isolation ignited Joni’s inner strength, and her adolescent years grew increasingly colorful as she embraced poetry, fashion, and rock and roll. The final chapter of this flowing story swoops swiftly through Mitchell’s rise to fame—from Calgary to Laurel Canyon to Woodstock and beyond. Corry’s watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil artwork gestures gently toward Mitchell’s iconic album imagery, contrasting monochrome prairiescapes and psychedelic creative explosions to great effect. Readers previously familiar with Joni will tune right in and deeply appreciate textual and visual references to her work, while those less aware of her creative catalog will be intrigued by her quirky insistence.

A childhood glimpsed poetically, poignantly, through the eyes of a young visionary.