RaveThe Comics Journal... a masterclass in comics storytelling, rich in humor and pathos, and capturing the sheer breadth of life from the mundane day-to-day to the major stuff like parenthood, family, home, and career. Also loneliness, depression, illness, and death. That may sound like heavy going, but it’s really not. The book is a testament to Rabagliati’s great storytelling skills and deft draughtsmanship, and this makes for an immersive, sensitive, entertaining read ... This beautifully crafted narrative leaves its hero on a perfect note, and me eager to see what’s next in store for Paul/Rabagliati. While I’m also planning to go back and enjoy some past adventures, Paul at Home stands on its own as a remarkable achievement.
Ulli Lust
RaveThe Comic JournalLust is determined to live her truth, even occasionally putting herself in physical danger. At other times, she’s left contemplating the line between self-actualization and selfishness. Lust relates all this in an uncompromisingly frank manner, with anthropological detail. It’s a rich narrative ... Lust’s cartooning remains as fine as ever. Her panels shift from detailed naturalism to bold expressionism as the story requires, yet the stylistic adjustments are fluid and unified ... Whether depicting a garden, a busy railway intersection, or the exterior of Georg’s apartment house, these atmospheric, palate-cleansing moments anchor the narrative and give Lust the opportunity to show off her considerable artistic chops. Lust is also uninhibited when depicting sex. The generous scenes of her and Kimata going at it are unabashedly explicit, full of heat, energy, and sweat ... Lust seems to create autobiographical comics in part as a way of bearing witness to her life, noting—but never wallowing—in her screw-ups, trying to make sense of them and move forward. Since she seems unable to live a buttoned-down sort of existence she\'ll undoubtedly get into more trouble up ahead, but she seems to accept this as the natural order. And we, her enthralled readers, are with her every step of the way.
Zidrou, Illus. by Aimee de Jongh
PositiveThe Comics JournalWhile there are a couple of weakly imagined story points, it’s a sweet, skillfully rendered piece ... It is refreshing to see the sexuality of older adults depicted in such a naturalistic, positive fashion ... A couple of points in the story did stick in my craw. There\'s a sequence that comes dangerously close to the iteration of the old \'kind-hearted prostitute is secretly in in love with her customer\' trope that has always felt false (and even slightly offensive). There\'s also use of the dead child/spouse device ... Luckily, Zidrou has imbued Ulysses with enough depth that the cliché is mostly transcended, but I was still a little disappointed to see it here ... At its best, Blossoms in Autumn captures the poetry of human relationships along with the belief that life might hold a few surprises in store, should we allow ourselves to welcome them.
Aline Kominsky-Crumb
RaveThe Comics JournalTaken together, the stories in Love That Bunch provide a compact, thematically rich autobiography, touching on every important aspect of Kominsky-Crumb\'s existence: family, sexual obsessions, food, motherhood, art, and various philisophical musings ... It\'s been a long, fraught journey and Kominsky-Crumb tells you all about it, in sometimes mortifying, often hilarious, occasionally moving, but always engaging detail. Lots and lots of detail ... I love her in-the-moment, scrawly, obsessively cross-hatched drawings. Her line appears untrained and often downright crude, but fearlessly committed to paper with a laissez-faire panache ... One of the most delightful aspects of The Bunch comics is their personal, conversational touch. Kominsky-Crumb peppers her stories with little asides and footnotes, aimed directly at readers, in a touching or humorous manner. These lend her comics a genuinely intimate feel, like notes jotted down in the margins of a personal letter ... I thought the original book could scarcely be improved upon, but making it bigger just made it better, and richer. I love this Bunch, most definitely.
