RavePloughsharesThe innovative structure of Seek You reinforces [...] universality, exploring loneliness through a kaleidoscope of perspectives ... The text weaves together disparate threads of American pop culture, sociology, evolutionary biology, psychology, history, and memoir with an essayistic flair—not surprising ... The result reads like an illustrated essay, a longform collage influenced as much by Leslie Jamison as Alison Bechdel ... While some readers may not be ready to sit with this subject, others may find Seek You well-timed for a critical step we’ve collectively neglected—processing what we’ve endured this past year.
Erin Williams
PositiveKenyon ReviewSome of the alcohol-tinged memories seem a shade too vivid, though by the morning she decides to get sober, her thought bubble’s contents are merely a scribble ... but I would have liked to have seen more of this struggle to remember ... Williams’s visual style is less conventionally feminine: stark, mostly black and white with striking pops of color, and all-caps lettering ... Commute thrums with the tension between desire and wanting to be desired during murky past encounters with men, who, when summoned through memory, transform into archetypes along the spectrum between nostalgia and trauma ... The triumph of Commute lies in Williams’s effort to make the male gaze visible through 300 pages that render a distinctly female one. The whiteness of her gaze, however, remains uninterrogated ... her decision not to mention race limits the potential universality of a story that centers white femininity as the default, rather than acknowledging the narrowness of its specificity. Nonetheless, Commute is a necessary addition to the medium of graphic narrative, long dominated by men. Its publication is timely, part of the massive cultural shift in the wake of #MeToo, as women continue to share stories that, for so long, went unspoken. The gravity of its themes is balanced by its frank humor, which makes for an engaging read, especially while riding a train.
