This One Summer and the Art that Makes it Memorable

This One Summer, by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, perfectly encapsulates the feeling of a childhood summer. The story, narrated by the main character Rose, follows eerily familiar characters as they dance through a myriad of plotlines and misadventures. Stories about childhood are difficult because there is inevitably a spectrum that spans the gap between what is childish and what is adult – and every single child experiences countless situations and dilemmas along that continuum. The Tamakis, however, walk that line with impeccable skill. Most notably, there is a panel towards the end of the graphic novel in which Rose is walking along a clean, clear path in one half of the panel, while the other half is occupied by the fenced off backyard of the store in which Dunc worked; at this point in the story, Rose was finally able to extract herself from the “Dud’s” chaotic relationship, and is thus removed from the clutter of more "adult" problems. This is not the only instance in which the art proves to be an absolutely superb vehicle of This One Summer. Jillian Tamaki’s decision to render the panels depicting scenes from extremely familiar movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jaws more realistically helps to keep the audience immersed in the story; if they had been drawn in a style similar to the rest of the story, readers would be jolted out of the narrative as illustrations of famous scenes would be too far removed from how they are preserved in memory. There is even an instance where, when a child falls, the action word "Trip!" is placed so that she is very literally tripping over it. Through this graphic novel, the Tamakis succeed in lifting a familiar feeling of summer and rendering it into something that can observed and appreciated by all who read it.

Asterios and the Nature of Duality

Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli, is an incredible feat of both design and content – much like its main character of the same name. Asterios was one-half of a set of twins, but his brother, Ignazio, died at birth; the latter is the narrator of this graphic novel. While the story at first appears to follow the life, career, and relationships of Asterios, there is really only one thing being illustrated by Mazzucchelli: Asterios’ desperate scramble to find balance and symmetry in the makeup of the world in an attempt to compensate for the constant feeling of extreme unevenness that the death of his twin created (even his surname was cut in half by an "exasperated Ellis Island official). He goes on long, philosophical rants about the construction of things, and how there are really only ever two aspects of a person or object’s nature; he accepts the existence of a spectrum in any given situation, but in the end restates that there is only ever “this or that.” In his architectural designs, Asterios drew up concepts that featured symmetry, like his “Parallel Park,” and lauded the parallelism of the World Trade Center. In every night’s sleep that is featured in this story, his dreams are haunted by duality or – lack thereof. Most feature Ignazio. After sleeping with Hana, Asterios reveals his perpetual feeling of having someone standing behind him, just out of sight, but eternally present. This duality is challenged, however, when Hana accuses him of only ever being able to talk about himself. Ignazio’s death may very well have served to define Asterios, driving his most successful designs. Through the theft of his duality, Asterios became singular. By means of his beautiful designs and brilliant narrative construction, Mazzucchelli is able to very literally illustrate empty space and the effect it can have on an individual.

Buddha by Tezuka

Buddha, by Osama Tezuka, is an incredible series interpreting the life of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. The first volume, Kapilavastu, wastes no time immersing its readers into the story. Tezuka establishes the story by means of a map of India, overlain with information marking important events in the life of Buddha, thus serving as a roadmap (if not quite a table of contents) of the story about to be told. There is a stark, almost rattling contrast of different levels of realism and simpler, more cartooned styles. Tezuka manages to balance them, however, by carefully choosing what to simplify and what to render more thoroughly. His drawing of the “Brahmin” icon looks as if it could be a realistic, black and white rubbing of art made in the time period from which it is meant to have been created; but his depictions of people and animals (in the manner of a firsthand account) are simpler cartoons that come to life much more readily than the characters he etched into stone. This abstraction, to invoke Scott McCloud, allows the audience to give them nuances and individualistic qualities in a way that would otherwise prove impossible were they more naturalistic in their representation. The abstraction also allows Tezuka to display some of the more gruesome events that take place in Buddha: Kapilavastu, like the rabbit’s suicide, the tiger attack, or the brutal scourging of the young thief; were these drawn more realistically, his readership would have to be much narrower. Coming into this week’s reading assignment with very little knowledge of Manga, Tezuka’s work adheres to familiar artistic and storytelling concepts, thus rendering this foray into Japanese comics much less daunting.