Daytripper [Brossura]

DAYTRIPPER is a mysterious little book. I read the first three issues when they came out, and though I was absolutely intrigued by what was happening in the story, the way each installment came and ended without explanation made me not want to have to work through the serialization. Rather, I wanted to get it all at once. It's a book where the payoff is going to require some faith, and where the individual moments matter to the cumulative whole. I didn't want them lost in the gaps between.

This creator-owned comic is by the Brazillian twins Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, who have electrified the world of graphic literature over the last several years with their work together, separate, and in collaboration with others. DAYTRIPPER is their first truly substantial work as a solo team. It tells the story of Brás de Oliva Domingos, but it does so in a fractured fashion. Time bends here, the narrative pieces are scattered. When we first meet Brás, on his 32nd birthday, he is an obituary writer on the way to see his father, a famous novelist, receive a lifetime achievement award. In chapter two, he is 21 and seeing the world. The youngest we see him, not counting the oft repeated tale of his birth--a blackout baby who emerges into the darkness like the light, or even life, itself--is at age 11, the oldest age 76. We jump through time to watch his romances and failures, his family benchmarks and even the lows of an important friendship. Each chapter of DAYTRIPPER has a definite end, finite in its way, and one which I shan't reveal here, but you'll discover it soon enough. Fittingly, only the very last ending deviates from the pattern.

It takes a while to get an explanation as to what is happening. The book is a string of second chances and missed opportunities--though never squandered ones. For as spectacular as some of the failures, they never come with a sense that someone wasn't trying. It's more that things just don't turn out as expected. It's why you never wait to go for whatever needs going for, events may turn before you get the opportunity to seize it. It's at the end of the eighth chapter when we start to get a sense of what it all means, how Brás' each and every action creates a reaction, and DAYTRIPPER is the study of that resonance. I could have done without the penultimate entry, but that just might be personal taste. The dreamy ninth chapter is the only time where I feel the book has to strain for its mood, the only time the creators are trying to create the feeling of strange wonder that so naturally blossoms in the rest. I feared it was the last chapter, actually, and was frightened that the whole thing would fall apart.

Thankfully, we had one more step to go, and honestly, had I jumped from eight to ten, from age 47 to the big 76, DAYTRIPPER would be just about perfect. It seems a minor complaint, however, like whining that an otherwise spectacular car race is ruined because no one crashed during the second-to-last lap. Plus, that eighth chapter also has some of the most beautiful artwork in the comic. The duo's impressionistic linework and Dave Stewart's striking, painterly coloring really come alive when let loose to roam the unbridled realm of imagination. Then again, that seems so wrong to say, because it's very much alive throughout. DAYTRIPPER isn't a comic where you ever wonder why its creators opted for this particular medium. Every watery ink scratch undulates with passion for the form. Perhaps it's because they are twins that Bá and Moon manage to inspire two diametrically opposed reactions at the same time. Every panel of DAYTRIPPER compels you to stop and stare at the beauty of the drawing while also pushing you on to the next. You want to stop and smell all the roses, and yet you must go forward, you have to see the ways the scenes play out.

In that sense, while reading the book, we are also living the lesson that Brás must learn. Don't let any of the details of this existence pass you by without noticing them, but also don't ever accept those details as being the last. There is always more to be seen just out of frame.

Reason for Reading: Honestly, I would not have chosen this book myself and simply started to read it as I'd been sent a review copy. I had no idea what to expect and again, honestly, wasn't sure I'd even like it.

This book is exquisite! Bras de Olivia Domingos is the only son of a famous Brazilian author, and a miracle child to his mother, who himself is an aspiring author but at the moment has the lowly job on a newspaper as obituary writer. This story takes a look at Bras' life, a day at a time. A random day, each chapter focusing on a different age, going back and forth from young to middle age to youth to elderly and each day ends with his death. These are the possibilities of his life; throughout we are given a whole life story of Bras and yet we see how his life could have ended any day. Heroic deaths, tragic deaths, accidental deaths ironic deaths; they are all possibilities.

The twin brother author/illustrators show the reader how much death is a natural part of life. How one must respect each day of life as if it were the last. Live each day in a way that will honour yourself (your soul) should this be your last one. What will your obituary say about your life? Will it say you died as you lived? But not only is the book about death but about life as well. When do you truly start living your own life? Bras' mother retells the story of his birth over and over throughout the years nicknaming him "miracle child". Do you start living when you are born? Or when you start to love? Or is it when you reach your goals? When should one stop waiting for life to begin and start living it?

Each chapter is like a short story with a trick ending and yet they are all related and a pattern develops and a life starts to take form. One sees missed opportunities, misspent youth, true defining moments in a life and finally after all the possible outcomes, not exactly what most would call a happy ending, but a life well lived.

I don't know whether the authors are Catholic but Brazil does have the world's largest Catholic population and I noticed several rosaries in the illustrations. I bring this up because as I was reading I couldn't help thinking how pertinent the story was to the Catholic way of life. Catholic theology asks us to always try to live each day prepared spiritually to enter Heaven as we never know when our time on earth will end or when the day of Christ's return will come.

A stunning, compelling, breathtaking read! This is the book you bring out if you still know people who think graphic novels are somehow lower on the literary spectrum than "real" novels.

Life is built from a collective series of small moments, which may seem unimportant as they occur. At other times, we recognize them, are compelled by them, and they loom large within our own personal narratives. A small shy glance can lead to a life-long love, and a brief conversation with a stranger at a coffeehouse can form the strongest friendship. Moments of chance and quirks of fate define each of us. They form the threads of the stories that shape us, and impact how we will be remembered by others. This is the story of Daytripper, and it is the story of us all.

A thoughtful mediation on life itself, the creators--twin brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá--explore the existence of Brás de Oliva Domingos. Domingos is an obituary writer for a newspaper but aspires to be a novelist despite living in the shadow of his famous father, an iconic literary star of Brazil. In his short columns, Domingos celebrates the life of those who have recently passed, while struggling to define his own life. Each chapter is structured around a moment of time in his life, the milestones of his first kiss, his true love, the birth of his son and the death of his father. The uniqueness of each story is that, at their close, Domingos dies.

Each of his various deaths are a tragic reminder of life's fragility, a reminder that any day could be the last. Although one quickly becomes accustomed to the narrative hook of Daytripper, much credit is due to the wonderful scripting and engaging visuals from Moon and Bá, which work together to prevent the repetition from becoming a mere gimmick. Where other works may try to draw attention to the repeated deaths or rely on fanciful genre conventions, Moon and Bá wisely avoid those traps, opting for a smoothly paced, quiet manner of storytelling.

Although some of Domingos's deaths are shocking, at no point in the story do they feel cheap or tiresome. If anything, as the story progresses and Domingos grows more and more into a familiar character, the looming specter of death serves to heighten the reader's emotional involvement, ratcheting up the tension for an increasingly sad release. One particularly moving segment comes late in the book, and is told from the perspective of Domingos' wife and child, while he is traveling on a book tour. Although the central character is absent, the entirety of that chapter is haunted by his presence. His eventual death, as viewed through his family, is made raw and painful. The visual elements provide all we need to know about the devastation inflicted upon his loved ones, and it is utterly heartbreaking in its potency.

At first, given the nonlinear narrative and the deaths and rebirths of Domingos, Daytripper feels more like a series of well-told vignettes. However, the book quickly takes on a novelistic approach as the story grows and events become linked across space and time. Moon and Bá have crafted an exquisite study in existentialism, emphasizing the importance we, as humans, attribute to our own stories, our own personal narratives. We define and assign value to particular moments in our life, shuffling the events that happen around us, or simply forgetting some entirely, while ascribing moments of epicness to our own individual existence. We struggle to define our place in the world as we separate ourselves from those around us in order to create our own identity. We seek to make sense of not just our life, but of life itself.

Daytripper is a story of the human condition, of the joys we all share in, and the tragedy and losses we must all face. If anyone out there is still arguing that comic books cannot be true works of art, Moon and Bá's story should silence them. A highly literate work, there is a poetic, lyrical sense to its language and visuals, which capture not only a strong command of words and character development but of place as well. Brazil and its outlying locales are beautifully drawn and is almost as much a character as the people that inhabit the vibrant cityscape or visit its beaches. The story stands on its own as strong, dramatic fiction embedded in a real place, in a specific time in the life of one man. Ultimately, Daytripper is an ode to the power of storytelling. Although it has its share of death and melancholy, it is a reaffirming and beautiful narration about life and its many surprises. An intimate, emotionally engaging work that is by turns tragic and lovely, it stands as proof that no man is an island unto himself and that every moment is filled with meaning.

-- Michael Hicks