Description: What are the most important days of your life? Each day in Brás's life is like a page from a book. Each one reveals the people and things who have made him who he is: his mother and father, his child and his best friend, his first love and the love of his life. And like all great stories, each day has a twist he'll never see coming...Stats: Graphic Novel, 256 pages, First Published by Vertigo, February 2010.
My Rating: 5 Stars - A Reading Robyn Favourite!
Daytripper isn't the type of story that I can describe to you with any justice. That's how I started the confessional I wrote in 2011 on Goodreads. When I want to say something about a book I love, but don't have the words to describe it, I call those confessionals. They're a mush of emotions and love that in no way could compare to a real thought. Sometimes, that's the best way to experience a book like Daytripper, emotionally and as fully as possible.
The beauty in this book is truly unbelievable. I've praised many graphic novels for their art before, but Daytripper is by far the best artwork I have ever seen in print. However, this book manages to go well beyond just remarkable art. So often art and story are easy to separate, but in Daytripper one could not exist without the other. Everything about this book is just so rich in imagination and emotional depth. I was lucky enough that this was one of the first graphic novels I ever read. When I first got my hands on it I had no idea of what I was getting myself into, but when you turn that first page you can tell that this is something special. It's one of those graphic novels that embraces the medium so fully that you could not imagine this story being told in any other way.
The story here is about the life story of Brás de Oliva Domingos. He's the son of a famous Brazilian writer, and dreams of one day being a writer himself, however instead he spends his days writing obituaries for the paper. But this is no ordinary life story as with the beginning of each new chapter we also experience an ending. With each new ending the world around Brás changes in drastic and unforeseen ways. This is not the hum-drum of a static life story, one beginning, one middle, one end, but instead a life much more like ours, capable of changing at any moment.
You can probably feel the vagueness of this description, but trust me, the less you know the better off you are. Go into this story with as little information as possible. Let it surprise you! I know I certainly was and that was one of the best parts. Daytripper comes with its own experience, one that personally brought me to tears.
Gabriel Bá may be a familiar name for he has also has done the artwork for the well respected Umbrella Academy series written by Gerard Way. But here he's teaming up with his twin brother, who is also an artist and writer for comics himself. Together they may very well be super-twins! They have posted tons of their art on their website and flickr. For a preview of the amazing art within Daytripper you can also check out some actual pages on their flickr as well.
I can't stress this enough, if you're ever looking for an amazing graphic novel to read, then Daytripper is it. Even though I read this book for the first time over two years ago, I still think about it to this day. A game changer, Daytripper has yet to be topped in my mind and I sometimes doubt if it ever will be.
No comments:
Post a Comment