Killing and Dying
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3.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"One of the most gifted graphic novelists of our time." —Wired
Killing and Dying is a stunning showcase of the possibilities of the graphic novel medium and a wry exploration of loss, creative ambition, identity, and family dynamics. With this work, Adrian Tomine (Shortcomings, Scenes from an Impending Marriage) reaffirms his place not only as one of the most significant creators of contemporary comics but as one of the great voices of modern American literature. His gift for capturing emotion and intellect resonates here: the weight of love and its absence, the pride and disappointment of family, the anxiety and hopefulness of being alive in the twenty-first century.
"Amber Sweet" shows the disastrous impact of mistaken identity in a hyper-connected world; "A Brief History of the Art Form Known as Hortisculpture" details the invention and destruction of a vital new art form in short comic strips; "Translated, from the Japanese" is a lush, full-color display of storytelling through still images; the title story, "Killing and Dying", centers on parenthood, mortality, and stand-up comedy. In six interconnected, darkly funny stories, Tomine forms a quietly moving portrait of contemporary life.
Tomine is a master of the small gesture, equally deft at signaling emotion via a subtle change of expression or writ large across landscapes illustrated in full color. Killing and Dying is a fraught, realist masterpiece.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Plenty of graphic novelists mine the seam of modern anxieties and alienation. Only a tiny handful do so with as much perceptive humanity as Tomine (Shortcomings). These half-dozen short stories are drawn with a cool, dry, Chris Ware like style that heightens the emotions packed within their rigidly uniform blocks rather than muffling it. Many of the stories track relationships in which the women are lost and the men lash out. The men react in fury to their thwarted creativity (like the wannabe sculptor in "A Brief History of the Art Form Known as Hortisculpture' ") and to any acknowledgment of their shortcomings (like the rage-filled middle-aged pot dealer in "Go Owls"). Some of those same damaged and defensive men also appear in "Amber Sweet," a Paul Austeresque fable of disorientation, in which a woman must come to terms with her resemblance to a popular porn star. But the title story is a simpler and more riveting construction. In it, an awkward, stuttering 14-year-old girl pursues an unlikely career as a stand-up comic, while her mother overpraises her and her father undermines her from the sidelines, though none of the three addresses the tragedy looming ever larger in their lives. Tomine has created a deft, deadpan masterpiece filled with heartache interspersed with the shock of beauty.
