Graphic Novels

My Brother’s Husband was my first Manga, so I was really looking forward to delving into it. Though it did take me a little bit to get used to, I enjoyed the format and the story.

So the story follows Yaichi, a single father raising his young daughter, Kana. So Yaichi and Kana’s lives suddenly change one day with the arrival at their doorstep of a hulking, lovable Canadian fellow named Mike Flanagan.

Mike tells Yaichi that he was married to Yaichi’s deceased twin brother Ryoji, whom I believe Yaichi hadn’t seen for around ten years. Mike, who is still relatively raw with grief, is kind of on a quest you could say, to explore Ryoji’s past.

So he planned this trip to Japan and getting to know Ryoji’s family was the first step.

What follows is Yaichi slowly coming to terms with his feelings about his brother and his brother’s homosexuality, and we see his struggle as he tries so hard to accept something he doesn’t really understand.

There was tension between Yaichi and Mike initially, a lot of it subtle, which I felt the artist did an excellent job portraying. It portrayed relationships as messy and complicated — not as cut and dry as we may sometimes think.

I got a good feeling for how difficult it was for Yaichi because he doesn’t quite know how to welcome Mike with an open heart.

This graphic novel is a wonderful representation of homophobia — even subtle homophobia — and the still very closeted Japanese gay culture. Heck, it’s usually the subtle homophobia and racism that we see rather than the shout in your face kind.

Yaichi also has a quite a spirited young daughter who truly shines a light in every scene that she’s in. She still trying to understand what homosexuality is and the sweet, innocent questions she asks as she attempts to understand are illuminating and heartwarming. She’s also quite taken with Mike and doesn’t hesitate for a moment to refer to him as family.

So while there are twinges of homophobia, this story’s more about acceptance and how difficult it might be to actually open your heart to someone or something different than us. It was so endearing how this loveable Canadian man ended up touching the lives of everyone around him.

In summary, My Brother’s Husband was absolutely delightful and a pleasure to read. I’m so glad that I read it. There is supposedly a part 2 coming out — which will be released in September of 2018 — that I’ll definitely be checking out.

You can check out My Brother’s Husband Volume 1 here at Amazon or at The Book Depository

Blankets is a graphic novel – an enormous coming of age graphic novel about a fellow Wisconsinite and artist named Craig who is searching for meaning in his faith, his connections to family, and the world around him. It’s not a coincidence that the main character’s name is the same as our author, as I do believe the book is autobiographical.

Our hero in this story is a lonely and isolated young man, and through these beautifully drawn panels, we follow Craig’s journey from childhood to adulthood as he navigates the oftentimes challenging world of trying to please one’s parents and doing “what’s right .” In so doing, Craig tries to be true to himself …or should I say, discover himself while trying to fit in.

Through the engaging pages, Craig experiences the joy and exhilaration of — as well as the heartbreak following — a first love, and all the while trying to reconcile it all with his religion or the religion of his parents, which was a small town Fundamentalist Christian religion. I was also brought up in a strict, Fundamentalist religion growing up so, I was able to relate to this on so many levels. So in this way, the story was at times heartbreaking and at other times joyful — painful to read in some parts, hopeful in others. Good memories, as well as bad and I, ended by tearing up on some pages, and smiling in others.

This was one of those books that I absolutely devoured and though it was enormous, flew through it in a couple of sittings. I thought that the illustrations were expressive and moving, and the author’s ability to capture so much emotion in facial expressions of these drawings captivated me.

It’s the kind of story that you can completely lose yourself in — or at least, I did. By way of his brilliant artwork, the author was able to pull me from my world into the mind of an adolescent and all the uncertainty and fear that goes along with that, bringing me back to my childhood as though it were yesterday.

It’s funny — as I was reading this, I thought of it as a quiet read, and it really was. So much was said in the drawings without the need for extraneous words — and that is a difficult feat for an artist to pull it. Craig Thompson did it amazingly well, in my opinion.

And there was so much snow in this book — something those of us who live in the Midwest can definitely relate to so in this way, it would make a perfect winter read.

Overall, I loved this book. It was an emotional and comforting read about discovering one’s relationship with faith, regardless of the type of religion or even lack of any spiritual belief system whatsoever. This book isn’t about having a crisis of faith but rather finding one’s own personal path — the path that’s right for each of us.

I think anyone should be able to appreciate this novel regardless of whether or not one is religious because again, it’s not about religion — it’s about slowly putting ourself together until all the pieces fit properly. Recommended!

You can check out Blankets here at Amazon or at The Book Depository.