The Collected And Then One Day Vol. 1

by Ryan Claytor

I have a friend who writes and posts on Facebook a daily haiku.  More often than not, they are about food, beer, or coffee, but taken as a whole (there are over 500 of them written so far), they become a substantive chronicle of his everyday existence.  What does that have to do with this small book, which collects the first four mini-comics in Ryan Claytor's series?  Almost this entire book reminded me of my friend's haiku.

Each page in this book is a strip that represents, in some way, a day in Claytor's life.  Many of them, especially in the first half of the book, are kind of banal and quotidian, but are also very charming and affirming.  Claytor is a pretty happy guy, and even though, at the start of the book (Spring 2004) he is still living with his parents and struggling to land a full-time teaching job, he maintains a positive outlook on a life that he shares with family and friends.

Last summer I met Claytor when he came to Toronto, and I bought and read the eighth book in his series (I got this first one at TCAF this year when he returned to TO).  That issue is a book-length discussion of the role of autobiography, and it's pretty dense.  It's interesting to me to see where he has taken his original idea, of chronicling his life, and has used to explore some pretty academic areas.  Both books are quite enjoyable (for different reasons), and Claytor himself is a great guy.  You can check out his work at his website.