Daytripper

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

I'm not the type of comics collector who buys multiple copies or editions of books I already own.  There are too many great comics out there that I don't own a single copy of, and there is only so much space one can devote to the collection.

Daytripper is one of those rare books that I felt the need to make an exception for, especially when I realized I could buy a copy at get it signed at TCAF.  Before opening this trade, I wondered how the experience of reading Daytripper without a month's wait between each chapter would differ from reading it in a serialized format.

Each chapter of Daytripper tells a story from a different year in the life of Brás de Oliva Domingos, the son of a celebrated Brazilian writer.  Each chapter has a similar ending, which I don't want to discuss, as I would prefer it be a surprise if you haven't read the comic before, and each chapter focuses on Brás's relationships in life, with friends, family, lovers, and his child.

Reading the whole book creates a full understanding of Brás's life, as his youthful ambitions and dreams become compromised reality, and as he struggles through difficulty relating to his father, and the myriad other problems most people deal with as they move through life.  There's a poetic quality to this work though that makes it so transcendent.

Bá and Moon's art is beautiful throughout, and that adds much to the beauty of the story.  Brás is an easy person to relate to, and I as a reader keep hoping that each chapter's end would be different.  Taken as a whole piece, the book forces the reader to look for more common themes and structures in each chapter.  The non-linear format of the book highlights connections and changes in Brás, and I found myself meditating on some of the relationships in my own life as I read this.

Daytripper is a beautiful piece of work, which comes from a South American tradition that involves such legendary writers as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Roberto Bolano.  This is still one of my favourite comics of the last ten years, and I'm very glad that I took the opportunity to read it again, and can see this being a book that I return to time and again over the coming years.

Daytripper #10

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

With Daytripper finishing, I now have my pick for mini-series of the year.

From its beginning, Daytripper has been like nothing else being published by any comic company.  It is the story of a life, Brás de Oliva Domingos's, told in different chapters that are each set at a specific age.  They are not chronological, but rather skip through his life at different phases (at least until the ninth issue, which is quite different from the rest).

The story is magical realist in nature, reminding me of the best of Garcia Marquez in its casual weirdness and lyrical beauty.  While Daytripper is about Brás, it is really about family and the bonds that help us through our lives.  Brás has a complicated relationship with his father, which structures his life even after his father is gone.  In this issue, at age 76, Brás is given a recently-discovered letter that his father wrote him on the eve on the birth of Brás's son.  It helps echo and solidify the themes of this work, and helps provide a natural ending to the series.

While I've been impressed by the writing (which some might feel a little too self-consciously literary for a comic, but I'd disagree), the art has completely blown me away.  Bá and Moon are incredible artists, and every page of this book has been beautiful.

Now that this comic is finished, I'm going to miss Brás and his family, and also his Brazil, which is a charming and beautiful place.  This is one of those rare comics that has touched me emotionally, and has given me plenty to think about.

Daytripper #9

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

As I picked up this issue of Daytripper to read, I started reflecting on how much I've enjoyed this series, and how I wish that it wasn't going to end next month.  Then, as I read it, I got to the point where Brás, the main character, discusses life and death with his son, saying:

"Life is like a book, son.  And every book has an end.  No matter how much you like that book... ...you will get to the last page... ...and it will end.  No book is complete without its end.  And once you get there... ...only when you read the last words... ...will you see how good the book is.  It feels real."

It was a little like the authors had read my mind, and it amused me.

This whole issue spun me out.  Over the last eight installments, it has become clear what the established structure of each chapter of this series will be.  With each new comic, we are sent to another point in Brás's life, and they have all had a variation of the same ending (which I am reluctant to describe here).  This time around, the brothers have turned those expectations upside down, as Brás continually dreams of the different eras we've visited, and continually wakes from those dreams into other ones.

It's a conceit we've seen before, but it's especially effective here.  When Brás first wakes from his dream, he sits in his kitchen talking to his wife.  Slowly, over a number of panels, water spills from the sink, and fills the room.  This is handled well - I noticed the sink in an early shot on the page, but didn't catch on to its significance until a little later, the way we will suddenly notice something in our dreams that has been there for a while.  As Brás revisits different moments in his life, I felt small twangs of recognition and nostalgia.

What is strangest about this issue is that it feels for all the world like the last chapter.  It ends as all of these chapters have ended, except in this issue, Brás is the author of the last text boxes, and we feel like we have reached the last words that will tell you how good the book is, to paraphrase Brás himself.  I don't know what is going to happen in the last issue, except for two things - the art is going to be stunning, and I'm going to be very sad to see it all end.

Daytripper #8

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

This issue of Daytripper is very different from all that ones that have preceded it.  Each issue of the series so far has shown us a short series of events, taking place over a few days, of a different year in the life of Brás de Oliva Domingos, a Brazilian writer.  Each issue has ended with a variation on the same theme, and this issue is no different that way, but unlike the others in the series, Brás does not make a single appearance in the book.

That is not to say that he is absent from the story.  Instead, his wife and young son are the stars of the issue, as they go about their usual routines without him, as he is on a book tour.

Brás has a very different relationship with his family than most.  His love for his wife and son is central to who he is, and he can not keep from making that known to them on an almost constant basis.  Even though Brás is away from his family, he is constantly communicating with them through letters, e-mails, voice messages, text messages, and post-it notes left in the home.  In this way, his presence, and his love, surrounds them always, at least until the standard ending of the story takes over.

This series is easily criticized for being a little pretentious and, in this case, perhaps a little obvious, but it is also one of the most beautiful comics I've read in a while, both in terms of the writing and the art.  Bá and Moon evoke strong emotions in this work, and every page is a delight to look at.  I find myself lingering on each page and panel, taking in the wonderful art, and trying to delay the inevitable ending.  This is amazing stuff.

Daytripper #7

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

It's odd, when a book ends each month with its main character being killed, to say that this is a particularly brutal issue of Daytripper, but that's the best word to describe it.

Brás, now 38 and a published author who has received great acclaim, gets a postcard hinting at the location of his friend Jorge, who has been missing for years.  Without hesitating, Brás goes looking for his friend, who has been living in a remote region of Brazil.  Jorge's money has long since run out, and he has left the run-down town where he squatted for months to live in a hut in the desert.

Jorge's lost his mind, but his friendship still means a great deal to Brás, who has missed him terribly.  When they do finally meet, they have an ugly confrontation, although throughout it, Brás is only remembering the good times they had shared.

This series has been really fantastic, although this specific issue is not one of my favourites.  Bá and Moon have been using this book to explore family, friendship, and love, and while this issue does just that, it felt a little quicker and less lyrical than the other installments.

Daytripper #6

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

Other reviewers have referred to this title as being pretentious, and I wonder what that says about me that it is consistently one of my favourite books each month.  Where others see pretension, I see a solid attempt to address some complicated themes using a genre that doesn't often get to deal with these types of quiet, involved stories.  I would have thought that by now the ending of each issue, which repeat the same result monthly, albeit in different ways, would have become a little too precious, but instead I find that the knowledge of how the chapter will end causes me to absorb every page as if it might hold a clue to the ending.

Moon and Bá are working in a very South American style, and their story's central conceit reminds me of writers like Borges and García Márquez, who were never willing to sacrifice their story for the constraints of reality.

In this issue, we meet Brás at the age of thirty-three, when a plane crash in Sao Paolo kills a couple hundred people.  Brás, as an obituary writer, is charged with the task of eulogizing each victim in print, which he does in a haze, as he believes that Jorge, his close friend and colleague, may have been on the plane.  His writing is populist in approach, with hands and hearts being recurring motifs.  In a lot of ways, this is a 9/11 story transposed onto Brazil, with the series of articles the New York Times ran about the victims of that tragedy being an obvious inspiration for Brás's assignment.

Like in New York, the people of Sao Paulo focus on the individual stories when the big picture becomes over-whelming, which is a lot like what Moon and Bá are doing with their short stories about the different period in Brás's life.  I find this book to be consistently thought provoking and beautiful, and am sad that there are only two issues remaining.

Daytripper #5

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

I really love this series.  This issue features Brás at the age of eleven, when his time was split between his home in Sao Paulo and week-ends and holidays spent at his mother's parents' ranch in the countryside.

As with previous issues, there is a high degree of magical realism in the way the story is told.  The comic opens with Brás telling the story of his birth as he has been told it, how his mother sang his way out of the womb, and how his arrival in the world heralded the resumption of electricity in a city that had been blacked out.  It is how he came to have the nickname 'Little Miracle', and how he came to have a special source of confidence and 'specialness'.

Brás time on the ranch is spent playing with cousins and just hanging out with a large extended family.  Moon and Bá are able to evoke many memories and emotions of childhood, while adding another layer to Brás's life.  What struck me in particular was the discovery that Brás and his father had a much easier relationship with each other when he was young; I wonder if we are going to see the point where that turned in a future issue.

As always, the art in this book is stunning.  Bá and Moon have surpassed all their other work with this series.

Daytripper #4

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

My but I love this comic. I would have thought that the concept, that each issue represent a day or two in the life of Brás de Oliva Domingos at different ages, with a similar ending each issue, would have become a little too precious by the half-way point, but instead, I find myself utterly drawn in and fascinated by this series.

Moon and Bá keep returning to the same themes - filial relationships in this one - and building on the foundations of earlier issues, negating the common ending of each previous issue. This month's installment came as a surprise, as it is set when Brás is 41, and awaiting the birth of his first child. While taking his wife to the hospital, Brás misses the call from his mother informing him that his own father had died.

What follows is the funeral and birth, with Brás having to juggle his conflicting (and conflicted) emotions. He meets his half-sister after the funeral, and later has a conversation with her in the hospital. Brás is shown as having always fought for his father's attention and affection, and his emotions are handled subtly and with care.

The art in this issue is as impressive as usual, and there are a couple of pages that are truly stunning. One is the double-page spread showing the internment, although my favorite panel would be the one that show's Brás's father's study, a modernist room that looks comfortable, productive, and exactly like the type of room I would imagine a writer of his renown working in.

American audiences were first exposed to the twins' work through books like Casanova, and so have come to expect of them a certain frenetic madness. Instead, they are showing that they are capable of telling small, sensitive stories with great beauty, and I'm thankful that Vertigo is giving them this chance.

Daytripper #3

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

Well, it would seem that the ending of this issue clarified what was, at least to me, an ambiguous ending last month.

This time around, Moon and Bá give us a longer scene from the life of Brás de Oliva Domingos's life, from the time when he was 28. Brás has spent the last eight years with the girl from the last issue, although neither of them have been particularly happy together. As the comic opens, she leaves him, after saying some particularly withering final words. This basically ruins our boy, and he spends months under a personal cloud of depression and inability to move forward.

While Daytripper has been an intensely personal comic from the start, this issue feels more so. It doesn't come off as emo as it sounds when I read over my description here. Instead, it is a sensitive and finely rendered portrait of despair, but also of hope and optimism. Moon and Bá are doing some incredible work with this book, and I think its interesting that, while I originally bought this because I love their art, it is their writing that has captivated me.

Daytripper #2

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

This issue of Daytripper is very different from the previous. Where the first comic was a realistic depiction of the end of Brás de Oliva Domingos's life, this issue is more fantastical. This time around, the focus is on a time when Brás is 21, and traveling around the country with his friend Jorge, visiting the quieter, more contemplative places in Brazil.

Brás meets a girl while swimming, and they tour the market, sleep together, and then arrange to meet at the festival for Iemanjá, a sea goddess. This issue is also about how people define themselves, and how your work is not who you are, a lesson that the 21-year old Brás, most likely traveling on his father's money, has not had the occasion to learn yet.

Moon and Bá are working in the Latin American magical realist tradition, although they keep such influences subtle. I like the way each issue in this series is going to represent a different stage or moment in Brás's life, while also providing increased insight into his character.

Of course, the best thing about this comic is the art. The brothers are outdoing themselves, and completing some stunningly beautiful work. Dave Stewart's colours compliment the book perfectly.

Daytripper #1

By Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon

This is a good example of what comics as a medium can do. Bá and Moon have created a masterpiece of a single-issue story, as they introduce us to Brás de Oliva Domingos, a thirty-two year old obituary writer and aspiring author living in São Paulo Brazil.

Brás is the son of a famous author, and has a variety of unresolved feelings towards him, his mother, and, it seems, his girlfriend. In a short space, Bá and Moon establish these relationships, as well as Brás's daily routine. The characters feel fully realized and fleshed out, even though they are given little space to develop.

This is a very literary comic, with Shakespearean references and obituary assignments for painters and diplomats, but it is very much grounded in the quotidian aspects of Brás's existence.

The art is wonderful. Bá and Moon (I'm not sure who is doing what) keep a lid on the more fantastical elements of their work (this looks nothing like Casanova), and instead render a realistic environment. The book is coloured by Dave Stewart, who does some interesting work with warm, organic backgrounds.

While the end of this issue seems quite final, having read a little about the brothers' plan for this title, I can expect that this book will be a favourite of mine for 2010.