Drawing conclusions about modern life
The common culture of the so-called American Dream isn’t pretty.
Graphic novelist Adrian Tomine takes this notion in his hotly anticipated Killing and Dying and deftly weaves it through six diverging stories on the quiet desperation of modern life.
Tomine’s particular brand of magic is his ability to unearth the beautiful heartache contained within everyday realities. These are not feel-good stories affirming commonly held beliefs, but they do speak volumes about the human condition — no wonder he’s revered in the art comics’ world.
Killing and Dying is serious literature in graphic form.
Tomine’s damaged characters — from the deluded protagonist in the opening “Hortisculpture” right through to the stealth military mind of a broken war vet in the closing “Intruder” — are crippled by their inability to own and move through their weaknesses.
Championing the graphic novel’s ability to engage readers immediately, Tomine creates space within each frame that heightens awareness and evokes senses and emotions recognizable to all. Characters’ suppressed feelings — their separation and alienation — are amplified by Tomine’s ability at playing light and darkness off each other, visually, textually, literally and metaphorically.
From the stunning opening one-page image of “Translated from the Japanese” to the powerful, taut depiction of domestic violence in “Go Owls” to the missing square indicating loss in the titular “Killing and Dying,” Tomine’s power as a storyteller is deep.
He peels back the layers of the casual nature of everyday offences — racism, sexism, co-dependency, sarcasm, ego, delusion — and potently highlights them with his detailed illustrations.
Few could make the neutral tones of the inflight overhead storage or a solo line of text in a frame with only partial cloud and sky (in “Translated from the Japanese” and “Amber Sweet,” respectively) resound with the muted frustrations of the characters as Tomine does; but that’s what makes his work so far-reaching and appealing.
While Tomine’s fans and critics compare his work to ’90s independent films, Raymond Carver and realist painter Edward Hopper, there is one thing that cannot be denied: Tomine is consistently and excellently no one other than his engaging and unapologetic self.
The protagonist in “Intruders” says, “I should’ve just backtracked and explained everything, but the right moment never came.” Killing and Dying beautifully illustrates that the right moment to do the right thing often never does come; the trick is to live in the one you’re in. Elizabeth Mitchell is a Toronto writer.