the years best comics (in my opinion) part 5

For this instalment i'm going to be talking about Everything We Miss by Luke Pearson.

I'm an unashamed fan of all things spandex and super-powered when it comes to comics but every so often something else pops up on my radar, usually thanks to the fine boys at Page 45, that is not the tradition superhero fare. 

I came by Luke Pearson, who i believe now resides in Sherwood which is about five mins away from where i am typing this, thanks to Page 45 recommending his shorter comic Some People and his kinda sketchbook collection Dull Ache. I poked around online and found Nobrow Press had published Everything We Miss, a longer story presented in a beautiful hard back edition.

i should mention how this book looks and feels before i get to the content.

full disclosure: these aren't my hands

A fraction smaller than a normal 'floppy' comic, hardback bound like an old childrens story book. It makes the story within it seem even more precious.....

about that story....

Everything We Miss is a sad, sad story. So sad. 

The title sets the tone for the book. Everything We Miss is about everything we miss. a good example of this is this page that appears early on in the book..

this is just a beautiful sequence 

Our protagonist (the dude in the car who is crying) misses the tree dancing on the hill in the background. He is so focussed on his emotional turmoil he doesn't see the magical sight of a tree uprooting itself and dancing. Pearson uses this trick through-out the story, unnamed characters (the chap in the car and his girlfriend, primarily) going through the emotional wringer whilst fantastic and otherworldly things happen all around them. I think this illustrates the all consuming hold that break-up's or other emotionally intense events have on people, your focus is drawn to yourself and your emotional state, you develop a sort of tunnel vision, a tree really could dance a few feet away from you and you wouldn't notice. 

powerful stuff...

The way Pearson mixes these moments of emotional intensity and these ghoulish, creepy, otherworldy fantasy elements is seamless AND powerful (oh yeah!) 

The colour palate; orange, white, brown, grey and a thoroughly Mignola-esque deep, inky black, is deployed so expertly. Take the sequence above this inky wraith in all its inky ink black blackness reaching into the muted, soft fleshy humans. Its a perfect example of Pearson's deft touch, the fantastic elements are, at the same time, part of the world being created, blending in and striking. 

For me Pearson mixes elements of Ron Rege Jr's detailed, wiggly pencils, John Porcellino's simplicity and a bit of Charles Burns-esque weirdness (in particular the conjoined baby skeletons that appears at the begining and end of this graphic novel)

As i said before Everything We Miss is sad. One particularly devastating part of this story comes when our recently dumped male protagonist is sat in front of his email inbox, refreshing the page, hoping for an email from his ex that never comes. if only he had checked his junkmail folder. Its small things like this that Pearson excels in. Tiny but devestating things we see but the people in the story miss.

Its sad like a sad Scott Walker song, or a really sad Smiths song ('i know its over' or something like that) its stings. The only other thing that nearly made me cry this year was Daytripper, which in itself is a great recommendation.

Everything We Miss is a sweet, sad, weird, beautiful little story. you owe it to yourself to read it.