Today at TCJ, we're sharing a look at one of Nobrow's most recent stabs at giving you feelings. It's called Through A Life, and it's by Tom Haugomat. They had this to say about it:
This powerfully silent graphic novel follows the saga of a boy who grows up to be an astronaut, just like he always wanted, until a fatal space shuttle crash upends his life, and he begins to find solace in beauty here on earth.
Today's review comes to us from Noah Berlatsky, but we were able to convince him not to write about Wonder Woman. This time around, he's preaching the gospel of a webcomic called Sea In You-specifically, the ability they have to manipulate the pace of which one reads a story.
Jessi Sheron's The Sea in You doesn't look like a radical formal experiment at first glance. It's a gentle webcomic about a young student named Corinth who strikes up a friendship (and possibly more) with a mermaid. Sheron began the comic in 2015; she updates it every week or two. As of this writing there are over 60 episodes.
The Sea in You has been running, then, for around four years. Reading it all at once, it's difficult to believe how slowly the plot has developed over that time. Corinth is established as a somewhat lonely, insecure kid, whose boyfriend Seth is low-key manipulative, controlling, and insulting. When Corinth is cleaning trash from the beach alone one day, she's drawn into the waves by the siren sound of a mermaid, who almost eats her, then decides not to. Corinth comes back to the beach to try to see the mermaid again, and over a number of meetings the two flirt, exchange gifts, and teach each other about their different worlds.
This is my kind of dumb shit. I'm totally here for it. What problem could this group of people possibly be the solution for? I mean, I have questions of course--when did Conan the Barbarian become an Avenger? Why did the Punisher become an Avenger? If this comic is really successful, can they please make a movie out of it? Is Gerry Duggan a good writer? Why is it that I can't get a simple art request for a positive review of a DC Comic fulfilled, but Marvel is all about hooking me up with advance information all the time? I don't care about the answers to these questions. I know this comic can't possibly live up to the radicalness that lives inside my head of what it could be, but I also know that I'm pretty down for it just on the principal that I want to know who the deadliest foes still are of these people above. The Punisher gets to kill all his foes except for Jigsaw, so does that mean that Conan The Barbarian is gonna fight Jigsaw? I feel like Conan is the real wild card here, which is a problem for me, because I personally think that there's never been a good story where Wolverine is the sane one who keeps people in line. Maybe that one where Cyclops gets super drunk trying to keep up with Wolverine, but that's not a story involving hardcore violence. Either way: I am grateful to Marvel Comics for sending press releases to The Comics Journal, because I would not have found out about this comic otherwise. 'nuff said, excelsior, so on.
