Śmierć i śmierć

The book Killing and Dying: Stories by Adriana Tomine was published in 2015 by Drawn and Quarterly.

As parents, no matter if biological or not, we need to equip our children with skills that will allow them to live independently. For example, we need to teach them to cook so they don’t starve once they live without us. It is also good to teach them to recognize and name their own feelings, this helps a lot. Because recognizing and naming other people’s feelings is a more difficult art. Navigating in the social world, in this complicated web of mutual relations is an extremely difficult task. It is impossible to prepare for all situations and it is impossible to practice every possible combination of this web. It seems that the only universal resource we can equip children with is distance.

Adrian Tomine, in his book Laughter and Death, breaks down very complicated human relationships and systems into comic windows. Frame by frame, balloon by balloon, he analyzes the web of interconnectedness and reveals to the reader the emotions that drive the characters. This is a comic book for adults and for older teens, a pictorial manual indicating the place of the individual and his feelings in social relationships.

In six stories,

the reader has the opportunity to observe the struggles of characters lost in this social web. We meet an unfulfilled artist who at some point has to make a choice, assess what is his true dream, family happiness or fame. Then listen to the confessions of a girl deceptively similar to a famous porn star who, because of this similarity, cannot find her own identity. While observe the dynamics of naivety, how out of the longing for acceptance she pushes away reality and accepts violence and abuse. We peep at the desperate attempts to fill the void.

All the characters in the comic are imperfect people. In a sense broken, burdened with traumas and fears. Using the metaphor of a spider’s web, their eyelet has let go and they need to make new connections in order to stay in the web. The author subtly frames the intimate feelings of his characters, gently touches their sensitive spots and reveals them to the reader. One can browse as if in a mirror. Each of us has been let off the hook at some point. And everyone had to reinvent themselves.

In creating new, more solid and stable connections, we need to know our potential. According to the author, it is located somewhere between our expectations and possibilities. What allows us to find it is the distance.

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More recommended books can be found here.