Comically Challenged: Daytripper #3

Ten minutes ago I was feeling great. I had some chicken wings for dinner, I put together a bookshelf for the trade paperbacks; I was on top of the world. Right now, I’m facing a crippling depression. Why? Nine minutes ago I read Daytripper by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá.

Okay, first of all? I have NO idea what’s going on in this book. None. I thought I had a pretty firm grasp on everything after the first book. Here’s this guy, Brás de Oliva Domingos, and he’s a writer. He’s 32 years old and he’s got a job writing obituaries in a newspaper. The whole thing was about death and living in your father’s shadow. Mostly death. What happens at the end? He dies. Fine. Next book, he’s 21. Sweet, we’re Tarantino-ing this one. I can get on board with that. He’s on vacation, has a love-at-first-sight situation with a girl, and….then he dies. Wait, what?

Guess what happened in book 3? Yeah, he died at the age of 28. The characters don’t change; it’s still the same guy with the same life but he continues to die. I am lost, I am intrigued, but I am enjoying every minute of it. This book is beautiful.

So why, you might ask, am I so depressed? This book is so emo it hurts me. Not the kind of emo that makes you chuckle to yourself at its ridiculousness, but the kind that makes you go “Maaaan, that’s messed up.” Don’t get me wrong; the writing can get a little extreme but I think it means well. Example: “Brás felt his soul was as black as the coffee, but cold. Cold and alone.” Yeeesh. The good thing is, those moments are scarce; easily forgotten. What makes this book among the top of my pull list, is its embrace of honest human emotion.

Break-ups suck. They just do. Even when you kind of hate the person that you’re in a relationship with, the fact that they left just feels like a punch to the gut. This issue had me relive every break-up I’d been in, seen, heard about, thought about, you name it-I felt it. That’s good. That’s powerful writing. One of the running themes in the book is this painter Schlomo Lerner. In his 89 years of living, he had fallen in love 274 times. He paints portraits of each of the women but each painting is named “Lola”. The man dies and no one finds out who Lola was but the mystery just hangs there throughout the book. In issue 3, shortly after his brutal break-up, Brás is at a Lerner art show contemplating the meaning of life (what most people do at an art show). “But isn’t he really saying with all his Lolas that, no matter how many women you see..there’s always that one woman you’re thinking of?” That’s Daytripper; brief one-liners of wisdom woven into a story of perpetual death. Whoa.

The art isn’t complicated. I like it; I think if it were any more elaborate, the book would be overwhelming. The larger panels are the best. They look like they’re drawn with photographs as reference. Impressive but very understated. Gabriel Bá does quite a number on the cover art though. The water color-style makes for a very ethereal tone. Not going to lie to you though, issue two looks a lot like Nirvana’s Nevermind album cover. That shouldn’t bother me, but it does.

I want you to read this book. I think it deserves your attention. However, there isn’t really a need to read it in single issue. When Vertigo puts it out in trade, jump on it.