WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 67Review_FICTION
nose on his neck, carry his other lung
behind him, and borrow his daughter’s
mouth to be able to speak. Eventually
the narrator is forced to acknowledge that
her father’s transformation is real and
unstoppable. Fayolle’s picture book panels
teem with emotive hatching and cross-
hatching, and wordless sequences swell
with pathos, perched over cursive let-
tering by Dean Sudarsky, much like an
illustrated, fantastical diary. Fayolle’s
visual storytelling makes a profound
statement about how people attempt to
understand and respond to the process
of watching a loved one being eroded and
to accepting their mortality. (Sept.)Baaaad Muthaz
Bill Campbell, David Brame, and Damian
Duffy. Rosarium, $14.99 trade paper (140p)
ISBN 978-1-73263-881-5
A love letter to black American pop
culture of the 1970s and ’80s, this rol-
licking comic is aimed squarely at
readers who experienced that era (and will
get its insider jokes). Fronted by vocalist/
bionic supersoldier Afro Desia, the
Baaaad Muthaz are a four-woman (and
one genderless alien) James Brown revival
band with a sentient snake as manager
and pilot of their spacecraft. They’re also
deep-space smugglers tasked with
transporting valuable Karvgjian semen,
a “super-sperm” prized for its role in its
species’ reproduction—and as a delicious
dessert topping. An attack by rival
pirates maroons the band on a planet
where they must headline at the natives’
annual reproductive ritual/music festival.
The lunacy only escalates as a horned
entity resembling Prince, communist
mandrill guerrilla soldiers, and other
oddball elements are thrown into the mix.
It’s a booty-licious throwback, stuffed
with references that will likely go over
the heads of anyone who wasn’t immersed
in black subculture during the Nixon-
through-Reagan years. Much of the
minimalist artwork evokes the look of
psychedelic black light posters and
album cover art of the post-hippie era,
and is as funky as the music and movies
from which it draws inspiration.
Campbell and company’s retro groove is
perfect for those who appreciate trippy
exuberance. (Sept.)poignant, if
occasionally
tedious, graphic
memoir of her
quest to unearth
her roots.
Despite being
raised in
Sweden by
loving adoptive
parents, who
did their best
expose her to the Korean culture of her
ancestry, Sjöblom struggles with racism
and an internal “sense of not fully
existing.” With help from her husband
and a Korean-raised friend, she begins an
investigation into her origins that reveals
the dark history of foreign adoption:
children “laundered like money and
transformed into legal ‘paper orphans.’ ”
The participating institutions, meanwhile,
do their best to dismiss, obfuscate, and
gaslight Sjöblom as she investigates,
though the experience of her sifting
through layers of paperwork and bureau-
cracy can be less than riveting. Sjöblom
inks her story on parchment and transcribes
numerous emails and letters over illus-
trations of envelopes. Her round, sweet-
faced characters are set against black-
and-parchment backdrops. Sometimes
the result is overly text-heavy; more often,
Sjöblom’s loneliness and frustration
churns on the page. An unflinching
indictment of foreign adoption, Sjöblom’s
story is also, ironically, an homage to the
chosen family who help her find her first
family. (Oct.)The Tenderness of Stones
Marion Fayolle, trans. from the French by
Geoffrey Brock. New York Review Comics,
$32.95 (144p) ISBN 978-1-68137-298-3
This poignant fable charts a family’s
complex response to illness. Fayolle (In
Pieces) opens with the narrator’s announce-
ment that her family has buried one of her
dad’s lungs, depicted as large enough to
require several pallbearers, who lay it to
rest in a field. She remarks on how somber
everyone is about this circumstance, but
holds out hope that her father is just
playing a tasteless joke (as he is wont to
do). Soon after, however, other parts of his
body begin to detach, as people in white
coats arrive, until he is forced to wear hishas pledged never to lose his heart again,
but he’s willing to consider Becca’s request,
not least because he can’t stand the thought
of some other guy touching her. Then she
starts working alongside Griff and his
friends at a retreat for veterans with PTSD.
Forced into close quarters, Griff and Becca
find their one-time arrangement developing
into a consuming passion. Though Griff’s
PTSD is more described than felt, both
protagonists demonstrate real emotional
growth, making their journey together as
personal and profound as it is pleasurable.
This sultry novel packs a surprising emo-
tional punch that will please both the
author’s fans and newcomers. (BookLife)
Comics
The Hard Tomorrow
Eleanor Davis. Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95
(152p) ISBN 978-1-77046373-8
Davis (Why Art?) gently observes the
foibles of modern social justice seekers in
this vulnerable domestic drama. Hannah, a
home health aide and activist, is attempting
to get pregnant while she organizes grass-
roots leftism as her husband, Johnny, faces
their future with considerably less drive.
Their worlds are largely separate, as evinced
through Davis’s elegant, romantic, and
densely drawn linework: Hannah is
immersed in elder care, protesting, politics,
and her charged friendship with fellow
activist Gabby; while Johnny drifts from
completing the building of their home to
working on a noxious friend’s survivalist
compound. Rather than glory in the couple’s
flaws, from Hannah’s naiveté to Johnny’s
idleness, or sand down these rough edges,
Davis presents her protagonists’ messy
humanity in a kind, plain light. Their
miniature saga feels less like the arc of fic-
tion and more like a few days lifted intact
from real lives. But, then, Davis seems to
argue that any life is rich and complicated
enough to merit its own book—and she
convinces the reader she is right. Agent:
Steven Malk, Writers House (Oct.)
Palimpsest
Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom, trans. from the
Swedish by Hanna Strömberg, Lisa Wool-Rim
Sjöblom, and Richey Wyver. Drawn & Quarterly,
$21.95 (156p) ISBN 978-1-77046330-1
Sjöblom delivers an often searing and