Customer Reviews

Daytripper

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

These stories are absolutely great. The art and story telling by Ba and Moon is stunning and heart-warming. Every character is full of emotion, even the pets. There were several moments where I couldnn't help but tear up. Each story has something buried in it that makes the reader step back and reflect on their own life.

This book is one that should be on everyone's shelf.

I've been a fan of the autor's art since I read Casanova and Umbrella Academy (which I highly recommend). But It was the first time I read a story written by the Twin brothers. And what a wonderful tale of life and death. It would have been easy to fall in the «cliché» trap kind of story, but the two Brothers manage to create a compeling story, and achieve to make the reader feel the story. And I think it's an important thing. I won't say much more about the story since I don't want to spoil anything.

On the art side, it's, as always with the Twin brothers, gorgeous. In fact, it may be their best work to date (not that their work before wasn't good, quite the contrary). The art have is «cartonny» and is at the sametime subtile. but, as I said before, the art achieve to not only believe that the representation of the world we see is real, but achieve to make the reader FEEl the story.

In the end, the brazilian brothers manage to create a wonderful and moving story. Comic book lovers will love as «serious» read would too. In fact, it's these kind of story that should be presented to non-comics reader and not some super heroes comics (not that these story aren't good but it's too much buried under their complex continuity)

Highly recommended

Death can strike anyone... at any time... without warning.

The awareness of mortality is the backbone of "Daytripper," Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba's exquisite little graphic novel that studies the many deaths of one man. Yes, deaths -- every chapter ends with his death. And all the focus on mortality, ironically, focuses all our attention on life -- its delicacy, its promise, and the strange turns it can take.

Bras de Oliva Domingos is the son of a famous novelist, and has become a writer himself. But as he laments to a friend, "I wanted to write about LIFE, Jorge. And look at me now... all I write about is death." And the comic follows him through his 32nd birthday, through parks, streets, his father's black-tie reception... and to a bar where he will be shot.

But that's not the end... or even the beginning. Every chapter of "Daytripper" ends with a death, and each story just leads up to how Bras will die... or might have died... or has died in a parallel reality. It's a little hard to tell. We see him die in different places, in different ways (murder, natural causes, car accident, drowning, etc), and with different people.

And we follow Bras through different parts of his life -- his early work as an obituary writer, his love affair and marriage, his success as a bestselling novelist, his son's birth, and his life with his family. We seem him embittered, jaded, idealistic, loving and exuberant.

"Daytripper" seems like a graphic novel that is all about death. After all, the main character dies over and over in all sorts of ways. But ironically it's a graphic novel that focuses more on life -- as the sea goddess tells Bras at one point, "In order to go after your dreams, you must live your life." So while every chapter ends with death, it allows us to see the beauty, fragility and promise of our lives.

And the art is simply stunning -- strong lines, semi-realistic style, and lots of striking images (fish windsocks swimming through the air). And the authors subtlely alter their style, depending on what life-stage Bras is in. As a child, everything is bright, colorful and sunny, like a picture book; in middle-age, things are grey and grimy; as an elderly man, the world is pale and faded, but hauntingly lovely in its realism.

"Daytripper" is a beautiful, haunting meditation on death, and the value of every person's individual life. Touching, lovely and subtle.

The art of this graphic novel deserves five stars, there is no doubt about it. The style of the authors is superb and very efficient at capturing the moment.

I am however less enthusiastic when it comes to evaluating the story. The overall idea is quite interesting, but the quality of the life episodes was inconsistent (the one involving the search for a loss friend was quite bad and out of character). I was sometime left with the impression that the authors have written each episode individually, without a strong focus on the overall series.

Overall, I think it is fair to say that this graphic novel will leave any reader (even those that are not familiar with the genre) with a positive impression. In my opinion, the authors have what it takes to achieve great things, but they are not there yet. I am looking forward to reading their future work.

Reason for Reading: Honestly, I would not have chosen this book myself and simply started to read it as I'd been sent a review copy. I had no idea what to expect and again, honestly, wasn't sure I'd even like it.

This book is exquisite! Bras de Olivia Domingos is the only son of a famous Brazilian author, and a miracle child to his mother, who himself is an aspiring author but at the moment has the lowly job on a newspaper as obituary writer. This story takes a look at Bras' life, a day at a time. A random day, each chapter focusing on a different age, going back and forth from young to middle age to youth to elderly and each day ends with his death. These are the possibilities of his life; throughout we are given a whole life story of Bras and yet we see how his life could have ended any day. Heroic deaths, tragic deaths, accidental deaths ironic deaths; they are all possibilities.

The twin brother author/illustrators show the reader how much death is a natural part of life. How one must respect each day of life as if it were the last. Live each day in a way that will honour yourself (your soul) should this be your last one. What will your obituary say about your life? Will it say you died as you lived? But not only is the book about death but about life as well. When do you truly start living your own life? Bras' mother retells the story of his birth over and over throughout the years nicknaming him "miracle child". Do you start living when you are born? Or when you start to love? Or is it when you reach your goals? When should one stop waiting for life to begin and start living it?

Each chapter is like a short story with a trick ending and yet they are all related and a pattern develops and a life starts to take form. One sees missed opportunities, misspent youth, true defining moments in a life and finally after all the possible outcomes, not exactly what most would call a happy ending, but a life well lived.

I don't know whether the authors are Catholic but Brazil does have the world's largest Catholic population and I noticed several rosaries in the illustrations. I bring this up because as I was reading I couldn't help thinking how pertinent the story was to the Catholic way of life. Catholic theology asks us to always try to live each day prepared spiritually to enter Heaven as we never know when our time on earth will end or when the day of Christ's return will come.

A stunning, compelling, breathtaking read! This is the book you bring out if you still know people who think graphic novels are somehow lower on the literary spectrum than "real" novels.

This is the first work that I have read by the Brazilian twins Moon and Ba, but it certainly won't be the last.

The comic book medium is often overlooked by "serious" readers, who pan comic books as a place solely for heroes and villains, and their big clashes. Well if Fables or Sandman or the myriad of other non-superhero books haven't been able to shut them up yet, maybe Daytripper will. This book is an astounding work about life & death, and the thousands of moments in between. It touches on how those fleeting moments in life, the ones that spawn furtive feelings of love & loss, or remembrance & forgiveness, really are the feelings that make up who we are. And what if every normal, mundane day were to be our last? Would they be as tragic as the next?

This book is a superb work of art that searches through the human spirit and shows it in it's most fragile (and beautiful) of forms.