Growing up, we were never allowed to read comic books. Those were for the less educated, the dumb eejits who wouldn't amount to anything because they weren't learning how to read properly.
Along the way to adulthood, I thumbed through the occasional comic book, and tried to enjoy the great classics in pictorial form. Maybe strong prejudices were imprinted on my developing brain and I never developed a capacity to appreciate the genre.
I could stand in front of a Roy Lichtenstein piece and admire the artist's ability to capture the elements of the cartoon. The first thing I read in the newspaper is the comic section. Pictures surely have their place in the universe.
The comic section is but two pages long. Laurie Sandell's memoir, The Impostor's Daughter, runs a full 245 pages.
Her story is certainly compelling. Her father was a pathological liar who mentally abused her, resulting in all sorts of psychological issues that she explored with her therapist. As an adult, she unravelled her father's tales while her own life degenerated into a melange of Ambien abuse and failed relationships with men.
In panel after panel, she comes to grips with her father's inability to tell the truth. She goes into rehab and searches for the answers to her emotional distress. In the end, she discovers God and draws her memoirs, complete with word bubbles, to heal.
Sounds like a substantial tale, but using cartoons to tell it is unfulfilling for the reader. It's not unlike munching on cotton candy, all air and no volume, when you're craving a burger. After you've finished, you aren't satisfied. There should have been more to the meal, but it was only a snack after all. Such an interesting examination of a life deserved more than cartoons. I wanted more, at any rate.
Publishers call them graphic novels or graphic memoirs and if you want an evening's amusement, looking at well-drawn cartoons, The Impostor's Daughter is unquestionably worth the short amount of time you'd invest in going from cover to cover.
If you're looking for a book that will engage your imagination, that will transport you to some other time or place, examining with depth, then comic books in a lengthy format aren't going to do it for you.
Is the graphic novel the wave of the future? Could it be that my mother was right, all those years ago, that comic books were proof that people were being encouraged to be dumb rather than smart? Or is it a sign of a harried reading population, who have no time to make the pictures in their own imagination, and find it quicker to let someone else handle the imagining?
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