Daytripper

by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon

Written by GABRIEL B¡ and F¡BIO MOON Art by F¡BIO MOON and GABRIEL B¡ Cover by GABRIEL B¡ “One of the most memorable things we’ve read in a long time.” — io9 “Beautifully written and utterly gorgeous, DAYTRIPPER completely blew me away.” — Gerard Way (Umbrella Academy, My Chemical Romance) What are the most important days of your life? F·bio Moon and Gabriel B· answer that question in the critical and commercial hit series that took the industry by storm, winning praise from such comics veterans as Terry Moore, Craig Thompson and Jeff Smith. Follow aspiring writer Br·s de Oliva Domingos as each chapter of DAYTRIPPER peers in at a completely different moment in his life. Moon and B· tell a beautifully lyrical tale chronicling Domingos’s entire existence – from his loves to his deaths and all the possibilities in between. Introduction by Craig Thompson (Blankets). On sale FEBRUARY 2 • 256 pg, FC, MATURE READERS

• ISBN10: 1401229697
• ISBN13: 9781401229696
• Publish Date: 8 February 2011
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: DC Comics
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 256
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781401229696

Reviews

[nannah]

I feel so bad for finding this just "meh ...", because I can just feel that there was so much love put into this (and it also says the authors poured their souls into the graphic novel in the introduction ...). But that love never really reached me, I guess, and I couldn't connect to the characters or the story.

Content warnings:
suicide
lots of death - it will make you think of your own death, so be warned!

Representation:
main character is an Afro (right?)-Brazilian
his best friend is black (Afro-Brazilian?)
the book takes place in Brazil, so there are many ethnicities

Brás de Oliva Domingos is the son of a famous writer, and dreams of becoming one himself while he writes obituaries for a newspaper.

That's basically the basic storyline, and then the graphic novel riffs of that, asking the question: what are the most important moments of your life? Each chapter is an "alternative life" for Brás (with an alternative death, too, and an obituary to top it off). They're also rather slow moving, with an in-the-moment feel (except for a couple, oof), that lets you explore that question for yourself: what moments ARE important in life? What do I want out of it?

But there was just something about the writing (LOTS of macho "living the life! Lots of chicks, yeah!" dialogue maybe) ... that I just didn't get. And that's okay; just means it's not for me.

I did have a problem, however, with the fact that Jorge, Brás's best friend, a dark-skinned black man, was the only character close to Brás who turned violent and killed him. Disappointing. Frankly, both the darker-skinned characters Brás knew and loved turned out to be either overly emotional, violent, or unstable. Not a very good choice .

Anyway, it's obvious many people connected to this story, so it's also obvious it was a just "not for me" book.

[luddite]

'Firmly based on reality, the most difficult thing wasn't trying to create a work that would LOOK real. No, the hardest thing was creating a world that would FEEL real.'

These lines in the sketches section capture so much of the beauty of this book.

Wonderful, evocative, indelible.