mockduck reviewed Time Zone J by Julie Doucet
An immersion
3 stars
Reading this is like being in a fever dream. The pages - basically one long concertina of continuous drawing- are so crowded with detail and there's an instruction at the start that the pages were drawn bottom up so 'read accordingly'. Sometimes this holds up and sometimes it doesn't, and of you choose the wrong direction thoughts come at you fragmented, the end before the beginning. It's not an easy read, but as it turns out this is eminently suitable for the subject matter, which is rooted in the confusion of navigating a grand passion that's been thrust upon you when you're not even sure you're feeling it, during those teenage years when it's easy to go press the accelerator a bit too hard on how you think adult life should be. I suspect this will be the subject of much academic study in the graphic novels field. Not sure …
Reading this is like being in a fever dream. The pages - basically one long concertina of continuous drawing- are so crowded with detail and there's an instruction at the start that the pages were drawn bottom up so 'read accordingly'. Sometimes this holds up and sometimes it doesn't, and of you choose the wrong direction thoughts come at you fragmented, the end before the beginning. It's not an easy read, but as it turns out this is eminently suitable for the subject matter, which is rooted in the confusion of navigating a grand passion that's been thrust upon you when you're not even sure you're feeling it, during those teenage years when it's easy to go press the accelerator a bit too hard on how you think adult life should be. I suspect this will be the subject of much academic study in the graphic novels field. Not sure I loved it but I admire a very different style of storytelling from my own.