The transition from late adolescence into adulthood can be a strange and emotionally perplexing time.
Jane Mai’s magical realist graphic novel, “Sunday in the Park with Boys” hauntingly evokes this point of personal transformation through a story of Janey, a young girl in her early twenties, and a small host of her spectral companions and confidants.
The comic takes place largely in Janey’s mind; in fact, the distinction between reality and her own subconscious state is almost entirely absent.
A dream sequence is portrayed, however it’s near indistinction from the story surrounding it only heightens the surrealism of Janey’s experiences in her “waking” state.
If anything, to dream seems like a more vivid and naturally engaging condition for her, a character so vulnerably estranged from her own world.
Janey is a woman consumed and suffocated by feelings of angst, loneliness, and alienation from her surroundings. Untethered from reality, she takes a conflicted solace in isolation, as well some comforting figments of her own subconscious.
She receives therapeutic advice from a speaking dog, a similarly ambulatory teddy bear, and her own doppelganger. She is also beset by a shape-shifting, centipede like apparition which appears in different forms and sizes at different moments, a manifestation of her darkest preoccupations, and her omnipresent sense of dread toward her own minuscule existence within a seemingly apathetic universe of unfathomable immensity.
The story follows no real traditional narrative, but is rather an impressionistic series of episodes from Janie’s ambling life and her own inner monologue. The power of Jane’s story comes from the compelling parallel between the seemingly routine, prosaic moments of her day to day life portrayed against her own eerie internal dream scape, as well as Mai’s diverse and lyrical artistic choices.
Much of the artwork is deceptively simple and even child like, cartoonish characters rendered in cloudy ink lines. Stylistically this creates an effective juxtaposition between the whimsical naivete of the artwork and the darker subject matter of Janie’s existential meditations.
Mai’s art is singular and original, yet carries echos of Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, with it’s dreamy contrast of darkness, surrealism, and child like whimsy.
Sections of the book are occasionally interspersed by page headings of more intricate illustrations of seemingly mundane objects, depicted as if they were talismanic artifacts. A cell phone, a fork, an eye patch, and other seemingly random items are isolated and portrayed with a deliberate and delicate precision, imbuing them with a sense of mysterious beauty and profundity.
Elsewhere, pages of multiple panels segueway into striking full page illustrations. Some pages are largely blank, others solid black. Mai cannily utilizes the comic book form, using the blank space on the page to reflect her character’s own persistent, nagging sense of insignificance and emotional unease.
As a meandering vignette of the presumably autobiographical character, it is wonderfully and uniquely composed. However, in spite of it’s solemn tone, it can’t help but feel somewhat slight. An ambiguous character arc does emerge, yet loneliness and depression are Janie’s only evident traits, apart from a tendency to find respite in her imaginary consorts. It’s more of a character sketch than a study. While this was no doubt Mai’s intention, and the opaque tale she set out to tell sits beautifully on the page, it would be a delight to see her apply her versatile artistic talents to a story and character of broader detail and depth.
“Sunday in the Park With Boys” was published by Koyama Press, and is available for ten dollars.