Kelsey Wroten

Kelsey's style seems so quick & loose & FUN to READ, it belies all the hard work that surely went into making such a dense & deeply considered comic. This is an extremely well written, almost novelistic comic that still excels at what comics can do and novels can't: wordlessly track afternoon light through the windowpane, seamlessly go in and out of fantasy & fiction. And still it is almost photorealistic when a character opines on Sheryl Crow... her attention to detail shines in every gesture, every sideways mouth, hair flip, lusty lip sucking, etc. Truly excellent!!! Funny AND sad!… (mehr)

This book...I really wanted to like it. The cover is gorgeous and I was so excited. And then I started reading it, and found myself checking how many pages I had left until the end.

Cannonball is the story of a recent art school grad who is struggling with a number of things - family, alcoholism, friends, her art, supporting herself, and general meaning-of-life type stuff. The main character, Caroline, is not meant to be likable, which I can appreciate in a book; however, the rest of the characters, the dialogue, etc. were not enough to redeem Cannonball for me.… (mehr)

Oh, joy, another graphic novel about a bitter, tortured, and angsty art school student with a drinking problem. Can't have enough of those.

I hate dream sequences, but this book takes that hatred to a whole new level by having the main character wake up from her dream sequence, write down the dream, and then turn it into fantasy sequences from the novel-within-the-story that she is writing. And then that novel becomes successful, and we have to have to listen to other characters tell us how moving and powerful it is.
AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

My main problem is that I truly cannot tell if this book is meant to be taken seriously at face value or if it is self-mockery and satire. The story seems to walk a tightrope between the two as if leaving open the option to go whichever the way the critical wind blows.

There are some truths spoken in here, but they are drowned out by the crapstorm raging around and between them.… (mehr)