Comics Splurge: Eleanor Davis
The work of the second graphic novelist I’m featuring in my Comics Splurge feature, Eleanor Davis, really drew me in, with each of her graphic novels impressing me by the wide variety of styles that she uses. After first encountering her art in the comic anthologies Mome and Now (which I discussed last month), I tracked down each of her four published comic works and dove into their intriguing worlds. From the surreal and the dreamlike to the grounded and realistic, all done in vivid pencils, I enjoyed each of Davis’ graphic novels in a different way.
A collection of Eleanor Davis comics published previously in various publications, including Mome, or online, I felt that How to Be Happy was a particularly interesting place to begin sampling her oeuvre. The collection really showcases her artistic strengths and introspective writing, in which many different feelings and ideas are discussed through vivid watercolors and stark black and white pieces. Many of the themes that are expanded and fleshed out in Davis’ other, later, longer works are experimented with here. I particularly liked the fairy tale like ones, strong with both whimsy and menace.
You & A Bike & A Road is a very affecting and introspective journal comic that follows Davis on a challenging solo bike ride from Arizona to Georgia, as she encounters people and places across the southern portions of the United States. I really enjoy Davis’ line work in this memoir, simple and effective in spare pencils and ink. Here, Davis makes great use of space to convey the landscape, both physical and emotional, of her cross country journey. I feel she leaves a lot to consider about the American experience here, and I don’t think there could be a more intimate way to experience this country than from the perspective of a bicycle, except perhaps going on foot.
A short, funny, but startlingly deep work of graphic art, Eleanor Davis’ Why Art? Is a thought provoking and complex rumination of the topic of art and what it means to be an artist, neither taking itself too seriously or becoming too facile. I was impressed by how well Davis’ deceptively simple artwork evokes emotions and feelings, from the humorous to the scary. I felt actual chills as I read the part about art works that “are meant to remind the audience of things we’d rather forget, things so awful they shouldn’t be true,” and we are drawn deeper and deeper into a deep black box over the next few pages.
After discussing, in a light fashion what “art” is, in terms of color, composition, and meaning, we meet a cast of artist characters who, in a recursive and surreal fashion explore the meaning of the term in ways that can’t be anticipated. Why Art? may be my favorite of her work so far.
Finally, The Hard Tomorrow was an especially topical, prescient graphic novel that really hit me during this uncertain period, depicting relatable people in situations that seem all too familiar at times. In certain ways, it fits in with several of my ongoing Harris’ Tome Corner segments with its near future setting and its millennial milieu and I will likely mention it again in coming entries.
A few years after the 2020 election results in a Mark Zuckerberg presidency (well, I guess there could be worse choices than Biden), climate change and societal tensions continue to rise, though we see these greater trends through the eyes of a couple of thirty somethings trying to make their lives after these decades of economic pain.
The earnest Hannah, activist and care worker lives with her placid stoner partner Johnny in the back of a car somewhere near Louisville, where they hope to build a house, start a family, and survive the coming collapse of society. Both have their own issues and as the authorities begin to crack down on antiwar activists like Hannah and her friend Gabby while Johnny’s friend and would be mentor Tyler begins to spiral into his own reactionary response to society collapse, tensions and fear rises.
I feel that Davis doesn’t provide easy answers here, which to me feels very true to life in that things happen without any specific meaning and though it ends with a hopeful feeling, it also is ambiguous. It goes to difficult places, places that make you question what is happening. Like Hannah and Johnny themselves, we just don’t know what the future will bring, but we’ve got to try. Her artwork here really brings these characters and their world to life from the dying oaks to the way Tyler’s eyes look much smaller when he takes his glasses off. Just a really impressive work, both enigmatic and mundane, just the type of feeling that draws me in.
I’ll be going back to the politics in my next entry, so that’s something to look forward to!