Camus Would Have Been More Interesting With Pretty Pictures

After submerging myself in last week’s death overload, I decided to cleanse my pallet this week by reading “Daytripper,” a graphic novel written and drawn by Brazilian duo, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. And, it also turned out to be about death. I hope the universe isn’t trying to tell me something.

Okay, that’s a heinous lie. To say “Daytripper” was just about death would be missing the whole point of the comic. It would be like saying Star Wars was merely about space, and Lord of the Rings was just a little tale about stolen jewelry. “Daytripper” is an existential piece of art. It was beautiful, both in its vibrant, skillful illustrations, as well as its meaningful themes. After a lifetime of more typical comics, with their over the top violence and hyper-reality, it’s nice to come upon something truly poignant and thoughtful. That’s not to say superhero comics are incapable of possessing weighty topics or heart wrenching, emotional storylines. Really, I was simply pleased that “Daytripper” was something unique, something I’d probably never have discovered had it not been recommended to me. I always like when I push myself out of my typical reading repertoire and am pleasantly surprised.

The story of “Daytripper” focuses on Bras de Oliva Domingos, a Brazilian man who is simply trying to live his life to the best of his ability, the same as any man or woman. He struggles in his writing career, he searches for love, lives, learns, all that jazz. The graphic novel jumps back and forth through time, each chapter showing Bras at a pivotal moment in his life. At age twenty-eight, when he sees his future wife for the first time. At eleven, stealing his first kiss. At forty-one, experiencing the birth of his son. Each chapter ends with Bras dying shortly after these momentous occasions, posing a whole fleet of questions. When does life really begin? Does it take a dramatic moment to stir us into true existence? What does it mean for us to die? How are we shaped by each tiny event we experience, each seemingly trivial moment? And how are life and death linked? Like I said, existential up the wazoo.

In the end, we make the biggest leap from reality. Instead of another chapter and another important moment in Bras‘ life, things take a turn for the dreamlike. For the first time, it seems to show Bras after his various accidents, contemplating his own mortality and asking the very questions the work hints at to its readers. Characters from different time periods appear side by side, Bras running as a child through the fields, only to come upon his own son, the same age. Throughout it all, Bras’ father, who happens to be a writer himself, explains to Bras that every story must have an end, just as every life must eventually conclude in death.

Dare I suggest that the point is not to focus on each chapter as an individual, because the worth of one life cannot be judged by any particular event, only the greater whole? I suppose I can suggest all I want, but books like “Daytripper” are not meant to be deciphered in clear terms. They are meant to be poured over and experienced. I feel like I need to invent more lovely and artistic words to even describe it.

Two chapters in, I worried that “Daytripper” would leave me in the same funk I’d felt after “Machine of Death.” The reality was quite the contrary. “Daytripper” made the process of death almost poetic. The stunning visuals and the real, human interactions between characters left me feeling, if not utterly blissful, than at least calm and contemplative. As far as existentialism goes, that’s all you really need.