Daytripper

Meh. A gimmicky premise - one guy dies a bunch of times in different ways, at different ages, because mystical wavey hands. I'm sympathetic to the premise (hey, I like gimmicks! and pop mysticism, in small doses). And his deaths, which turned into close calls in each fresh chapter, certainly informed (and charged) the story.

BUT! A big but (and I cannot lie): the Ultimate Purpose of this story was... uggghhh. Such self-indulgent, platitudinous pappery. It was like the Paulo Coelho of comix. Like, awful pop spirituality. Also: coffee + cigarettes + writer's block ( + white dude) = uggghhhh, self-indulgence to the max. In fact, the dudery - the sheer, ingrained, unchallenging, totally mundane and boring patriarchalness of it all - didn't really grate me until Chapter 8, when Protagonist's wife and child hang around the house, and their lives, waiting for him to return from a business trip (non-spoiler: he dies). So much of this chapter was just insidiously sexist, I couldn't help losing what little good feeling I had for this comix: the worshipful attitudes to their pater familias/protector, even just the fact that Son's career day at school meant inviting... DAD to work. (‘Cuz moms don't work, of course. Or certainly don't have CAREERS.) Blech. Blech, double blech. Spare me, authors.

The best part of the story, perhaps, was that it takes place in Brazil, and that's a pretty charming setting (thankfully at least somewhere outside the US/UK!). But I'm, honestly, surprised by the big praise this comix is getting. If you want a Dudely Dude meditating on his life from various points in it, with attendant meditations on Life and the Cosmos, Asterios Polyp is far more imaginative, insightful, and inventive.