Graphic Love

Some time ago, I shared with you my progress toward appreciation of the graphic novel format. With some help and education, I was able to recognize David Mazzucchelli's acclaimed "Asterios Polyp" as a masterpiece. Complex, sprawling and noted for its expressive use of color, "Asterios Polyp" went on to win several awards.

Despite my hard-won appreciation of this format, I haven't read many more graphic novels since that column. Now, though, with the help of my colleagues, I have found another masterpiece.


This one is a much quieter work, done in black and white in the traditional panel format. "Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir" by Joyce Farmer tells the story of the final four years of an elderly couple living in South Los Angeles and their daughter who looks after them.

Admittedly, this may sound even less inviting than Asterios Polyp's midlife crisis. Aging, decline and death are things we prefer not to think about, and Farmer tells her story with an almost brutal honesty. But it is a story told with compassion and insight, and the graphic presentation seems particularly suitable.

Lars and his wife, Rachel, are in their 80s; Rachel has had heart surgery and is struggling to regain her strength, but they get by. Lars loves reading the L.A. Times, Rachel makes exquisite dolls and they both adore their Siamese cat, Ching. Their daughter, Laura, stops by frequently to help with the cooking and cleaning.

Rachel, though, is rapidly declining and becoming more than Lars can handle alone. Afflicted with worsening headaches, she settles into the living room sofa and begins to develop memory problems as well. Laura's visits become longer and more frequent. The final odyssey of Lars and Rachel has begun.

Farmer was a radical feminist in the underground comics movement of the 1970s on the West Coast. She and Lyn Chevli published a comic (1972-1987) that dealt with women's issues, generally on a very personal level.

Financial success was elusive, though, and much of Farmer's time was spent on other occupations. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she devoted herself full-time to the care of her parents.

It was some years later that she turned once again to her sketchbook and began to tell the story of her parents' decline. Using fictitious names, Farmer worked from memory and old photographs and sketched, inked and hand-lettered every single panel in "Special Exits." When macular degeneration struck, she went on working, her face 6 inches from the page and a patch over one eye. It took her 13 years.

I found her working of the graphic format dazzling. In a single panel she conveys the reality and emotional toll of dementia, in another the simple tender joy of giving and receiving care. The cluttered black-and-white frames echo the dusty dilapidated house — the house Laura promises Lars he will never have to leave.

It is a sad and moving story, but there are happy moments as well. Laura teases out old memories from Rachel and arranges outings for Lars. They are a quirky bunch, and humor creeps in and out of their story. Farmer unflinchingly depicts the often agonizing slowness of approaching death and the unbearable abruptness of its arrival.

And then, life goes on. Joy returns, but its composition is forever changed by those who are now gone.

Farmer says she didn't expect to publish "Special Exits." Its creation was simply therapeutic. Her friend, R. Crumb, insisted on showing it to Fantagraphics Books. Now it is therapeutic for us all.


Photo by Mrs. Logic (Creative Commons)