Lucky to be Here?

Categories: Award Winners , Graphic Novels

If you talk to a group of young adults in Cincinnati for any length of time, someone is sure to come out with some sort of grand plan for getting out of here.  Usually they talk about moving to some very cosmopolitan place like New York, San Francisco, or even Seattle.  This isn't just one conversation, ever since the most recent census there have been articles in Citybeat and the Enquirer bemoaning the situation. Even I, though I'm mostly quite happy to live here, sometimes wonder "How would my life be different if I lived in New York?"

A partial answer was just provided to me by Lucky by Gabrielle Bell.  Lucky is a collection of the three minicomics plus a special bonus section.  Lucky Number #3, one of the included titles, won an Ignatz award in 2004.  This graphic novel details the everyday life of Bell including her struggles to find a job and acceptable housing.  It's made me grateful to live in Cincinnati, if only for the large cheap building that I call home. 

The book is kind of heavy on the text, but this is balanced out by the simplicity of the illustrations.  Bell talks about all sorts of troubles and triumphs of everyday life, making something quite beautiful out of the monotony.  However, my favorite part of the entire book is a more fantastical little sequence right at the end, where Bell's boyfriend is sucked into a hole in the bathroom wall.  Having a few holes in my own walls that really need repair, this cracked me up. I'm sure it's also psychologically significant, but I loved it just for the hilarity of watching those legs vanish into the wall.  Really!  Pick up this book--you have to see this!