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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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Over the past few years, Michel Rabagliati has been
making a name for himself with his thinly velied
autobiographical work starring his alter ego Paul. In
Paul Gets A Summer Job.
Rabagliati transported the
reader back to his days as a camp counsellor, a
teenage rite of passage tale full of self-realization
and the beauty of first young love. It was an
incredible offering, one that had me choked up a few
times. When a book is able to do that to a reader,
envelop one in its illustrated world and make one
forget that what they have in their hands is a finely
crafted piece of art, when it can put one there in the
moment of real life experiences, you know you've
experienced something pretty unique.
With Paul Moves Out, Rabagliati
does it again with seemingly effortless magic. Again
one is drawn in and unable to be released until the
final page gently leads you out into the present real
world. That, folks, is true storytelling power.
Paul Moves Out opens in 1983, where Rabagliati/Paul
has just made that life-altering move into his first
home as an adult. With him is new girlfriend Lucie, a
young woman he met in art school. With the music of Boy
George's "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" in the
background, once again the reader is invited into
Rabagliati's memory of the time. You will learn to
love Paul's eccentric Aunt Janette who travelled the
world's exotic locales, and is surprisingly open
minded from the experience even in her advanced
years.
Rabagliati then flashes back to art school and the
events that will lead him to living on his own. In
school he and his classmates are taught staid,
outdated graphic design courses, until the arrival of
an avant garde new teacher who plays a pivotal role in
Paul's development both as a human being and as an
artist. We also meet future love Lucie, their long
friendship played out with gentle painful realism as
Paul pines for her. All of this is written with
Rabagliati as occasional narrator, a voice reflecting
on the events that are unfolding upon the page.
Rabagliati is a master of dialogue, not one false
moment in the memory, not one word uttered that may
make the reader exclaim, "Wait, that doesn't quite
ring right!" Every character lives and breathes in
the past world Rabagliati remembers with all human
foibles and frailties intact. Indeed, he truly puts
himself in that top tier of autobiographical comic
writers -- Pekar, Crumb or Kochalka, name one and
Rabagliati is there. There's one moment with Paul's
new teacher that leaves both the reader and Paul in a
state of embarrassed discomfort with the sheer awkward
unsure believability of it. Few can master such
emotions on the page, let alone give into thoughts of
what possibly could have happened as easily as
Rabagliati/Paul is able. There is a definite sense of
self-insight here few autobio cartoonists let alone
the finest writers of other literature are able to
express so well.
Rabagliati's uncanny writing is equally matched by his
impeccable linework, a style influenced by Herge by
way of Seth. The artwork aids and abets the narrative
in luring so well the reader into the work, a fluid,
almost simplistic cartoony style that still captures
vital life and emotion in ways other artists in the
comics field often only dream of, creating vivid,
living, breathing characters on the page. Even the pet
canary Paul and Lucie share has his own little
personality though he is little more than simple
shapes and lines. Cityscapes and location shots are
used masterfully to drive the story along, effectively
creating a sense of time and place. It's an artistic
tour de force that to Rabagliati's credit never seems
overdone, his sense of design in tune with his fine
scripting abilties.
Paul Moves Out in the end is another amazing effort
from an artistic voice that only seems to be growing by
leaps and bounds with each successive work. Rest
assured you will want to accompany Rabagliati on this
emotional rollercoaster ride of life, to be enveloped
in his elegantly powerful memoirs again and again. Grade: 5/5
-- Jason Marcy
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