It's been ages (two years, to be exact) since Bryan Lee O'Malley's Lost at Sea Sunday comic strips have run on the www.onipress.com website. That's too damn long to be teased. By nature, those strips -- still available on the Oni site, check 'em out -- were succinct and thoroughly grounded. They rang true. The graphic novel is a different matter. It still speaks truths, but there's a dreamier, more reflective tone that the longer format affords the creator. O'Malley offers little in the way of easy answers. His work here challenges, and he draws the reader into these average kids' lives by obfuscating story elements early on. Lost at Sea's initial, stream-of-consciousness approach slowly evolves into a poignant, emotional but quiet climax that serves as a worthy payoff.
Raleigh has hooked up with three classmates from private school who are making their way from northern California back home to Vancouver, Canada. The road trip provides Raleigh with an easy way home, and she tags along, despite her discomfort. She doesn't just feel alienated from Stephanie, Dave and Ian... but from herself. Raleigh has a secret; she suspects she's lost her soul.
I enjoyed O'Malley's work on Hopeless Savages: Ground Zero, and he brings the same youthful quality and dark edge to the characters here. There's a far less busy look to his work here. There's a slower pace, and that's reflected in the artwork. More often than not, the characters are portrayed as small, cute caricatures, but O'Malley reminds us of their quixckly growing adulthood from time to time. We see Raleigh and Steph as young women in key scenes, and at others, they look like kids. I suppose some might see this as inconsistency, but O'Malley seems to be purposefully symbolizing the awkward age at which the characters find themselves. They're no longer children, but they're still discovering who they are as well.
O'Malley's script fosters a reflective and disjointed tone through Raleigh's narration. Raliehg doesn't have her own answers, doesn't know herself, but she's also possessed of a remarkable curiosity, imagination and determination, qualities she doesn't even see in herself. That's reflected in the innocent yet intelligent tone in the narration. Of course, O'Malley balances that with the thoroughly believable dialogue among the four friends. Stephanie's attitude is innocent and baudy all at once, and Dave and Ian exhibit some typical male behavior in their banter and automotive expertise (or lack thereof).
Given the age of the four characters in this story -- 18 -- one could argue that this is a story about teenage disillusionment, about the difficult transition from child to adult and about young love. Personally, I see a more universal quality at play here. One needn't be a neo-adult to feel lost, to feel as though one is at the mercy of violent currents or still winds. The intensity of feeling Raleigh desperately clings to is familiar, and her confusion over who she is and why she is... that's something to which all of us can relate as well.
