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DUMPED
(Best of the Week!)
Highly Recommended (10/10)
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Oni Press
Writer/Artist: Andi Watson
Editor: Jamie S. Rich
Price: $5.95 US |
Regular readers of my review will not be surprised to find that I loved Dumped, the new original graphic novel by Andi Watson. It's a follow-up of sorts to Breakfast After Noon, featuring a post-BAN Rob and Louise as supporting characters in the midst of another story of troubled love. As always, Watson has an eye for the human condition, and how we relate to one another, that is unparalleled, and he has a skill in conveying these interactions with simple and clean lines that makes his work instantly recognizable and consistently charming and effective. If you've read Watson's other work, like Breakfast After Noon or Slow News Day, you'll want to read Dumped as well. And if you haven't read his other work, Dumped is
not a bad place to start.
Watson began his career working on more genre-oriented stories such as the fantasy story Skeleton Key or the science-fiction-tinged Geisha, but he has really found his niche with the down-to-earth real-life stuff. His work reminds me of Nick Hornby's novels, distinctly British but with an accessibility even for non-Anglophiles and with an ideal balance between humor and strong characterization. Dumped is about two people coming together, much as
many romantic comedies are, but it's deeper and more intelligent than most of
the stories in that vein.
It was a pleasure to see Rob and Louise again, and even more fun to see them as supporting cast members rather than the leads this time out. Given what they went through, their involvement in the troubled love affair of Binny and Mary seems oddly appropriate, and while Louise is a recognizable best-friend archetype for the uninitiated, her dialogue with Mary will have deeper meaning for BAN readers.
While Rob and Louise guest star, however, this is not a sequel to Breakfast After Noon. Dumped is its own story, and it deals in the universal question of what brings two people together as well as the more specific questions of their own lifestyles and personalities. Just as Rob's passion for records is the throughline that gives meaning to all of High Fidelity, Binny's obsession with old novels and "junk" has a lot to say about how he interacts with people throughout Dumped.
The artwork, as always with
Watson, stands out as instantly different and recognizable. Though the use of
tones, shading and carefully-controlled linework, Watson does a lot with simple
black and white images. The simple faces of the characters can convey a lot of
emotion, and the backgrounds speak volumes about the people living there, or
tell the reader something important about the setting of the tale.
Watson has an eye for scenes,
telling a story through a series of effective vignettes, and Dumped follows that
model. We see snapshots of the couple's lives, both together and separately, and
whether it's their memorable first meeting at the party, their second meeting at
the vintage clothing store, the advice from friends or the climactic final
scene, it reads like a really good romantic movie. If you mixed Nick Hornby,
Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner in equal measure, you might be able to develop a
story that could equal Watson's graphic novels in the romance genre... but it'd
be a tough challenge.
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