Daytripper

Comic: Daytripper
Writer: Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá
Artist: Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá

Daytripper is a comic written and illustrated by two brothers about a man, Brás and the different pivotal moments in his life. It jumps from these different moment and at the end of each chapter he dies. It follows his friendships, his relationships, his childhood and eventually parenthood. It does a fantastic job at showing the truly important moments, and manages to do so in a non consecutive manner which actually aids the story. I don’t think us seeing him as a kid in the first sequence would have worked anywhere near as well. I am sitting here thinking about the individual chapters and it does sadden me, especially those with his family - like when his son is born, or when he is away because of the success of his book. Those really struck me hard and are some of the saddest chapters.

However, saying all that - I found that despite all the death and sadness, the comic was ultimately a celebration of life. Life and death often go hand in hand but with such a strong focus on death for so much of it, the ending was ultimately all the more rewarding. To see the version in which Brás made it through everything all the ups and downs and lived a full life was incredibly rewarding. I thought visually it is very appealing, their style appropriate to the themes and feel of the comic. It lacked the hyper realism of the superheroes but still was realistic enough that it never felt like too much of an ‘internal’ piece.

Daytripper really is of my favourite comics and I struggle to find anything that I don’t like about it. Maybe I need to spend more time examining it, but there is something about the theme that I just love. I love the feeling I get from reading it, like I need to go out and live life, that life is precious and life is fragile but whatever choices you make you just have to live your life and make the choices and mistakes you’re going to make because you never know unless you live them. I don’t know if this is the optimist in me, because it truly is a sad comic in its individual pieces. I just loved the feeling I got upon completing it for the first time.