LIFE ON EARTH - Serio Comics 8
LIFE ON EARTH series written & drawn by MariNaomi, published by Graphic Universe and Lerner Publishing Group
Back in late February, I had the immense pleasure of attending a reading at Skylight Books here in LA where the autobiographical cartoonist, YA graphic novelist, and community organizer of three online databases of underrepresented cartoonists, MariNaomi, showcased parts of their book I Thought You Loved Me
Too Popular!
MariNaomi’s book was sold out at the event
But I managed to grab the first two parts of their three-book young adult series, Life on Earth, with the third obtained via the LA Public Library
The series depicts the evolution & devolution of romantic relationships & high school friendships amidst a mysterious backdrop: the possibility that one of their classmates was abducted by aliens
You can find the books available on their website here
Too Good For Texas ;)
The Life on Earth series intrigued me particularly because MariNaomi mentioned it had been banned in parts of Texas
This was one of my first exposures to an author dealing with the rise of book banning
So I was quite curious especially with a debut to come myself about a couple debating gun ownership in Austin, Texas
Not Too Fast
The series expertly runs a gauntlet of heavy themes like…
Coming out as queer, parental loss, domestic abuse, and abortion, just to name a very few, with a light touch often through deft use of pacing by spacing out the moments into full pages sometimes instead of packing them into too many panels
It’s this taking of time that helps depict the dark depths of the human experience
A How To, Too
MariNaomi’s stories also show us how to navigate through life’s complex challenges
Via self-care boundaries
As well as accepting care from your community
And even sometimes repair from those you perceived to have wronged you
Seriocomic Expressionism
As you may have seen so far, MariNaomi is also incredibly talented at varying their art to create forms of seriocomic expressionism
They often titrate the level of verisimilitude versus abstraction within a page or scene or sequence
And add words like “Guilt” which aren’t dialogue or narration in order to signify their characters emotionality even more
Seeing the Self in the Multiple-Protagonist Structure
The structure of the series divides chapters up by different characters’ points of view
So you can get a wide variety of empathetic experiences that fit many kinds of readers
Perhaps my favorite character, unsurprisingly, was one who seemed, to me, the most like me
LOL
The class clown Nigel Jones
I was able to see a lot of my own issues that I struggled with as a Young Adult such as pushiness, respecting other’s paths, and clarifying intentions
And I was able to also see how some of them still manifest sometimes these days as a so-called Adult
Nigel’s story made me reflect on how delicate relationships are not just in our youth but throughout our lives
And how easily they can fray with inconsiderate or careless moments
One of many lines to remember
My favorite line in the whole series is from the end of the third book
It relates in a way to the classmate alien abduction subplot
But like the Pixar film TURNING RED in which a character has to learn to either manage or lock up her supernatural ability to turn into a red panda
What’s poignant about the classmate alien abduction subplot is that what’s happening and why can be interpreted in so many ways that I could write another thousand words and still not scratch the surface of the metaphor
Hint: Perhaps some of those thousands of words are on my other substack Shuffle Synchronicities
Congrats to MariNaomi on their three-book series as well as the publication and tour of their latest autobiographic work of graphic literature, I Thought You Loved Me, which I hope to read at some point, too
Check out their website for more of their work where you can also sign up for one of their databases if you are a queer, POC, or disabled cartoonist :)
Okay, that’s the 8th Seriocomics!