Lost at Sea - Bryan Lee O'Malley

Lost at Sea - Bryan Lee O'Malley

Bryan Lee O'Malley's first graphic novel is about a young girl just out of high school who finds herself while on a road trip with some kids from school. The novel centers on the world of magic realism which O'Malley has become very well known for with his following series Scott Pilgrim and his newest stand-alone graphic novel from 2014, Seconds. Raleigh is a girl who has no soul. She doesn't know why she has no soul, only that she lost it while she was little. So the point of this road trip is for her to spend a good amount of time inside of her own head trying to figure out why she is unlike everyone and why her soul is missing.

In many of the scenes, O'Malley omits the use of borders and gutters, and instead uses the entire spread for a single image. Without borders - like in the above image - it is easier for the words to seem more ephemeral, and less constrained. When O'Malley uses this device, it is almost always when the scene is inside of Raleigh's head, and so the words are also in her head. Without borders, it seems more like she can have whichever thoughts she wants, and she will not be limited by borders. This effect allows Raleigh's thoughts, which center in magic realism, to seem more logical and less like they are about lost souls.

The artwork in this book is also done by O'Malley, and though in a more cartoon and animated style, each character is given their own distinctive characteristics so as to give them each their own personality. The lines are strong and thick, keeping the style classic and making the images easy to look at. The focus of this graphic novel is not on only the images and not only on the words, but it is an even balance of the two. The two work together in the diagetic world to balance the reality which Raleigh is living throughout the graphic novel, and the world inside of Raleigh's head where she makes sense of her life and her lack of a soul.

When you enter further into the graphic novel, it also becomes apparent that O'Malley is very skilled at balancing both worlds together, at times bringing the world inside of Raleigh's mind directly into the world of her road trip - in reality.

Often this is done through Raleigh's dreams. She has these dreams to work through some of the more challenging aspects of her waking life. For example, she met a boy a few weeks before the road trip, and it didn't work out because she has no soul to feel anything. She uses this as her motivation throughout the remainder of the comic to push her to figure out where and why her soul has gone. In this above image, the connection between both worlds is most apparent. Raleigh is unable to sleep in reality because her thoughts are so consumed with her failed meeting with this boy that she has been talking to online for over a year. Her thoughts and dreams are always focused on her past and her reality is always trying to make sense of the past. O'Malley is able to link these two worlds together with a single image which he braids through the diagetic world. Cats. The comic is full of cats.

The cats are in her dream world as much as they are in her waking world. She is unable to go through a scene without cats being brought up at least once. Raleigh is unaware of the real significance of the cats for the main body of the graphic novel, and only near the end does she figure out why the cats are linked to her so closely upon waking from a dream. She wakes from a dream of cats, only to find another cat on her chest.

The cats represent repressed memories for Raleigh which she is unable to make sense of in both worlds of her reality and her dreams. The cats link the night she supposedly lost her soul as a child to the rest of her problems which have come from this night. She realizes by the end of the book that the cats also represent her fear for entering the real world and coming to terms with her own insecurities. Raleigh is able to overcome these fears after she confesses to her road trip friends about the world in her head. Once the world in Raleigh's head mashes up with the diagetic world of the comic book, she is much more level headed and the images and the words begin to reflect each other much more cohesively. Raleigh is able to move on from her fear of the cats, and they are no longer braided into the story as a foreboding and or ominous presence.

Overall, this graphic novel is very interesting because of how closely it links Raleigh's subconscious with her conscious self. She is living two separate stories for the majority of the graphic novel, and it is only with O'Malley's skilled hand that both of these worlds come together. As a fan of his other work, I am glad I finally had the chance to read this.