Gast

English cartoonist Swain’s first graphic novel in a decade is a spooky and beautiful journey into the mind of a confused young girl who has moved to the Scottish countryside near the border of England. Helen spends her days alone, picking up what facts she can about her neighbor Emrys, who recently committed suicide. Through conversations with Emrys’s dogs and ram—the most endearing and vividly drawn characters in the book—and other neighbors and townspeople, Helen slowly paints a picture of the eccentric, divisive character she’ll never meet. The drawings are elegantly rendered with sharp contrast and subtle emotional force. Swain is an accomplished draftsman, and switches up angles and perspectives in her mostly unchanging nine-panel grid. Our view of Helen’s interior life comes mostly from her journal. Helen’s drawings are amazing, cruder and livelier versions of Swain’s own, and they betray the child’s deep and wild imagination. The weakness of the book lies in a certain emotional vacancy in Helen. We never really know why Emrys is important to her, though we do sense her profound isolation; the suggestion is that she’s investigating, in some ways, her own future. (Aug.)