Lowry, Janice – Family Tales #5

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Family Tales #5

This time around Janice only has one story to tell: her seeing Johnny Cash in 1958, when she was 12.  This comes up after she goes to see I Walked The Line, the Johnny Cash biopic from a few years ago.  I think I got the title right anyway, these things are occasionally hazy to me.  Anyway, she leaves the theater wondering why they didn’t show the part where he collapsed during his set, and goes on to tell the whole awkward tale of getting dragged there by an older sister and having to endure a blind date.  Did I mention she was 12?  It’s a great story, as they were right next to the stage and taking that whole scene in (as he was playing in a pretty seedy bar) from her childhood perspective is definitely a new take on the man.  The trouble is that the art seems more and more rushed to me.  She seems to nail it on certain panels and/or pages, but those backgrounds often just don’t look good.  I know, I’ve said many times that people should try to put some backgrounds in their panels just to flesh things out a bit, but it often looks like barely organized doodles in the background.  With storytelling this great and the concept of this being part of her journals of the last 30 years it’s still worth checking out, but I’m still not sold on the art.  Of course, it could be abstract art and I’m too stupid to notice, so be careful to pay too much attention to what I say here.