Picard, Coco – The Chronicles of Fortune

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The Chronicles of Fortune

Sometimes picking the sample image is the trickiest part of writing a review, especially in a book like this where everything unfolds at a deliberate pace and no single image can really capture its essence. Not that that’s usually an option, but it’s hopeless with this book. Unless you believe that this book is about a woman and her talking mountain, and hey, maybe it is about that! It’s also about so much more, as it’s the rarest of fictional treats: I was reluctant to leave this strange, haunting, depressing, enlivening, fantastical world. This book is a collection of moments in the life of Edith May, who is also a superhero who has the power to fix everything that is wrong with the world, but she suffers from a crippling case of ennui so she never quite gets around to saving the world. She splits from herself to become this hero after her mother dies, leaving a lingering sense of loss throughout the story. From there we learn about her quiet apartment and life, how she opens her home up to neighborhood weirdos, her getting a fish that was supposed to sing to her, her old fashioned stove and the one day when she forgot to light it right away, an impromptu trip to Alcatraz and her running into a ghost, the sentient mountain that just wanted to be a good roommate, what was causing the leaking from the ceiling and how that led to another roommate/sidekick, trying to fit in with people while attending a bachelorette party, doing the same thing while attending an office Christmas party, her job as somebody who listened to people complain about their Christmas lights, and her final struggle against Death. Sort of. Oh, and how could I forget the moths? The moths were crucial to everything else. I could talk about this book for hours, but my instinct is to (digitally) hold it up in front of me, say “take some time to read this amazing book,” and leave it at that. For what it’s worth, I’ve read a lot of comics by a lot of different people about a lot of different subjects over the 20+ years I’ve been enjoying the small press comics world, and I’ve never read anything quite like this. If I was rich I’d offer a money back guarantee, but I’m not, so… take a chance on this book. You won’t be disappointed. $20

Posted on October 16, 2017, in Reviews and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a Comment.

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