Babe

You may need to be a registered subscriber to the L.A. Times in order to read this welcome review of Jessica Abel's excellent graphic novel, La Perdida, so here's a small taste of why I loved reading it when first published in a series of 5 comics, about a young American woman on a mission to find a more authentic life in Mexico:

Carla arrives with a few hundred dollars and no resident visa and immediately recognizes the Mexico of her imagination, "where the hard truth about the crime rate, and the pollution, and the disappearance of traditional culture, just didn't apply." She quickly grows restless, however, with Harry and the other members of an expatriate community that lives isolated from native Mexicans (not a single Mexican friend in sight). Longing for something more vivid, she attaches herself to a group of radical anti-capitalists, who seem to Carla to represent pure Mexican culture — without the taint of U.S. consumerism or values. Yet even as she finds what she thought was authentic, Carla feels more lost than before.

A solid description, and what ensues becomes increasingly harrowing, the shattering climax foreshadowed from the very first pages.

I was never a fan of Abel's ArtBabe series, although mainly for lack of exposure. This material was just so instantly captivating to me, having had friends go down to Mexico for extended periods of artistic habitation, having read all about Frida Kahlo and William S. Burroughs shooting his wife, having had all those capitalism/anti-capitalism discussions in my early 20's.

The look of La Perdida is very much in the Marshall McLuhan comics-as-woodcut tradition, which ends up suiting the setting as well a providing an elegant simplicity for this somewhat complex story. I'll let reviewer Karrie Higgins tell you:

Her drawings are minimal, yet filled with detail and emotional nuance. She evokes the architecture and street life of Mexico, often crowding her frames with so much activity that you feel the hustle of the city, just as Carla does. At the same time, she conveys subtle facial expressions and gestures, even with simple lines and (often) nothing but ink dots for eyes.

Amen to all that.