30 in 30: Day 8

I read a few good graphic novels in the last little while: The Complete Essex County by Jeff Lemire and Photobooth: A Biography by Meags Fitzgerald. Both were very good and emotionally affecting in different ways. The middle story in Essex County, "Ghost Stories" was the one that stood out for me: it's the one about the two hockey player brothers in the 1950s. I found that one especially sad and haunting, particularly the whole thread of loss and regret that carries the whole narrative.

In a way, Photobooth also deals with loss. Fitzgerald's book serves as a history of the devices, a eulogy for the obsolete chemical booths, and an examination of her own relationship to her long-time hobby. The sense of having a connection with an object or experience that's gone was something I could especially relate to...I kept thinking of all the time I used to browse the racks of long-closed mall music stores, and how that's just something that won't ever happen again. There are the indie stores, but there was something specific about browsing a chain store in a mall with a well-stocked and diverse back catalogue selection that I miss. Yet it occurs to me that it's a weird thing to get wistful over.

The end of the book, where Fitzgerald reflects on what she's gained and lost from her fascination with the booths, also gave me pause, specifically about my own relationship with Saturday Night Live. My interest in the show and its history has connected me to a number of interesting people over the last 17 years (over half my life ago), but I couldn't help but relate when Fitzgerald mentioned her fear that her "glimmers of resentment" towards photobooths would grow for what she gave up to chase her passion. I sometimes ask myself what I'm hoping to get out of my interest in the show.

I've long had an interest in doing a collaborative narrative comic or graphic novel (I would write, someone else would take care of the art stuff). I don't know what it would be about, though.