Postcards: True Stories that Never Happened: 05/19/08

I've only just started reading graphic novels and manga but when I read the review of Postcards: True Stories that Never Happened on Breeni Books I knew I wanted to read this book. Breeni surprised me by sending me her copy and I'm pleased to say the book is making its way to a third reader.

Postcards isn't a single graphic novel. Rather, it is sixteen graphic short stories. Jason Rodriguez gave an old postcard to sixteen different writer and artist teams to see what they could create given the information contained on their card. The stories included in this volume are:

• "Blue" by Chris Stevens and Gia-Bao Tran
• "Time" by Tom Beland
• "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland" by Jay Busbee and Tony Fleecs
• "Taken on Faith" by Ande Parks and Joseph Bergin III
• "Send Louis His Underwear"
  by Matt Dembicki and Jason Copland
• "Res Libero" by A. David Lewis and Danielle Corsetto
• "Homesick" by Joshua Fialkov and Micah Farritor
• "Cora's Dress" by James W. Powell and Drew Gilbert
• "A Joyous Eastertide" by Phil Hester
• "Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang" by Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos
• "Quarantined" by Jason & RJ Rodriguez and Seamus Heffernan
• "Best Side Out" by Antony Johnston and Noel Tuazon
• "Intersections" by Neil Kleid and Jake Allen
• "The Midnight Caller" by Robert Tinnell and Brandon & Brian Fraim
• "Operation Torch" by Rick Spears and Rob G
• "A History of a Marriage" by Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, and Matt Kindt

From this diverse list, my favorites are "Blue" for its magical take on an old memory, "Send Louis His Underwear" for its gory counterpoint between the humorous text and the pictures, and "A History of a Marriage" for its bittersweet look at widower's recollection of his marriage.

As the postcards used in the book were all very old (mostly dating from the 1910s), the stories frequently deal with death and loss. It's only natural to see ghosts in ephemera.

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