Disaster Memorials
Disaster Memorials by Adam Rosenblatt
2024
8.5 x 5.5 mini comic
From Comics Blogger 9:
This is the first issue of a one person anthology from a recent Sequential Artist Workshop alum. There’s a trio of related short comics featuring humanoid birds with long point beaks and blank eyes. The lack of expression in the characters’ expressions is more than made up for with Rosenblatt’s writing. Without giving too much detail they’re all stories that revolve around friendship and loss. They touch on the role fandom can play in one’s life as a fiction band’s trajectory converges and diverges with one’s personal life and relationships. These are stories about seeking purpose and solace. Seeking closure when life continues on and remains illusive. The final story continues these themes in what one can guess is a more directly autobiographical story. A single photo-like image of a young boy and his grandfather, a holocaust survivor, is repeated as the adult that boy has grown into recounts a visit to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The image remains unchanged, frozen in time. The boy (now man) mourns his grandfather and with great restraint longs to reconnect. It’s a beautiful six pages. Word balloons stretch and squeeze to fit into these requisite spaces. An effective un-flashy formal trick that tells us while the past can’t be changed, it is something we need to be in conversation with. I’ll end this review and issue by quoting Rosenblatt directly from the back cover about the creation of this comic: “Drawn during Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Every day was a chance to honor the meaning of the holocaust and ’Never Again.’ Every day, broken and betrayed.”