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A review by otterno11
One Dirty Tree by Noah Van Sciver
4.0
This is the first of Noah Van Sciver’s full graphic novels that I’ve read, and I’m definitely interested in reading more of his stuff. An affecting and funny memoir comic, One Dirty Tree reflects on Van Sciver’s childhood in a large, impoverished Mormon family in New Jersey and its effects on his later life, relationships, and career in comics. Relatively short and easily read, I appreciated his endearing, colorful drawings and detailed, but cartoonish, linework.
It is definitely a melancholic, introspective comic, in spite of a certain self deprecating humor that lightens the mood a bit. Alternating between his childhood, with his many siblings, unfulfilled mother, and bipolar father, and his present (circa 2014), struggling to launch his career in comics while working two other jobs at a bookstore and a Panera as his 30th birthday looms. He depicts his rough upbringing with a mixture of sadness and wistfulness, even as he recalls how he depended upon the church for food and lived without a kitchen, doing dishes in the bathtub, while in his present, he is pensive and self-conscious. His depiction of himself as becoming progressively more monstrous as he feels singled out for his weirdness among his more “normal” significant other and her friends are particularly effective. There are definitely places were I identify with Van Skiver, his childhood interest in fossils and pretending to be a dinosaur and his adulthood lack of a driver’s license, for instance, though my upbringing was comparably normal. I’m looking forward to seeing what else Van Sciver has written.
It is definitely a melancholic, introspective comic, in spite of a certain self deprecating humor that lightens the mood a bit. Alternating between his childhood, with his many siblings, unfulfilled mother, and bipolar father, and his present (circa 2014), struggling to launch his career in comics while working two other jobs at a bookstore and a Panera as his 30th birthday looms. He depicts his rough upbringing with a mixture of sadness and wistfulness, even as he recalls how he depended upon the church for food and lived without a kitchen, doing dishes in the bathtub, while in his present, he is pensive and self-conscious. His depiction of himself as becoming progressively more monstrous as he feels singled out for his weirdness among his more “normal” significant other and her friends are particularly effective. There are definitely places were I identify with Van Skiver, his childhood interest in fossils and pretending to be a dinosaur and his adulthood lack of a driver’s license, for instance, though my upbringing was comparably normal. I’m looking forward to seeing what else Van Sciver has written.