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A review by longl
Citizen 13660 by Miné Okubo
4.0
Reading Citizen 13660 made me reflect on how important captions are. Unlike typical/traditional graphic novels where text is integrated with the visual elements and embedded within the immediate narrative as dialogue or exposition in interjectory spaces, Citizen 13660 doesn't have that. Instead, we have a clear separation, a fence, between illustrations and text. In my opinion, they function like adjacent tellings that supplement, complement, or contradict each other to give depth and complexity to what we experience from them.
If Japanese American interment were to happen now in 2023, Mie Okubo's illustration and captions of day-to-day life would be what we'd be seeing on our feeds, and all the things that escape unsaid through the boundaries between post and caption would be what keeps us up at night and our thoughts suddenly arrested.
If Japanese American interment were to happen now in 2023, Mie Okubo's illustration and captions of day-to-day life would be what we'd be seeing on our feeds, and all the things that escape unsaid through the boundaries between post and caption would be what keeps us up at night and our thoughts suddenly arrested.