Comics Alternative

This week The Comics Alternative's blog editor, Paul Lai, joins Derek to discuss three recent titles. They begin with Bryan Doerries's The Odyssey of Sergeant Jack Brennan (Pantheon). Illustrated by a variety of artists -- Jess Ruliffson, Joëlle Jones, Justine Mara Andersen, Dylan Macon's, and Nick Bertozzi -- the book brings Homer's classic into contemporary contexts. On the eve of their return home from Afghanistan, Marine Corps sergeant Jack Brennan shares with his men the epic tale by applying it to their own lives as soldiers. Within this frame narrative, Doerries recounts Odysseus's various attempt to return home, each one illustrated by one of the book's diverse artists. Next, the Two Guys turn to a sobering narrative, Rebecca Roher's Bird in a Cage (Conundrum Press). This is an account of Roher's grandmother's dementia and resulting institutionalization, but even more so, it's the artist's memoir of her relationship with Grandma Wylie, as she is called, and the family that nurtured her. This is a mov