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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bryan Lee O'Malley's first major work, March 11, 2006
This review is from: Lost At Sea (Paperback)
I came to Bryan Lee O'Malley's Lost at Sea after reading his two other books (Volumes One & Two of the Scott Pilgrim series) and thus, am of two minds about Lost at Sea. This is a very different book in both tone and humour than Scott Pilgrim. It's more somber, the art and feel are less stylized, the main character is prone to multiple page internal monologues about her feelings. In light of the Scott Pilgrim series it is easy to see that Lost at Sea came first. It is obviously an early work.
This does not make it bad.
Lost at Sea is about a girl (Raleigh) whose soul may or may not have been stolen by a cat, going home to her mother with friends that she doesn't even know. It is a story about self-discovery, about finding both yourself and the rest of the world all at the same time. At times heartbreakingly earnest, at times lightly comic it is a 160 page exercise in raw emotion. It would be wrong to dismiss Lost at Sea as cliched, to look at it's basic premise (girl finds herself and her friends on road trip home) and make assumptions about what it has to say and, more importantly, how it says it. O'Malley is an excellent writer, and he handles the obvious moments in Lost at Sea without a wink or nudge, he doesn't make these characters a joke to the reader, he honestly portrays their feelings in the way that they feel them. And that is the best part about Lost at Sea, when you're 18 and lost you think you're the only one and O'Malley write Raleigh as though she is.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome, February 10, 2004
I maintain that Bryan O'Malley is one of the few artists actually doing something different that stands on its own merit, and doesn't try to emulate anything else that's being done right now. His art is a refreshing change of pace, and his matter-of-fact storytelling succeeds in capturing the thought processes we all have and puts them on paper. Bryan doesn't mess around. Every panel in Lost at Sea is there for a purpose, and every panel has something to say. There are no computer-colored splash pages or implied action panels, just a wonderful story backed up with a wonderful artistic style. You owe it to yourself to read this book. If you've just been a casual reader of comics until now, this might change the way you look at comic books entirely.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Everything beautiful is far away, February 1, 2004
What really impressed me about Lost at Sea was the effortless way in which Mal blends the angst of his narrator, Raleigh, with the sardonic humour of her companions. The book is by turns hilarious, sinister, melancholy and surreal. There is a wisdom in Raleigh's comments -especially at the end- which transcends the bland self-pity that so many other introspective characters fob off as insight. Raleigh's friends provide the perfect balance to her introspection, their meaningless arguments and amiable bickering is a constant backdrop, an intensely entertaining soundtrack to Raleigh's car journey of self-discovery. The art is perfect: strangely realistic despite its cartoony style, and unexpected details such as the health warning on the cigarette packet had me laughing out loud. Mal has produced a compelling story, and its imagery and characters are subtle and charming enough to stick with you a long time after their crummy old car has puttered away into the night. Highly recommended.
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