"Children are the most perfect sponge; every drop greedily soaked up."
Fights is a very good graphic novel about an absurdly traumatic childhood. It's a wonder the Gill emerged from this childhood at all, let alone become a functioning adult and a loving father: even in the timeline of the memoir, which covers his adolescent and teenage years, he loses multiple friends and relatives to disease, drugs, or violence, seemingly at a rate of one per chapter.
As written, Gill finds just enough flotsam to hang on to in order to stay afloat in a rather terrible sea. He faces neglect from his parents, abuse (of all kinds) from his family, and daily threats from classmates. He finds sanctuary with an odd aunt who spends time sketching with him (or perhaps as importantly, just spends time with him, not threatening or abusing him), and in the library.
There are a lot of nits I could pick here. Fights is not really about fights, unless you consider that everything Gill did in childhood was basically a fight of some kind. The settings aren't clear, but we should also consider that that was Gill's stated intent: it's a memoir, a visitation of his memories, not a factual retelling of events. Here, Gill's fractured childhood and struggle for survival are communicated as clearly as documentary footage, or perhaps more so. This was a great memoir, one I read twice, cover to cover, and will think about for a long time.