Threadbare Memories

by Angela Boyle

Nadine lives with her robot toys and her father, who loves her very much. He gives her everything she could ask for . . . except to leave their home. Left alone while her father heads to work, Nadine is left looking out over the world from a single garden dome at the top of a spire. She may be lonely, but she has her best friend in Cob, a furry little bean of a robot. Playing with her only friend, she finds out a secret her father has hidden from her. But once she knows, why doesn’t she seem to care.

This128-page, black-and-white book printed on environmentally certified and recycled papers using vegetable-based inks.

128 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Angela Boyle loves fictional murder mysteries, corgis, and massive quantities of tea. In 2016, she received her MFA from The Center for Cartoon Studies. She is the author of Maker Comics: Live Sustainably (First Second) and ran the natural science comic anthology Awesome 'Possum (4 volumes, itsopossum.flyingdodostudio.com). Her young-adult science-fiction Threadbare Memories is available online at tmcomic.flyingdodostudio.com and as a graphic novel in her shop. You can find more about Angela at angelabcomics.com or on social media @angelabcomics.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently participated in a "Creating Comics" class with Angela Boyle, and was impressed by her knowledge and analysis of the art form, so I decided to pick up one of her books. Threadbare Memories is a science fiction tale that goes in a completely different direction than I presumed after reading the first few pages, and I love the sense of surprise that the author maintains throughout the work. Her visual style makes extensive use of gray wash, which I found a little distracting at first, but soon learned to appreciate for its ability to focus the reader's attention within each page frame.

The real highlight this book is the comprehensive supplemental material included at the end of the volume, where the author explains the evolution of the story and some of the stylistic choices she made along the way. The inclusion of this explanatory content turns this graphic novel into a useful exploration of the process of conceiving and executing a work in the comics medium.