Golden Record

by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell

Golden Record is a poetry magazine and autofiction chapbook lusciously written and illustrated by award-winning graphic novelist Rosemary Valero-O'Connell.

It is an amalgamation of words and images brought together to become more than the sum of their parts, exploring the body as the site and host of all pleasure and pain, and, as its name pays homage to, a collection of dispatches from life on earth.

Genres: Poetry, Graphic Novels, Comics, Queer, LGBT, Romance

40 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 2022

About the author

Rosemary Valero-O'Connell is a Minneapolis born, Zaragoza raised cartoonist and illustrator with a BFA in Comic Art from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design ('16)

She's done work for DC Comics (Gotham Academy, Vertigo Quarterly), BOOM! Studios (Lumberjanes, Steven Universe), CAPY games (OK KO!: Let's Be Heroes), Mondo Tees, Kazoo Magazine, and The City Pages, among others. Her work has been shown in galleries both locally and internationally (Gowanus Print Lab, Roq La Rue Gallery, Telegraph Gallery, etc). She's currently working on a graphic novel with award-winning author Mariko Tamaki for First Second called Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, to be released in 2019. She's a proud member of the Out Of Step Arts collective, has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators NY, and won her second grade spelling bee by spelling the word 'human'.


For work opportunities, project collaborations, or just to say hi, contact her at hirosemaryhello@gmail.com

Reviews

[hope h. · Rating 4 out of 5]

i've been a huge fan of rosemary valero-o'connell's work since reading Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, so i was thrilled to see this illustrated collection of poetry from them. the poetry is beautiful, but what really stood out to me was the artwork - lots of spacious multi-page illustrated spreads with gorgeous linework and colors. it also experiments pretty heavily with texture and collage elements that give it an organic, nostalgic feel. there's some beautiful words here, too. here's one of my favorites from the collection:

the summer, heavy-lidded,
arrives with arms stoned in dew
to teach me.
hyacinths jewel the charred pavement,
the city's pulse points doused
in beer and lilac.
with sweat-cooked bellies browning,
salt in my laugh lines,
it isn't hard to understand
that my use is to stand in awe,
witness to wonders that candy under my gaze,
adored,
to renew my vows to that hothouse flower
asleep in my chest.

there is no sea between us, no serpent below,
and if there's any part of me that can't remember
that to love you is to feel the hands of a god
pulling my hair back from my face
then the sun has bleached it from my sight.

[Madison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earthy and greasy and visceral. I really love Rosemary Valero-O'Connell's work, and this was such a cool departure from what I've seen her do before. She's such a master of color, and I loved seeing that play out in this new way. The poems cohere beautifully, too--I wouldn't say any of them stand out beyond the format/art, but as an organic aspect of each page's overall layout, they work.

[Esmé Boom · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5. Loved the illustrations and the weirdness of this beautiful zine, but not all imagery spoke to me (it felt a little cluttered sometimes)

'if i am butter,
wet and animal
in chrysanthemum
yellow,
precious during
feast or famine,
then i will never
be purposeless on
your mantle,
an oil painting of
a hunting dog.
i will melt under a
hundred tongues
and still keep my
taste for yours.'

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, the art is stunning but the poetry didn’t really do it for me

[theodore · Rating 5 out of 5]

i wanna spread valero-o’connell’s art & coloring & composition & writing & imagery on toast like a delicious jelly and then eat it <3333

[Cody Roecker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosemary Valero-O'Connell writes with such beauty, and illustrates even more stunning - I'm obsessed.

[celia · Rating 5 out of 5]

delicious. sublime. gorgeous art, phenomenal print job. the kind of mixed media that makes you want to howl and gnash your teeth and eat drywall.

[Beck Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

"the wrong word at the right time
and I unpeel like the rind off a citrus"

"to remain is to survive the brand but not
the numbness that follows,
to keep fattening the dog under the table
with whatever scraps you won't miss,
whatever resolve you shed,

to crawl, unbearably, forward."


~and that's only the second poem~

I haven't read - or perhaps witnessed is a better word for it - poetry like this that makes me want to create my own gorgeous poetry chapbook like this. If I ever do that & it gets published in some form, Rosemary Valero-O'Connell will be one of my first acknowledgements because oh my god.

It's senseless and yet tender passion. generational healing. love in all its gentleness and brutalities. all that is nature and natural and yet divine. It's like bludgeoning a clementine only to caress the peeled carcass. It's like waterfalls gushing over brittle bones. It's like falling in love with everyone you've ever kissed all over again.

I might get one of the illustrations in this chapbook tattooed on myself one day.

[Clint · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Valero-O’Connell’s art in other comics she’s worked on, and my low rating for this book isn’t a judgment on its quality but just an account of how much I personally enjoyed it. To be fair, it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is: a poetry chapbook written in a mix of Spanish and English that “explores the body as the site and host of all pleasure and pain” and that’s illustrated with an aesthetic that’s very witchy and femme and fat and queer. I don’t personally identify with any of those qualities, but I’ve enjoyed plenty of other books that included a mix of them and I thought that might be the case here. Sadly it wasn’t, and the art takes a considerable backseat to the writing, so there wasn’t a lot for me to fall back on, but I’m glad for anyone excited by its very distinct vibe.

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very beautiful, ethereal piece of literature and art combining the English and Spanish language to become something borderless and transient. This is definitely something I'd want to look at while tripping lol.

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous publication, full of color and illustrations. The poetry was so visceral it left me nauseous, but wanting more.

[Stephen Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t have any words except for this: I feel love. If you love me, I am loved.

[Emma (littledollreads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's giving the aesthetic of K-12 but the vibes of Portals

[M Aghazarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 but rounding up. I like the art more than the poetry, sorry!!

[Sol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro es una delicia.

[Rocky · Rating 4 out of 5]

“you hung a devil from my rafters,/ but i am earth that can’t be salted, i am saffron on a flame-wet hill,/ and the animal at my feet has one curse left to waste on you.”

[John Stockton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing art!

[Bob Ottaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

The art and poetry in this short is beautiful!

[Lucy Kirby · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art in this was really pretty with some lovely poetry too.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The illustrations and poetry in this book are so beautiful and captivating. I'm super grateful to the Queer Liberation Library for having this in their catalog.