THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2024! It’s impossible to know with any degree of certainty the degree to which comics like Cara Brown’s Everything’s Fine provide an element of catharsis for their creators. What is assured, however, is that they speak to us, their audience, with such immediacy because they mirror our own experiences in finding our place in the world. By definition its themes mean that Brown’s debut self-published comic is not always an easy read but that same level of candour ensures an immediate empathetic connection between artist and reader. After all, who hasn’t lived through similar feelings of displacement from the world, lack of direction and a sense of purposelessness at some point?
Everything’s Fine is considered autobio comics from a creator looking back on their life with a sense of wistfulness around the time of her 20th birthday. Flashing back through her teens and school days Brown paints a picture of a young woman who, despite her creative accomplishments, has constantly felt detached from her surroundings and those who occupy them; perceiving herself to be almost drifting through her life rather than grabbing the opportunities it affords.
We follow her story through school bullying, multiple poor experiences as parts of bands, and a university life spent largely isolated in her room. It’s an account full of self-deprecation, self-doubt and self-recrimination; of embracing blame where there is none but holding onto it nonetheless. To a degree Everything’s Fine can feel a little unstructured and episodic but at the same time that feels entirely appropriate. Graphic memoir often works best as a semi stream-of-consciousness, when it reflects the author’s meandering recollections and doesn’t try to tie everything into a neat narrative whole.
What really impresses here are the key beats where Brown shows a profound understanding of the storytelling tools available to her to intensify these profound emotional moments. Her father’s delight at taking his daughter to university is suddenly recast as a more foreboding moment; the background colours on their trip to uni taking on ominous hues and shading. Similarly a post-panic attack on-page illustration of Brown slumped despondently in the shower depicts her hair as sprawling Rapunzel-like out across the bathroom with an impossible length and life of its own, echoing her own feelings about a lack of control of her life.
While Everything’s Fine is not without occasional storytelling naiveties it’s nonetheless mature and confident work given its place as Brown’s first self-published comic. Definitely something for near the top of your Thought Bubble shopping lists from a newer voice on the scene who bears your considered attention in the near future.
Cara Brown (W/A) • Self-published, £8.00
Review by Andy Oliver
Cara Brown will be at table B24b in the Travelling Man Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2024 runs from November 11th-17th with the convention weekend taking place on the 16th-17th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2024 coverage so far in one place here.
Art by Rocío Arreola Mendoza
