The plot, inasmuch as the story conforms to a coherent plot, starts with the body of a wounded, bleeding giant whale and the rare textual introduction: Swedish artist Linnea Sterte’s dreamy, loose landscapes and muted, dark colors flow from page to page, telling a single story in five chapters. Which is to say: the book is almost entirely pictures, with barely any text at all. You can buy What Is Left by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell at ShortBox.Stages of Rot is a graphic novel that pushes the idea of a visual story told through sequential panels almost to its limit. After all, it can power spaceships, and sustain life. They also convey a fascinating, thought-provoking central theme, that memory may be the strongest power in the universe.
These snapshots of Kelo’s life, from childhood to young adulthood, communicate a character, a world, a life. Her technique is delicate and inviting, yet melancholic and a little enigmatic like our protagonist, the reader intuits meaning from a series of emotional beats: learning to swim witnessing a once-in-a-decade botanical phenomenon a bustling family banquet a tranquil moment alone a devastating breakdown.
What Is Left is a mere 36 pages long, and uses a limited two-colour lilac-and-pink palette, but it is as evocative as Interstellar’s IMAX-sized ‘love transcends time and space’ emotional denouement – and, in fact, it’s far more effective. Valero-O’Connell sets up stylistic boundaries and dazzles within them. One such instance sets the stage for this short story, which sees a crewmember sucked into an overloading machine, saving her from the ensuing explosion, but submerging her in the memories of Kelo, the core’s human host. This being a system built around the human element, there’s potential for human error, and an unexpectedly powerful memory can cause a catastrophic meltdown. In an unspecified future, spaceships are powered by a Memory Core, a combustion engine fuelled by the brainwave activity of a human ‘donor’, specifically when their neurons react to the experience of reminiscing and recollecting. Compact and expansive, full of feeling and imagination, the book wrings mystery and meaning out of an intriguing sci-fi premise.
Originally published and released as part of the quarterly comics hamper ShortBox, Rosemary Valero-O’Connell’s What Is Left is a perfect example of the mini-comic format.
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