Jonathan Vu Hill

Jonathan Hill's Odessa is a masterwork.

Odessa is a story of quakes of the literal sort and the internal faults that form during youth. Odessa is a story of these physical and emotional faults the build up of tension and the damage, discovery, beauty, and horror of its aftermath. Odessa centers around Vietnamese American Virginia Crane and how in the forever changed aftermath of a post Big-One scale quake she makes her way round adventures that begin on her 18th birthday when she receives a show more mysterious package.

Odessa opens up eight years after the Big One with Virigina narrating as a postman travels through the rubble of a unnamed city to deliver a message. What an introduction to this wonderful book. The post office still survives - a very nice touch. Jonathan Hill's artwork is all at once emotive and simple and complex. Absolutely stunning.

If by Chapter three if you are not caught up in Virigina's world you have no soul. Also be prepared for much in the way of lovely and heart warming and breaking scenes of mother & daughter reuniting and coming to grips with change, with sibling rivalry and bickering and overall good family storytelling set against the destruction that looms beyond the next quake.

Odessa is immediately readable - heart warming - devastating and devastatingly beautiful. Odessa is a one day read but it merits multiple readings and visits.

Odessa is shockingly good. show less

What a ride! The book starts with a simple premise, Ginny, the eldest daughter of a tight-knit, but struggling family, wants to look for her estranged mother. To do this, she has to journey from the northwest to her last known whereabouts in San Francisco. It then dials it up a notch by placing it in a post-apocalyptic setting where the world slowly reveals itself to be more dangerous and strange as the characters venture further south culminating in a truly tragic and bizarre turn of show more events.

Despite the bizarro setting, the graphic novel is grounded by the relationships the characters have to each other, especially between Ginny and her stowaway younger brothers. They fight like siblings, but have each others' backs in times of crisis. I won't spoil it, but the other characters they meet along the way are just as interesting and read as people doing their best to survive the new normal.

The art is really cool. I loved the black and white with pinks thrown in for effect. It also made some of the more sad or disturbing elements of the plot more bearable, because it wasn't a hyper-realistic style.

I would highly recommend this for anyone looking for a graphic novel about a post-apocalypse that's made less bleak by the friends we make along the way. show less

I'm not sure where this storyline is going, but I appreciate the detailed world building and the strong character relationships. I think the thing I find most frustrating, like Virginia does, is her father's refusal to discuss why her mother left. I mean, they are surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, the father suspects that Virginia will leave as soon as he does (to the extent of leaving her supplies and a letter) and yet... can't bring himself to talk about the mother. That just seems show more so... typical. And I think it's the mundanity of the whole story that really works for me. The people are recognizably just traumatized people, surviving as best they can. The details of scavenging and surviving seem like they could as easily be about refugees from Syria as post-cataclysm West Coast, with a few paranormal touched thrown in, and I am interested in that imaginative journey. While the drawings aren't my favorite style, they are highly effective for storytelling purposes, and I think they suit the world well. show less

The artwork is stunning and the worldbuilding is pretty developed for such a short graphic novel. In a post-apocalyptic world where an earthquake has destroyed civilization, a seventeen year old girl sets off to find her long lost mother. Eight years ago her mother abandoned Ginny, her two brothers, and her father and hasn't been seen since. When Ginny receives a package in the mail from her mother - it's the first news they've had that she's alive. She sneaks out in the night to try and show more find her, only to discover that her two younger brothers have tagged along for the journey. They realize how different and unsafe it is the closer they get to the coast. Rival gangs, swindlers, cannibals, and more await them. Exciting and unique. The only thing I didn't love was the ending. Is there going to be more? Is this a series? I need answers! show less