My thanks to NetGalley and Fantagraphics for an advance copy of a graphic novel that looks at something most humans will have to deal with, the feelings that come from losing a loved one, and how it can be both a destructive and creative force, depending on how we deal with it.

My father had been on life support with no chances of coming out of his coma for over a week. We decided to plan his funeral, get suits and food on Monday. Tuesday turn off the machine. Wake on Wednesday. Funeral on Thursday, deal with paperwork on Friday and go back to work for my brother and I on Monday. To some this was crazy, but I know my Father would have respected how we did things. This helped us deal with something that seemed overwhelming, though again many thought it was odd. Too bad. Grief is something we all deal with, and all deal with in different ways. This was twenty-five years ago and much has changed in the world. We have a government that seems to get it jollies from watching people grieve in many ways. People will probably look at a graphic novel like this, and go jeez get over it. Can't grieve forever. Well some do. And some don't. And some create works to reflect this. The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief by Carol Tyler is a graphic novel that looks at life, loss, love, the listlessness that comes when people die around us, and the longing to understand why going on seems so difficult, and yet necessary.

Carol Tyler is a comic artist and creator who has used her own life as a muse, creating works based on her father, and based on her own experiences. In a short period of time Tyler lost her mother, other members of her family, friends, even a neighborhood dog. The book is a response to both all the deaths and a study of how she processed these losses, mentally, physically and emotionally. Visiting a place in her mind called Griefville, population herself. Gardening. Working not working. Being blocked and pouring out ideas. The story starts to swirl and twirl on itself, drifting in time and space, from moments of life, to moments beyond. Real moments clash with imaginary conversations about things of importance that were never said, and still are a burden even if the people have gone. Diary entries get surreal, drift along on paper and come back with lessons, or even more confusion. Tyler spends a lot of time trying to create answers to questions that are unknowable, but something we all have to face, something that will happen to ourselves as well as those around us.

A book that should be dark but is not, and one that does not promise answers, and yet there is an understanding at the end. This is not something one just sits down with and hoping to be entertained. There is a lot of emotionally weight of course, but a lot of different kinds of story telling. Some might seem simplistic, some is really deep. Being human means not sharing in many ways, and the weight of this not sharing becomes quite a burden when one loses someone and so much is unsaid. That weight is on al lot of the pages here, which can make for tough reading. The art is really good. Detailed in places, swirling and drifting across the pages, making text and image mix in ways that might seem hard to understand, but something I remember from my father's passing. Nothing made sense at the time, even the things that should have made sense. How can people be so normal when everything is going wrong. I've really not felt that on paper, well ereader I should say.

There is a lot here, and this might not be the graphic novel for everyone. I well to say enjoy sounds mean, but it is true. I understood it, and felt the better for it, might be a good way to describe this work. There is a lot that graphic story telling can do, and it is good to have people stretch the boundaries, both in comics and in life. We don't talk enough about death, about grieving and how to help others get through these feelings. A rare and powerful work.

Thanks to the author, Caroly Tyler, Fantagraphics, and New Galley for the early look at this work to be released in September 2025.

Carol Tyler, one of the great comics artist, known mostly for her memoir work and a three volume biography of her father's WWII years, in Ephemerata gives us a kind of remarkable story of all the grief that came down on her over a period of time, including (especially) the loss of her mother, but also friends, favorite pets. It's almost Job-like in the tumult of death that rains down on her. At one point it seems tragi-comic, as her mother is dying and then she has to come to bury a neighbor's dog, and then more happens: Grief brings on stress that tears at your body and sould. Tyler calls it Griefville, and no one wants to live there, though living through it can provide meaningful results.

Of course, to those of who are older, we know you attend many more funerals than weddings and baptisms in your seventies. My mom was the fourteenth in a family of fourteen, and she watched the deaths of her parents and ALL her siblings by the time she was in her eighties. I thought whew, and now it is happening to me as I lose my family one by one.

I think this is book is too long for what it accomplishes; it's more for her than us, as she tells us everything she can think of principally focused on her mom's dying. And increasingly, as events pile on, there are too many words, too few images. It's comics! But I appreciate her doing it for those who ca relate to it. And I thank Fantagraphics for honoring a comics icon at 73 and giving us a chance to see more of her work.

The Ephemerata is a very interesting experience that is clouded by the decision of the typography and the space, it feels cramped and confusing, although it may be an aesthetic decision, it is still too uncomfortable.
Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this advanced reader's copy.

I hope this helped the author go through what she was going through but this should've stayed a personal project because what I thought would be a complicated exploration through grief and how it has changed how it looks over time turned into a convoluted art style where the font choice made it nearly impossible to read at times as well as the writing style itself ("them things am not trees"), misplaced humor and not even in a dry, I don't know how else to cope, but just cringe (Griefville, really?), and a very questionable viewpoint on life (because why did the only black character talk like that and why did this end with no growth or discovery being made)