Death Wins A Goldfish: Reflections From A Grim Reaper's Yearlong Sabbatical

"The Grim Reaper is, among many other things, a workaholic. So when Human Resources decrees that he’s got to take all his unused vacation days at once – a whole year off, basically – he’s unsure of what to do. In Brian Rea’s charming, warm-hearted and funny graphic novel, Death – here represented with a deceptively childlike, stick-figure simplicity – opts to do a little bit of everything and keep a journal while doing so. He goes to a carnival (winning the goldfish in question), hits the slopes, swims with a shark (“August 21,” reads that day’s entry, “Ran into an old colleague.”) and learns to shift his work-life … er, work-death balance. Rea stuffs the book with great visual gags; my favorite – Death orders a coffee and we see the paper cup on which the barista has written “Beth.”"