Julio's Day
by Gilbert Hernandez
Buy on AmazonIt begins in the year 1900, with the scream of a newborn. It ends, 100 pages later, in the year 2000, with the death-rattle of a 100-year-old man. The infant and the old man are both Julio, and Gilbert Hernandez's Julio's Day (originally serialized in Love and Rockets Vol. II but never completed until now) is his latest graphic novel, a masterpiece of elliptical, emotional storytelling that traces one life -- indeed, one century in a human life -- through a series of carefully crafted, consistently surprising and enthralling vignettes. There is hope and joy, there is bullying and grief, there is war (so much war -- this is after all the 20th century), there is love, there is heartbreak.…
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"We’ve seen the character Julio before — he was introduced in the second volume of Gilbert and Jamie Hernandez’s groundbreaking “Love and Rockets” series. Here, Gilbert Hernandez gives him the spotlight, chronicling the events of his singular life from his birth in the year 1900 to his death 100 years later. In between, there are pain and loss, war and disease, and — most movingly — throttled sexual desire that Julio cannot bring himself to acknowledge, much less name. With a quiet, carefully layered mastery, Hernandez shows us the times changing around Julio, while Julio remains unchanged — and alone."
NPR Books We Love — 2013 · apps.npr.org