You know that feeling you get when it's raining and you're under the weather and you just want to hide in a hole and disappear forever? When the sight of another human being makes your skin crawl and your head want to explode; when you look at the television and see the individual pixels; when the thought of doing ANYTHING is, most definitely, the worst idea in the world; when curling up with a good book is the only possible medicine...?
Well, the good book you need at that awful moment is Scott Mills's BIG CLAY POT.
This is the story of Sun Kim, a young Korean girl, who travels to Japan circa 200 bce to get a fresh start on life. Unfortunately, she's an utter klutz and makes a mess wherever she goes. Her luck changes when she takes shelter (abruptly!) with an old man named Kokoro who never got over the loss of his wife. Somehow, Mills is able to bring these characters to life with a few minimal but powerful strokes from his brush - a skill many cartoonists spend a lifetime pursuing. And somehow, these complete characters are incomplete people, able to compliment one another and achieve a harmony they could never find apart.
It's kind of funny how life works that way sometimes.
Peter Aaron Rose is a writer, producer and technologist who lives and works in San Francisco, CA. Under the pseudonym "Peter Siegel", he recently authored Killing Demons, a graphic novel available from Engine Press and Platinum Studios.
