After the short collection every part of you is familiar to me, Kris Dresen is back with Grace, a graphic novel which she’s serialized on her website. Grace follows the same basic idea as some of the previous stories by Dresen, namely the meeting and hanging around of women, but this time, she really takes her time to tell the tale: 180 pages and counting.
Jordan and Grace
Jordan is a young artist in training, taking drawing classes and hanging a lot at a coffee bar run by Cleo and Jules, a lesbian couple who act as friends as well as voice of wisdom for the young woman. And she needs it. Because as hard as she tries to hide it from her friends and from herself, Jordan is falling head over heels for the mysterious female model of her nude life drawing class, the aptly-named Grace.
Most of the book is dedicated to the slow approach of Grace by the very shy Jordan, with an excellent balance being struck between silent sequences and lengthy dialogs between the confused Jordan and her bar-keeper friends.
Kris Dresen’s art is as lovely and detailed as ever, her characters given expressive faces and body language. Her storytelling here looks more classical to me, often with less panels per page than in her other stories, which creates a different reading experience for me. Maybe less cerebral and more on the surface, though I don’t mean that as a criticism. Kris Dresen’s stories are so full of human warmth that I’m just sorry she can’t produce them more often.
While Grace remains available on the author’s website, it is also available as a printed book at Lulu.com, with a nice sketchbook section as a bonus.
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