Review: That Time I Turned 30 in Greece

Artist(s): J. Tana Ford.

That Time I Turned 30 in Greece1 is a charming travel novella where writer and artist J. Tana Ford recounts her trip to that country in the company of her friend Meghan, on the occasion of her 30th anniversary. Very descriptive title, then.

In fact, the whole comic feels descriptive: the text and the art style are both heavily informative. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing, on the contrary. Reading this comic feels like watching a home movie, but minus the tedium that often comes with that kind of thing, and plus an often very funny voice-over. Meghan and Tana get along very well and easily enthuse about all the aspects of Greek life, clearly enjoying meeting people, eating new food and walking or driving mopeds all over small islands. Their interaction gives life to what could have been a rather dry catalog of Greek Things Of Interest. An endearing aspect of that is the way they happily play tourists, but all the while make fun of their behavior. They also talk a lot about their lives, which is where the “lesbian” tag of this review comes from. This is not a comic about being a lesbian, but a comic where the main characters are lesbian.

As I said above, the art style is descriptive: detailed without being cluttered, with text-full pages which don’t feel hard to read. Ford has a knack for drawing faces and slightly exaggerated expressions which always feel right. She also does realistic backgrounds, probably from photos, though the blend of those faces and those surroundings is seamless.

All in all, reading That Time I Turned 30 in Greece feels like we’re privy to a slice of Tana Ford’s life, but never in a voyeuristic way, which I very much appreciated. I think this comic would deserve to be reprinted in a more durable format, maybe with more pages. At the very least, I hope J. Tana Ford will offer us other comics of this caliber.


Notes:
  1. This 48-page, black and white comic is sold by the author and can be found on her blog.

Comments are closed.