Summerland

Written and drawn by Paloma Dawkins

In the beginning of the story, when cousins Gwen & Santana meet to put on a play, the psychedelic, day-glo colors that shift from page-to-page as the day they spend together goes by aren't simply decorative; they are meant to evoke a sense of the hyper-real, where moment-to-moment living takes slows down and one can see and experience all of the beauty around you as though one was under the influence of psychedelic drugs.

The second part of the story takes place years later, when Santana is a lawyer and Gwen is a famous actress/model but is incredibly unhappy. The pages have a more muted quality and a great sense of sameness in terms of color, representing a kind of blandness and stasis in day-to-day living--even for someone who has apparently achieved her dreams. The line drawings, which were simple and elegant as they took a back seat to the use of color, suddenly became grotesque and warped in the second part of the story. The final pages see Santana meeting up with an old friend, who shows her something beautiful as a way of reminding her of what can be and what she is as a person, and the pages dramatically shifted to the same kind of spectacular colors seen earlier in the book. The story and message here are simple, as it's the aesthetics of the comic that take center stage, along with an understanding of how just important aesthetics are with regard to finding meaning in one's life.
(Description from HighLow Comics)

48 color pages, 7x10 inches (178x254 mm), softcover perfect bound graphic novel

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