It Disappears — Nate Powell

It Disappears opens with snow falling: a few large white dots against of a background of black. The drawings close in on a house, well-banked by snow, a boy sitting on a couch. The boy begins a journey, his hand placed on a doorknob. After he leaves the house he begins to grow older. In the mountains one night the smoke from his fire announces "you're here." The smoke chases and catches him. A cartoon animal emerges from the gloom. "It's really not safe here," it says.

The boy travels with the animal. It has many things to say. "I have a friend who only reads periodicals He subscribes to 28 titles each month and hasn't read a book in three years. He feels so overwhelmed by the allure of modernity, like he'll miss what's just happening right now. And now. And now."

A rhapsody on memory and the anticipation of the future dissolving into the receding waters of the past, Powell's graphic novel traces a journey of self-discovery and the uneasy realization that everything, eventually, disappears. However, underlying this realization is an almost cosmic hope that human interaction and history can transcend the corrosive effects of time.