Book Review: Seconds, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

This is the second serious, thick, hardcover graphic novel I've read in the last year (before you ask - no, graphic novels about superheroes like Batman don't count).  The first was The Sculptor, by Scott McCloud (just follow the link to see my review).  In short, that is a powerful story of a man who makes a deal with death to be able to sculpt anything with his bare hands, but at a price - he will only have 200 days to live.  Naturally, as deals with death (and the devil) typically go, things are made worse by discovering the love of his life immediately after he starts sculpting.

While Seconds is not precisely the same type of story, it is very similar in nature, but very different in implementation.  Both stories deal with difficulties in relationships, as well as personal goals that always seem to be out of reach, no matter how hard to try to make progress - even when you cheat or break the rules to try to get ahead and achieve that goal.  And not only do you still not achieve the goal, but things continue to get worse.

The meaning of the title was an unexpected surprise for me.  This was a great story.  Initially, I didn't find the artwork particularly attractive, but once I started to get twenty or so pages in, I found that it fit the story, and it fits the mood of the story as things become darker.  When bad things happen, Katie simply needs to write something down, eat a mushroom, and go to sleep and things change.

There were so many endearing things in this story, and I'm guessing there is influence from many sources - I'll name a few that came to my mind:

• The main character, Katie, has a hairstyle that reminds me of Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons TV show.
• The "multiple second chances" reminded me of the films Run Lola Run (German) and Sliding Doors (American).
• Katie lives *outside* of the changes she makes to past events, which reminded me of Ashton Kutcher's character 'Evan' in the film The Butterfly Effect.  Wereas 'Evan' suffers physical change as the result of his tampering, his memory is unaffected - he has no memory of how or why things changed.  Katie suffers *no* impact, as she is never physically affected, and she has no memory of the changes that have occurred, just as if she just stepped back into the picture after being gone for a while.
• The relationship of a gourmet chef reminded me of the movie Funny About Love with Gene Wilder and Christine Lahti - although, Katie's love interest is not a cartoonist, but a chef like herself.
• As the story gets darker, I was reminded of elements of films like Flatliners (Kevin Bacon) and Event Horizon (Sam Neil), or Fright Night (William Ragsdale) - characters are faced with the unshakable feeling that "they brought something back with them" or they have "invited something nasty into house".

Whether these influences are real or imagined by me makes no difference.  All of the different elements make for an entertaining and thoughtful story and makes us think about our own choices in life.

Bryan Lee O'Malley is also the author of the Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels.  I kind of missed that boat.  I never saw the movie (which was released in 2010) - despite the fact that it stars Michael Cera, whom I have enjoyed in the films Juno and Superbad (still haven't seen Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - which I should have seen since "Nick and Norah" was the name of one of my wife's favorite stores).  I didn't even know that the movie was based on a set of graphic novels.  But, I'm attempting to remedy that by reading them now, and I do hope do see the movie at some point.

Anyway, if you have read and enjoyed The Sculptor, I would recommend Seconds.