Deb J. Lee’s first fiction comic “Death Fiddles and We Dance,” effectively illustrates the complicated mixture of emotions that factor into a person’s decision to choose a different path in life, when struggling with their mental health becomes too much to bear in their current circumstances. Told through spaceship passengers’ stories, Lee emphasizes that guilt should not have power over what each person chooses to do in their life, and that whatever each person does should be up to only them.
In the comic, a stowaway named Jasper wakes up on a spaceship with four explorers and comes to love the group’s mission of restoring dead planets across the universe with life-generating evergreen plants. However, Jasper soon realizes that after five hundred years of exploring, the other passengers are mentally exhausted and are considering dying.
Lee’s illustrations come to life with the thin line art and a simple color scheme of blue and white that makes every detail pop off the page. This is Lee’s first time showcasing their character design skills in a comic and they certainly do not disappoint. Each character’s appearance adds to their personality and helps them stand out in the sea of blue and white, making the passengers’journey from joy to guilt to contentment even more impactful. The panels overlap and differ in size and shape, bringing readers in for stark close-ups shots of the characters’ expressions of fear, joy and indecisiveness, while pulling back to offer wider views of each elaborate room and planet.
The most beautiful aspect of Lee’s work in this piece, however, comes from the intertwined depictions of plants and mental health. Internal conflict is expressed using plants that obscure the characters’ faces, demonstrating their unwillingness to talk about the decision that plagues them. When plants are not entwined with the characters’ bodies, they linger in the background in practically every page of the comic, and with them, foreshadowing the four original explorers’ feelings of guilt.
The only slight disappointment with the comic is that the latter sections of the story appear rushed. The explorers’ final decision is abruptly revealed at the beginning of the concluding section of the comic. The results quickly follow without giving the reader any time to breathe.
After Jasper runs off in frustration on page 48, the reader is only given three pages of dialogue between Jasper and their love interest, Theo, before they are launched into the final eleven pages detailing the outcome of the group’s decision. Adding a few more pages before Theo’s letter could have helped the reader digest the sudden onslaught of information before the conclusion. Despite this minor flaw, Lee tells the passengers’ stories beautifully through realistic dialogue and larger-than-life illustrations that get their message across in a simple yet beautiful way.
Before “Death Fiddles” was released in October, Lee hosted an exhibition titled “And We Dance” at their residency at Almost Perfect Tokyo on April 12 and 13 about the comic. In an Instagram post on April 7 they explained, “My goal for this project is to realize a method of comics-making that doesn’t create a strain on my mental health – it’s okay that not every panel is well rendered, every page is colored.”
Right now, tensions are at an all-time high as people are stuck in a state of perpetual worry and society seems to be collapsing in on itself. In general, it’s hard for people not to feel mentally strained in life when there are so many other pressures weighing down on them. For Lee, it’s the challenge of jointly inspiring themself and others to create art. For others, it may be working multiple jobs to pay bills, caring for a sick family member or grieving the loss of a loved one. In today’s hustle culture, people are barely reminded that it’s okay to take a break or lighten their load when they need to.
“It’s okay to be selfish,” Theo writes in a letter to Jasper. “Whatever Jasper does next is up to no one but Jasper.” It’s okay to be selfish. It’s okay to make that hard decision to take a break or make a drastic change. It’s okay to take care of yourself instead of constantly caring for others. After all, humans don’t have five-hundred years like these travelers do, so it is important to make these decisions before we run out of time to make them.
Like life itself, this comic’s existence is finite. “Death Fiddles” is one of many comics that are part of the “Short Box Comics Fair,” an online fair where people can buy and consume short comics from some of their favorite artists. The fair only lasts throughout the month of October, so check out “Death Fiddles and We Dance” before it disappears from the internet.
Carlie LaFauci can be reached at [email protected].
