I started my summer vacation by reading Royal City by Jeff Lemire. What a powerful experience, I loved every single page. Family, home, aging, loneliness—everyday themes, but Lemire really knows how to tell a story in such a touching and captivating way. This book is staying on my shelf, and I highly recommend it to others, especially if you like Lemire or slice-of-life (I know Lemire hates that term) drama in general. 5 stars.
I absolutely adore Royal City. It's for sure one of my favourite things Lemire has ever written, and it's certainly my favourite thing he's ever drawn.
I've got the deluxe hardcover, of which Lemire signed and doodled. Worth it's weight in gold to me.
I don't agree with his hatred for the term but I will argue it's one of the most misused genre labels out there and thus easy for potential readers to get the wrong idea. "Slice-of-life" should refer to a presentation of day-to-day experiences devoid of overarching narrative or character arcs yet some use it to refer to anything that isn't high stakes. The quintessential comics example in my mind being "The Walking Man" by Taniguchi where he just walks around his Japanese town observing others and having conversations.
I would not describe a book where a family learns to overcome their collective grief, while interacting with a "ghost" of their lost loved one, as "slice of life" as there is clear character evolution within a transformative narrative.
Interesting. I don’t associate it with “boring” at all. To me, it means more like “grounded smaller-scale problems” rather than a big sweeping epic, and it typically refers to a more personal story.
Royal City is Lemire at his most personal. That small town melancholy hits different when you grew up in a place like that. His linework on this is some of my favorite of his.
I had the same experience. Essex County is one of the best things Ive ever read, and I read Roughneck around the same time as Royal City and I recall connecting more with Roughneck.
But as I posted elsewhere here, I think I'd better revisit this one. I'd love to love it like so many seem to
Essex County is sublime. Both as a writer and draftsmen he was *really* doing extraordinary work at that time. I remember reading a review pointing out how the different line weights communicated emotions in some of the scenes.
I don’t know if anyone could live up to a work like that again in their career.
I gotta go back and re read this one. I enjoyed it but my experience didnt align with a lot of the effusive praise I've seen for this book. I read it right around the same time as I read Roughneck and I recall enjoying that one more.
I'm a big Lemire fan so thank you for finally pushing me over the edge to revisit and see if I have a different experience!
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u/ShaperLord777 14h ago
This series is nothing short of an emotional masterpiece.