Rutu Modan - Exit Wounds (Drawn And Quarterly, 2007)

I love love loved Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan. This book made a bunch of end of year lists the year it came out and I had meant to read it, but never got around to it. I didn't realize how long ago it came out at this point. Exit Wounds takes place in Tel Aviv; it is a story about two strangers meeting because of a recent bombing and a mutual person they know who may or may not have been a victim of the bombing. It is told mostly from the perspective of Koby Franco, whose occasional omniscient narration sometimes opens or closes the four chapters of the book. Koby's reaction to the news that his father may or may not be dead is unsurprised, unemotional and unsentimental, as are his thoughts about everything regarding his family and relationships. The lack of sentiment or saccharine explanations or glamor or stark moralizing is what makes the story of Exit Wounds feel realistic, free-floating, easy to navigate and gives it darkly comic overtones. Nothing about the world or the characters feels condescending and a moment never occurs when Modan asks us to bask in empathy, or terror, or even some kind of gushy unencumbered romantic love. That the story finds itself becoming a romantic comedy and resolving itself in a way similar (but far more ambiguous) way as a romantic comedy seems like an inexorable structural and narrative path to allow the characters to enter and possibly exit one another's lives. But it does not feel forced. In fact, a conversation that Koby has with a naive old woman near the end of the book who spouts religious platitudes and uses the word "soulmates" seems to confirm this lack of sentiment. The overall tone of the book is darkly comic; one running joke is that there are so many bombings that people get two recent bombings in cities with similar sounding names confused. A visit to the coroner finds the coroner curt and dismissive, to no one's surprise. The ending of the book and its ambiguous final page presents what appears to be a positive, or optimistic action. But the preceding dialogue insinuates it is the only available option, and when we visualize the end results of the act there is no way for the next (unseen, because the book is done) panel to be anything but completely absurd. It isn't just an affirmative act; it is a quixotic, goofy, and ultimately pointless one. And that's where the story of Exit Wounds excels. This is not a story about the redeeming power of romantic love; romance is presented as a borderline unhealthy exercise that lonely people partake in because they have no other color or shape to their bleak lives. Exit Wounds is a book about the simple will to live and to find laughter and pleasure in the company of other people, something far more redemptive and reliable than romance.

The art relies on disarmingly simple character design, bold outlines, and light colors. The characters' body language and facial expressions convey an uncanny range of emotion in every panel. The body language and facial expressions seem so human that it seems almost photoreferenced or rotoscoped. I would have trouble believing that models weren't used to design the two main characters. The character of Numi in particular is so idiosynchratic and fully realized that it would be difficult to imagine that she doesn't exist somewhere in the world. The emotional range of these characters' expressions is so rich that it makes the world of Exit Wounds feel very much alive and worth visiting.