Mother, Come Home

by Paul Hornschemeier

Book Overview

With his clean, distinctive art style and poignant storytelling, up-and-coming indie comics sensation Paul Hornschemeier has earned comparisons to and accolades from today's top graphic novelists. Mother, Come Home is Hornschemeier's graphic novel debut-the quietly stunning tale of a father and son struggling, by varying degrees of escapism and fantasy, to come to terms with the death of the family's mother. The story seamlessly weaves through the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593070373
• ISBN13: 9781593070373
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.9" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 16 years and up

Customer Reviews

A Wonderful, Heartbreaking Work

"Mother, Come Home" is exactly as advertised: A "quietly stunning tale of a father and son struggling to come to terms with the death of the family's mother". The dialogue is barebones, the artwork is minimalistic, and the plot straightforward yet heartfelt. Paul Hornschemeier's artwork is clean and deceptively simple. It tells the story, and not much else...but that's okay by my standards. It doesn't get in the way of itself or make itself overly noticeable. The muted tones used for coloring are reproduced beautifully by Fantagraphics, who have put together an attractive hardcover package. I was surprised to see that there are so many vocal detractors for "Mother, Come Home". A lot of comparisons to other artists (Ware, Tomine, et al). Comparisons to Brian Bendis's "Daredevil" run. Perhaps there's some truth to the detractors...I can't say, because I haven't read most of the works that reviewers are comparing "Mother, Come Home" to. Without those points of reference, this book stood on its own.

subtle, effective, gorgeous

Hornschemeier is not the type of guy or author to go for the easy, in-your-face type of story-telling. He's in it for the more interesting subtleties that emerge from the space in between. He is masterful with the moments of intense, complicated, nameless emotions that arise from the interaction with sparse dialogue and stark illustration. He allows the reader to figure out what the reader feels, he does not condescend. I loved it.

Listen to me.

I'm not sure what a lot of this complaining is about. Paul Hornschemeier doesn't draw like chris ware or tell stories like Chris Ware. For that I'm glad, because his is a more direct storytelling style than Chris', who has a more design first manner to his work. Hornshemeier is far more fluid and almost ambient. That said, it was not a surprise to me that part of the soundtrack to this book's creation was Sigur Ros. He is able to keep up a mood of melancholy and foreboding throughout this book that isn't something that you can enjoy in the same way as the maniacally glib Bendis, but is good and worth reading.

The wood between the worlds...

Phenomenonal book! The drawings are clean and crisp, but there is something about the way that the prose manages to be at once straight-forward and surreal that reminds me of Edward Gorey. Great, sad, compelling.

Best Graphic Novel EVER

This is the most beautiful I have ever read, and I really mean that. This is the sad story of a young, seven-year-old boy whose mother has just died and whose father is slipping deeper and deeper into an incredible depression and how the both of them, father and son, escape wherever they can to find solace.Buy this book twice because the first copy will be ruined with your tears.