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Waterwise
By Joel Orff; for Mature Readers
128 pages; 6" x 9"; $14.95
ISBN: 1-891867-82-2; Diamond: JUL04 2539;
September 2004
Imagine a cross between American Splendor and Alice in Wonderland... or imagine a cross between Carl Barks and Carlos Castaneda...
In Joel Orff's new graphic novel Waterwise he explores these concepts and many more. This is the story of two old friends who are reunited for one night and wander together through a surreal, vaguely apocalyptic landscape, pondering life, griping about their circumstances, and trying to connect. Along the way they explore the nature of dreams, the fragile facade of civilization and the tenderness of a true friendship.
After his girlfriend leaves him, Jim, an unemployed artist, hitchhikes to his family's cabin for some time to reflect. Once there he runs into Emily - the girl that he was infatuated with during summer holidays at the cabin during his entire adolescence. Emily has a daughter now, and has just gone through a bitter divorce. For the first time in her life she's really not sure where she's going or what she should do. Emily and Jim spend the day together - awkwardly reliving old memories and wandering through familiar places. They both need to connect with someone, and it seems that now as adults they should be able to. Unfortunately, they find that the differences between them are still too great, and though their reunion has strengthened their friendship the answers they're looking for will have to be found on their own.
"My first book was a collection of one page strips. In this book I'm stretching out, telling a very simple story in a stripped down, minimal style over a large number of pages. My goal was to use the unique qualities of comics to create something that works best as a comic. In a traditional novel the author must describe something with words, and the effect is limited by the tone and choice of words. In a comic something can simply be shown — leaving the interpretation to the reader. In a film events unfold at a set pace, but in a comic someone can stop to contemplate a panel and reread or proceed at their own pace. I've tried to keep these things in mind when putting this book together, with the primary intention of creating characters that are warm, confused and imperfect — and showing some kind of lyricism in that."
— Joel Orff
"Picture a ramshackle residential neighborhood along some train tracks, at dusk, in the late summer. It's hot, but trees are rustling in a cool breeze, and snatches of music drift out of back yards and second-floor apartments. Some guy is riding his bike through an overgrown back alley. The bike has a drawing board instead of handlebars, and the guy is drawing comic books as he coasts along, dropping pages in his wake like inky leaves. The guy is Joel Orff, and if you're really smart, you'll run along after him like I do, reading the pages as you go. Joel Orff is one of the great unsung journeymen of comics, singular in his ability to weave nuanced atmosphere out of dense ink lines. Waterwise is an evocative, absorbing depiction of time and place that nudges the boundaries of comics where they need nudging most: toward quietness, subtlety, and thegentle mysteries of the natural world."
— Jason Lutes (Berlin)
Waterwise sample pages |
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Joel Orff's first book Strum and Drang: Great Moments in Rock 'n' Roll was nominated for the 2004 YALSA Paperbacks for Young Adults Booklist.
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| Strum and Drang: Great Moments in Rock 'n' Roll |
Thunderhead Underground Falls |
Waterwise |
Stapling cast-off newsprint from the local small-town newspaper into little books, Joel Orff churned out a thirty-two page comic once a month for most of his childhood. After his first year of college he threw them all out; a decision that he's still not sure if he regrets. More recently he's been published in several books and magazines around the world, including the Artisti Allibratori Associati publication Tattoo Comix (Italy), Fahrenheit Magazine (Denmark), The Comix Compendium from Mangijin Books, The Stranger weekly newspaper in Seattle, and 'Heroes of Invention', which was created for the Minnesota Children's Museum. His illustrations were included in an exhibition at the National Comic Library in Copenhagen in 1994. In 2001 they were featured at both the Somerville Comix Fest and Curious Brain exhibit in Boston.
In 2002 Joel Orff was a finalist for the McKnight Foundation Screenwriters Fellowship, and had his first play produced as part of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. In 2004 he was a finalist for the McKnight Screenwriters Fellowship. In 2005, his comic strip 'Great Moments in Rock 'n' Roll' began running weekly in the California paper Pacific Sun. In 2006 his second graphic novel Waterwise was published in a French translation by editions ça èt là in France. In 2007 editions ça èt là will publish a French translation of Thunderhead Underground Falls.
Images, characters and likenesses © and ™ Joel Orff
