Whatsa Paintoonist? by Jerry Moriarty

Whatsa Paintoonist? Reviews

• 
  Emma Paulet

  I confess I knew nothing of the artist going in, but I was attracted to the book for its portrayal of a kind of process -- something I relish beholding (or imagine being blessed enough to behold!) in the artists I know and love. I didn't really know what I was in for, and was greatly touched by the story.
• 
  Robert

  A beautiful book of memories. Jerry Moriarty is just the best.
• 
  Crystal

  I like the concept of painted comics. And I am a sucker for stories told by older people looking back on their life.
• 
  Kim

  drawing and painting. line and plane.
  drawing as an act of remembrance, present, & nonfiction; painting as an imagined past, fiction. the conversation between the past and present.
• 
  Kerfe

  Here's another one of those "I saw it on the library shelf" reads.
  
  This graphic novel only gradually unfolds itself into the life of the artist inside and outside of the book itself. He is old, being forced out of the job and home he has known for many years, and as he moves on he considers where he has been, especially where he was in early adolescence. Except he turns himself into a girl, modeled after his sister Pat.
  
  Juxtaposing magical paintings with a cartoon narration, the author also mingles past and present. He is talking to himself: the younger, female, version asks questions, and the old man answers. The paintings, in color, have the Hopperish feel of mid-20th century small town America, while the black and white cartoons are more like preliminary ideas, unfinished and loose.
  
  Moriarty's father, who died when the author was 14, has become a mythical figure in his memories. Younger Jerry: "You really loved your dad." Older Jerry: "I've missed him my whole life." The art allows him to travel back in time: "...the painting becomes a time machine and I am there in my past visiting my dad."
  
  During the making of the book, the author's sister dies, joining his father and mother as "The Dead Moriartys". Jerry tells his alter ego, Sally, that by painting them he can see them again. In the last paintings, his family enters the loft he has just emptied, joining his cat's spirits as residents. He is completing another part of the circle as he returns to his childhood home to await his own climb up the stairs.
  
  Poignant, moving--beautifully done.
  
  
• 
  Diego Munoz

  My first encounter with Jerry Moriarty.
  
  He is a brilliant painter, and in this book he has incorporated some of his work together with an interconnecting comic.
  
  It’s a meditative work on his past, his parents and his longing to return there. There was quite a sad scene where he reminisces about his father.
  
  Brilliant and recommended.