Grafity's Wall Expanded Edition

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Still giving the book 4 stars because it’s a real masterwork and clearly a lot of love went into it, including the many specific details about life in Mumbai.

But the kid from Manipur's story managed to be vividly evocative of both Mumbai itself and his experience as someone from the far east of India.Giving brief glimpses into the incandescent lives of four teens chasing their dreams impeded and inspired by the impossible city that they live in. Sometimes weak, inconsistent, and lacking the teeth to cut through the noise, GRAFITY'S WALL soon finds its rhythm, and readers best pay attention lest they become lost in the fray.

He has worked as a shepherd, a pirate, and president of Andorra, but his most rewarding experience in life was inventing bacon. And learning the story that the book emerged from a 3 am conversation at a bar between friends did not surprise me. It was a book that made me think “is this what everyone feels like all the time when seeing themselves or those who look like them on the page? And it’s what happens only in that specific context, at that point in time, nowhere else, never again.The stories are interconnected and allow for a structure to repeat itself with those kind of variations that make each installment feel different.

Without being too dramatic, Ram shows how life can crush dreams far too easily, and it’s a good moment. The art style was definitely unique and it was a really different story from many others I've read, but I didn't really enjoy it. Most will not have the instant connection of one of the lead characters’ name being literally just ‘Glasses’ in Hindi, written Chasma (or perhaps more accurately “Chashma”, to account for pronunciation), as the book doesn’t try to filter things out. Well written and thought provoking, I feel like I have been with these characters for the length of this comic. A graffiti on wall, perhaps, is just a way to make other people’s lives a bit better, and it’s all for free.I'm not a frequent graphic novel reader, and I don't have the critical equipment to make useful comments about this book, but my daughter edited it, and was instrumental in its existence. This feels like a crazy passionate labor of love (not to even imply the other isn’t) that needed doing because there was such a personal stake in this for all involved.