For many critics and readers, Stiches, from the American David Small, is one of the most beautiful comics published last year. But there are some who say it's not that much. I am one of them. This autobiography, like other works of the same genre, dramatically picks up the childhood and youth of the author, such as Blankets, by Craig Thompson, cited here. Too dramatic. It is true that the childhood of Small, marked by throat cancer, had to be tough, we can hardly imagine what she suffered quietly, but if you could tell the story with a more joyful or ironic tone, without amputating the “seriousness”, as the comics Wrinkles and Mary and I do, that deal with Alzheimer and autism. There are ways to tell it differently (illness, loneliness, fear…) and to reflect on it. What Stitch doesn't get, by the way.

Silence marks the narrative. The relatives transmit their feelings through the noise: the father shaking the boxing bag, the mother hitting with the kitchen cabinets, the brothers with the battery... and Small with his drawings. Black and white drawings, comics, we mean, are not incredibly elaborate, but the truth is that, in their humility, they correctly synthesize the landscapes (lights and shadows) and above all the gestures of the characters, especially those of the parents who often become terrible, sometimes pathetic. History has long silences, has little narrative voice and conversation, but the images manage to convey what is not said (or cannot be said) with words. Unfortunately, swimming constantly in this dramatic atmosphere suffocates him and, worse still, leaves no room for reflection on the subject as he deserves.

Stitches. David Small. Random House Mondadori 2010 336 pages (18 x 23.5 cm) in black and white. EUR 20.