Perfect Example is a
collection of stories by John Porcellino about his teenage years.  At the end of the book, Porcellino outlines
his life story in three pages of writing, and says that he hated his Chicago
suburban high school, experienced depression, had some drinking problems, and
was sometimes suicidal.  Now in his
thirties, he has gone through several episodes of anxiety, depression, and
obsessive-compulsive disorder; now on his second marriage, he now lives in San
Francisco.

Porcellino’s drawing style is very
simple, bordering on the naïve.  There’s
almost no shading, and each page is split up into four rows, with a mixture of
one and two frames per row.  Most faces
are drawn with dots or small lines for eyes, a short arch for an eyebrow, a U
or V on its side for a nose, and either a line or an oval for a mouth.  It makes his characters seem childish, and
emotions become simplified.  He
chronicles some romances and emotional crises, and he gets confused by other
people’s behavior, as most of us do, especially in youth.  His unhappiness is touching but Porcellino
does not convey much depth to it.  He
tries to explain his spiritual struggles, setting out his realizations, for
example, that "Things come and go. 
But they are no more real than shadows on the wall." or later
that "Life is like a dream." 
This makes his work distinctive and more interesting.  Yet his thoughts about seem solipsistic
rather than derived from dialog with others, and you finish with an impression
of a very isolated person trying to reach out to other people. 

Links:

·       
Drawn &
Quarterly

·       
John Porcellino’s
website

© 2005 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.

Christian Perring, Ph.D., is
Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island, and editor
of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main research is on
philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: Memoirs, ArtAndPhotography