Cicada
Written and drawn by Josue Menjivar
Published by Top Shelf Productions
Cicadas, we learn early on, are also called locusts. And a plague of them descends in this outstanding graphic novel, which has nothing to do with bugs, and yet is filled with them.
This is a small story about a small man named Thomas Caudet, who spent his life afflicted with asthma, and consequently grew up suffering from a debilitating lack of self-esteem. Much to his surprise, he eventually meets and falls in love with Sarah, a pretty girl who loves him back. They get married and build a life together, and you'd think that would be enough.
As is often the case in real life, though, it's not enough. Thomas can't just be grateful that he beat the odds and found someone to spend his life with. The disasterous consequences of his need to be loved, and loved, and loved, are at the center of the plague that descends, like locusts, into a life he always hoped for, and ultimately destroys.
This is an intimate character sketch of one man and his self-inflicted agony. It could easily be transformed into an affecting stage play, so small is the world Thomas has created for himself. But Menjivar chose to tell his story in comics, and we're the ones who benefit as we travel to a cheap little motel room and watch as the main character wallows in the misery he has summoned forth.
Life, especially childhood, can be a miserable thing. Cicada is a skillfully woven tapestry depicting the end result of feeding the misery instead of opening your heart to love, honestly offered. Menjivar depicts the tapestry honestly and without sentiment, creating a sad little fable that makes excellent use of the comics artform to depict sorrow, a brief period of joy, and ultimately a crushing loss squarely on the shoulders of the main character. If the locusts represent a plague, it's one Thomas brought on himself. In the end, ironically, he learns just that lesson.