Beverly, a graphic novel by Chicago cartoonist and illustrator Nick Drnaso, consists of six overlapping stories of suburban life. The bleak tales are told mainly from teenagers’ perspectives. The characters, though shapeless and rarely expressive, are recognizable, and their situations are unenviable. The settings verge on the mundane: an after-school job, a house party, a pizza place, soccer practice, the playground where kids smoke. But in this world, the slightest aberration resounds like a shot.
The disparity between pictures and text is pronounced in several places. In “Grassy Knoll,” a teenage boy, Tim, is paired with a chatty, weird coworker—but his focus, and that of the panels, is on a trio of girls nearby. Drnaso’s characters frequently ignore the people trying to connect with them because they are too busy trying to attract the attention of someone else, who is most likely ignoring them. Tim dismisses his annoying coworker to get closer to the girls, who disregard him to pay attention to a different guy, who will go on to neglect his girlfriend’s cries for help.
By Nick Drnaso (Drawn & Quarterly) Reading and signing, with Brian Chippendale Sat 2/20, 7 PM Quimby’s 1854 W. North 773-342-0910quimbys.com Free
