Red Rock Baby Candy

Book excerpt: Shira Spector, whose drawing is visceral, symbolic and naturalistic, literally paints a vivid portrait of the most eventful 10 years of her life, encompassing her tenacious struggle to get pregnant, the emotional turmoil of her father’s cancer diagnosis and eventual death, and her recollections of past relationships with her parents and her partner. Set in a kaleidoscope of Montreal and Toronto, Red Rock Baby Candy begins in subtle, tonal shades of black ink and introduces color slowly over the next 50 pages until it explodes into a glorious full color palette. The visual storytelling eschews traditional comics panels in favor of a series of unique page compositions that convey both a stream of consciousness and the tactile reality of life, both the subjective impressions of the author at each moment of the life she depicts and the objective series of events that shape her narrative.