Sweaterweather

    (Alternative, 2003)
™ and © Alternative Comics

It would be easy, but incomplete, to describe Sara Varon’s Sweaterweather as “cute” after reading the first two stories. Varon soon shows that there’s more play with an eight-page piece that walks through the alphabet. It’s a random, but rigid demand on the story that challenges the author to innovate. Sweaterweather is equal parts narrative and illustration; readers should remind themselves that the book is as much portrait, explanatory lesson and schematic as story. Appreciate Sweaterweather as an art gallery, rather than a single work. And if you’re still unsatisfied, chin up; Varon packs the book with goodies like postcards, paper dolls and stamps. Fans of Craig Thompson would do well to let Varon’s similar similarlure them in, but don’t expect the same bittersweet sentimentality. Yes, the book is cute, but more accurately, it’s happy.

— Brendan McGinley
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