“When One Person Dies, The Whole World Is Over” is a full-length comic book that extends the form into new territory. Four panels sketch out each of 365 days in an entire recent year. Cartoonist and teacher Mandy Ord is an idiosyncratic, powerful sketcher of moments and each of the 1,460 panels is a visual black-and-white treat. The plot (and it might surprise you to hear there is a highly intelligent story arc) covers the quotidian life of the author, in her work, her marriage, family, and friends, while the events of the world hover in the background. Various storylines, plonked down now and then with a single panel, build up into emotional intensity. I was intrigued (I’m no comic reader, normally), then drawn in, then emotionally swept up. A climax comes: “This is it. The moment underprepared for. ” An immersive, powerful read.
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