“When I wake the things I dreamed about you last night make me blush”
Dark Horse has yet another graphic novel (I just reviewed one yesterday!) – Light Carries On is by Ray Nadine, who does it all, apparently!
Nadine’s story is simple: Leon is a photographer in Chicago whose camera breaks, so he goes to his mom’s “antiques and oddities” store and finds an old one that he can use in the interim. 
He decides the first photo should be a selfie, but when he clicks the button, a ghost comes out of the camera. Oh dear. The ghost possesses Leon and takes his body for a spin, but this is not a possession story, fret not. The ghost, who’s named Cody, was in a punk band and died under mysterious circumstances in 1977 (Leon looks him up on Wikipedia, which says he committed suicide, but Cody is adamant that he didn’t, but he can’t remember what happened). After Cody “releases” Leon – he just wanted to check things out – Leon is able to see him, and he decides to help Cody figure out what happened to him.
While the circumstances of their meeting are strange, once you get accept that Leon is hanging out with a ghost, the story is just about their friendship. Cory is trying to find out what happened to him, and he thinks he can’t “move on” until he does, but he’s also having to deal with the fact that over 40 years have passed since he was alive, and a lot has changed in the world. Leon, meanwhile, suffers from PTSD from his time in the army, so he’s going through some things, too. Together, they form a nice friendship, and eventually, they figure out what happened to Cody. Does this mean he moves on? You’ll have to read the book to find out!!!
I don’t have much to say about this book, because, honestly, not a ton “happens” in the plot-heavy sense. I mean, Leon finds out that Cody appears in his photos, so he begins taking them and eventually, he gets an exhibition at a gallery where everyone is impressed with his “special effects” (Cody looks like a ghost, after all). 
Cody’s death is a mystery, of course, and Nadine takes us back to 1977 to show us the events leading up to it, but this book isn’t really about the plot – it’s about two people who have good reasons not to trust others learning how to trust others. Cody is never really that bad a dude, but he is kind of lazy, and he doesn’t take much responsibility for his actions, but now that he’s dead, he’s able to see that he was not always the best person to have around. Leon begins to realize that not everyone is going to hurt him or leave him, as Cody really does like hanging around with him. Both of them have to deal with some serious stuff, of course, but Nadine keeps showing how they are getting through it because they have someone in their life who cares about them. I’ve often said that I like romances, but I don’t love that people jump into bed the first chance they get. Obviously, I love this romance, because sex is completely off the table. Leon and Cody fall in love, but it’s a wonderfully organic romance, because they don’t fall in love until they know about the other person and know that they can take that chance. Of course, it’s bittersweet because of the fact that Cody is, after all, dead, and he might not be able to stick around even if he wants to, but that just makes the moments they do spend together that much more powerful. We know they’re falling in love, and we also know that it might not end well. Again, I’m telling if it does end well or not, but what makes the book so emotionally fraught is that we know it’s a very real possibility that the romance is doomed. Nadine does a wonderful job showing how two damaged people can be healed, not only through love, but because they can find the strength within themselves thanks to that love. It’s just very well done.
Nadine also does nice work with the art. He has an angular, cartoony style that fits with the punk aesthetic of 1977, as Cody and his friends all have spiky, wild hair and even their clothing looks like it could cut you. 
In the present, Leon gives off that vibe, too, but Nadine seems to slowly round out his lines when he’s drawing the present, so that everyone – even Cody – becomes slightly softer. Not too much, you understand, and maybe I’m just seeing things that I want to see, but it does seem like the present-day stuff becomes just a bit less angular as we move through the story. His characters look great, too – in 1977, Cody is more of a doofus, and Nadine draws him a bit more that way than in the present, when he’s learned a bit about how to be a decent human. His best friend, Bethany (the band’s guitarist), is a bit of a proto-Goth girl, and she tolerates Cody because she knows he has a good heart, and Nadine does wonders with the way she responds to his goofiness. Cody experiences and lot of wonder and sadness at the world he now “lives” in, and Nadine does a superb job showing that play across his face. Leon becomes more open, too – he’s not closed off in the beginning, just a bit cynical, and Nadine does a good job showing how he slowly learns to see beauty in the world again, mainly through the fact that Cody is experiencing a lot of neat stuff – the internet! – for the first time. He does a nice job with Chicago, too – Nadine lives there, so he’s able to show the city up close, and it feels very much like a real place (I mean, I know it’s real, but Nadine does a good job grounding it). The colors are excellent, too – mostly black and white and gray with touches of blue, but occasionally he adds another color for effect, and the results are stunning. It’s a very nice-looking comic.
Light Carries On is a terrific comic – it has two interesting characters who are adults but still need to learn some things, it has an intriguing premise that Nadine handles well, and it looks good. What more do you want?
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆
