Comics and graphic novels are one of the best ways to transport yourself while reading. Artists use style and detailed flourishes to show their readers both the familiar and the strange. When it comes to fish-out-of-water graphic novels, artists utilize these elements to strike the balance of explaining what the perspective character knows and showing what is totally new to them.
These graphic novels and memoirs take different forms, from slice-of-life stories to themed vignettes. Travelogues are especially popular in the comics and graphic novel form because they’re usually the natural extension of artists’ drawing journals. You can better understand what these characters find strange by literally seeing it through their eyes in comics panel form. I hope these comic stories are as exciting for all readers to explore as they are for the protagonists to experience.
Graphic Novels
Tall Water by S.J. Sindu, illustrated by Dion MBD
This graphic novel melds a bit of magical thinking with a real-world disaster in Sri Lanka. Nimmi has a loving father, but she wants to reconnect with her mother, who still lives in Sri Lanka. Nimmi defies his wishes and travels to find her anyway, but while there, the 2004 tsunami hits. She doesn’t know the landscape very well, and she also has to navigate a natural disaster.
All access members continue below for more fish-out-of-water graphic novels and memoirs.
Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
Being new to New York City is one of the most common fish-out-of-water tropes in graphic novels, but it always hits. Zoe and Dani meet up with Dani’s friend Fiona in the city of their dreams. They then set out to learn the ropes of being a true New Yorker. Like most Tamaki titles, it provides beautiful visualizations, focused on how it feels to grow up and strike out on your own.
Comics Memoirs
It Won’t Always Be Like This by Malaka Gharib
At nine, Malaka had started to figure out how to fit in at her school in California. She feels like a fish out of water again, though, when she returns to Egypt to spend the summer with her dad. The summers are always an adjustment, but she starts to appreciate her status as a two-culture kid, and bonds with her half-siblings and stepmom. Gharib has an engaging writing style, and I love her colorful artwork.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
Like a lot of online millennials, I discovered Kate Beaton through her Hark! A Vagrant online comics series. In order to make money for college, she leaves her small Canadian hometown of Mabou for the province of Alberta. She works in the oil sands, which turns out to be a much scarier and more punishing experience than she bargained for. This account also reveals a darker side to the natural beauty of Canada and the exploitation that is usually kept hidden.
If you’re on a comics roll, there are tons of genres and author experiences to follow: check out these emotionally resonant ones about mental illness, historically-focused graphic memoirs, and comics by trans authors.
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