To refer to artist Melody Often’s distinctively orchestrated visual arsenal as “style” is to damn, with faint praise, the poetic synthesis she brings to TRINADOT, her fascinating and kaleidoscopic graphic novel. Issue 4 of the series will launch at the upcoming Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland on September 13, 2014.

Readers who have enjoyed the first three issues since publication began in 2008 will be rewarded with the continuing story of Bea Depadua, a foreign exchange student who barely survives a plane crash and washes ashore on the remote island of Trinadot. The ancient apothecary Kwun Aayu and her dog Baron find Bea’s battered, comatose form and attend to her as she unconsciously fights for her life.

Issue 4 also stands alone as an introduction to the artist’s engaging imagination, as we witness Bea’s emergence from her fever dream, her injuries stitched and bandaged but still fresh. She confronts her rescuers; as far as they know she is the only survivor.

She wanders out of the house for the first time, half-blind and immersed in the exotic scent of the Trinadot forest. Kwun Aayu cautions her to remain in seclusion, as the isolated monastery on the island will present a challenge to the mysterious castaway.

The riveting story unfolds around several plot lines, we are drawn into the everyday lives of the monks and villagers as Bea orbits closer and is eventually welcomed into their world.

In the earlier issues, while Bea lies unconscious, returning monk Tanmay Aayu treks through the jungle, seeks refuge in the village and encounters Kwun Aayu at the market, wearing the traditional local garb, with decorative markings including the distinctive Trinadi symbol of the split cross and semicircle. Often’s treatment of the story is incisive, elegant, even journalistic, the reader is presented with a coherent and beautifully structured array of innovative compositions in the graphic content, the pages punctuated with just a spare and essential modicum of dialogue.

The lush and poetic color art work on the covers has a lovely sense of vintage Art Nouveau, and each page conveys the reader through a dreamlike landscape of compelling drama and surrealistic adventure.

In Issue 2, a mesmerizing undersea dream sequence brings us deep inside Bea’s subconscious, it is entertaining and disturbing, lyrical and at times minimalistic, symbolism and psychodrama interwoven in a satisfying arc.

Superbly imaginative animal characters emerge throughout the series, dog, lizard, a giant praying mantis, skull monkey and coyote-headed crab, edgy and original facets of Bea’s psyche that propel the tale forward. Tanmay and Kwun Aayu carry Bea’s bruised unconscious form in a coffin-like conveyance through the forest from one village to the next, Tanmay resuscitates her but she fades into exhausted sleep and the dream continues, she struggles to return to the land of the living.

Melody Often has crafted an imaginative journey, delivering organic, innovative yet subtle variations in the page layouts, integrating vignettes, full-frame pages, narrative multiple frames and seductive landscapes, a cinematic feast for the eyes.

The artist/author has an enviable capacity for illustrating people, animals, natural and architectural elements with well-developed skill and talent beautifully synchronized to a fine focus in this lyrical and intriguing series. She manages to visually synthesize elements both spare and rococo in a distinctive yet lightly-wielded manner that lets the story blossom, it is a pleasure to zoom in and observe the nuances of Often’s compositional and painterly expertise.

At the same time the story flows and the characters come to life so that we are never preoccupied with how the magic happens on the page. The flowing artistry of the illustrations is faithfully representational, yet with plenty of impressionistic feel. Each issue runs thirty to forty pages, with stunning full-color covers and painterly, nuanced grayscale interiors.

 

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Issue 4 of TRINADOT will be available Saturday, September 13, 2014 at the Small Press Expo and also through the artist’s web site.

The SPX festival is held at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, it is a public exhibition including panel discussions, interviews, seminars, book signings and school outreach programs.

Hours of operation are Saturday, September 13 from 11am to 7pm (admission $15) and Sunday, September 14 from noon to 6pm (admission $10, or $20 for both days).

In 2011, Melody Often organized BTTA, the Baltimore Time Travel Anthology, featuring numerous Baltimore comic book artists. The just-released BTTA 2 is now available at Atomic Books in Hampden and also online here.

Adventure awaits.

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