“It’s about things that I’ve seen, things that I’ve learned, questions that I have. This graphic novel is a piece of philosophy in the traditional sense of taking the experience of living and then asking questions about what does this mean, how does this work, how do I know what I know.”
— Sarah Firth, describing her new book, Eventually Everything Connects: Eight Essays on Uncertainty
A Groundbreaking Graphic Novel
We are in the midst of an ever-expanding world of graphic novels with new work popping up each year that affirms this phenomena. Such a title is Sarah Firth’s Eventually Everything Connects, a collection of eight inter-related philosophical visual essays, a fresh and audacious exploration into what it means to be human. Read my review here. I would go as far as to say that Firth’s book is a groundbreaking work. As Firth herself describes the book, think of it as a music album, a collection of songs connected to each other by an overriding theme. In this case, the big theme is a journey to discover and better understand our collective reality.
We kicked off our conversation by focusing on the motif that flutters throughout the book, the bogong moth, a very capable and industrious little creature also quite inept when it comes to getting too close to bright lights. It is, truth be told, an excellent metaphor for the human condition. We humans, as Firth points out, are so remarkable and yet we keep shooting ourselves in the foot with how we are prone to hurt ourselves and other organisms and environments. We can’t seem to help ourselves–or can we? Therein lies a key factor in this exploration, a search for answers to the human riddle.
Life is made up of some many amazing elements, and so many mundane little routine details too. We are constantly buttoning and unbuttoning; composing and decomposing. What gives life purpose and meaning? Firth is eager to tackle philosophical questions, match them up with her own lived experience and see what she comes up with. Your mileage may vary but it’s safe to say you will find much in common in Firth’s exploration–as well as discover many new things about being human and the world we live in. It was a great delight to have this chat and I welcome you to check out the video below. What Firth has created with this book is a wonderfully original contribution to visual storytelling and the comics medium. Moreover, it is distinguished by being such a multi-layered work in comics: what happens in one chapter is picked up by the next chapter, expanded upon, contradicted and reevaluated. We need to cherish these gems in the ever-evolving world of comics. In this in-depth interview, Firth speaks at length about the dynamics at play in her book. I highly recommend anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of comics-making to tune in.
Lastly, I just want to come back to what I’m calling the “multi-layered” aspect to Firth’s book and focus in on one quirky factoid you’ll find among so many in this unique book. As Firth points out during our conversation, we humans are dealing with a never-ending flow of data. In order to deal with this, we must find shortcuts to help us make sense of reality. We have models, organizing principles and various heuristics to help us cope and see the big picture. But, due to the overload of information, we will usually miss something. This phenomena is described well by The Invisible Gorilla Experiment. I guess I zoned it out, or maybe I knew about it at one point, but it’s definitely a popular thing. Basically, it shows how you see what you need to see. Even if you’re told ahead of time to expect to see a gorilla appear in a video about basketballs, you’ll likely miss other anomalies. As I promised Sarah, I would end up becoming an Invisible Gorilla expert and now I can’t help but think about it.
Eventually Everything Connects is published by Graphic Mundi in the United States and will release in June, 2024.
