Rosalie Lightning

My blog about the process of loving, losing, and grieving my beautiful 2 year old daughter, Rosalie Lightning- was once a girl, unfairly now a book, but also an enormous generous spirit. This documents some of that. Pre-order the book from Amazon, BN, Apple, IndieBound, Powells or Comixology.

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And the new outline

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One outline comes down, another goes up

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Best Books 2016

The best books of 2016, chosen by Publishers Weekly editors. The best books in fiction, mysteries, memoirs, romance, comics, kids books, and more.

Looks like Rosalie’s book made it to this list.

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The BFG, Roald Dahl’s Love Letter to His Lost Daughter

Roald Dahl’s 1982 children’s classic The BFG begins with a dedication to the author’s daughter: “For Olivia: 20th April 1955 — 17th November 1962.” If I had noti…

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Rosalie Lightning – What comes after the sudden, unexplained death of a two-year-old toddler

Rosalie Lightning by Tom Hart St. Martin’s Press 2016, 272 pages, 7.8 x 9.6 x 0.8 inches $12 Buy a copy on Amazon

“What do you do when your child dies?” Rosalie Lightning shows us what Tom Hart and his partner Leela Corman did as they mourned the sudden, unexplained death of their toddler Rosalie. This graphic memoir, written and drawn by Hart, is a poignant recounting of grief. In the first pages of the book, Rosalie Lightning, not yet two, dies in the night, without any known cause or sign.

Or were there signs? Hart looks for signs and portents – things that might have given him a clue about was to come — though knowing the portents are meaningless. “What meaning do we make of things?” he asks. Seeking symbols becomes the activity of grief. All the while, he and Corman are visiting friends, selling a home, and considering getting pregnant again.

“Wasn’t I a father? Didn’t I have a daughter?” Hart’s grief is acute and vivid. He mixes grayed drawings of himself with simple, adorable drawings of Rosalie (“Rodzy” as she pronounced it). He brings her to life for us through her toddler language “bumbites” (bug bites), “Rodzy hep” (Rosalie help) and “bye big spidoo wam!” (no translation needed).

The memoir is personal but not invasive. It provides no pat resolution but instead rests on the symbolism of life that comes from one of Rosalie’s favorite objects to collect – an acorn. The closing images of the memoir show an acorn growing into a mature tree, accompanied by the repetition of the word “yes.” The affirmation feels equally willing and forced. After the death of loved ones, after all, we want to move on; we must force ourselves to move on. – Meagan Rodgers

June 13, 2016

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Review of Rosalie book

"its focus is the wonder you can regain if you leave your wounded heart out in the air and sun."

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The Strange Power of a Medieval Poem About the Death of a Child - The New Yorker

There is something about the very remoteness of the medieval poem “Pearl,” now out in a new translation, that magnifies its emotional power.

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“Rosalie Lightning di @hutchowen e G&G #GiorgioGaber a #fumetti di Barzi e Gerasi. Dal 9 giugno in #libreria!”

We’re in italian

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“The stories I started after she died, which became Rosalie Lightning, I started writing instantly. I’ve always made books of what I’ve experienced. I’ve used comics as a way to negotiate the world—the external but also internal, emotional world. From my earliest days when I was a child, of 6 or 7, I was tracing Peanuts characters. Comics portray such a range of feeling, drawing has helped me identify or manage emotional states.

I realized recently that anger, confusion, and exuberance have been the three threads running through all of the work I’ve done, from my earliest mini-comics to this book about Rosalie.” Tom Hart / @rosalielightning interviewed at MUTHA Magazine, with an excerpt from the book 

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GRIEF STRUCK: An Interview with TOM HART on ROSALIE LIGHTNING

Tom Hart and Leela Corman's daughter Rosalie Lightning died, suddenly and unexpectedly, before her second birthday. Their tragedy shocked the indie comics publishing community, particularly here in...

An interview with me on Mutha Magazine, great interview by Meg Lemke. Thanks.

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I see someone made a movie about 2 parents after the loss of a child, called “Couple in a Hole.” Not sure if it’s good or not, but it’s a good title and apt metaphor, as I can attest.

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This sequence from Fatih Akin’s The Cut (2014) expresses my grief with such  precision.

I think I need to make another book.

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Pages from Rosalie’s book are on display in Seattle at Dendroica Gallery in Seattle

http://www.thestranger.com/events/23653475/in-the-story-room-5-seattle-cartoonists

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Everyone experiences a form of grief in their lifetime. But not everyone writes and illustrates that experience in a profoundly moving book. Graphic novelist Tom Hart did. And the result is Rosalie Lightning, a memoir which is both breathtakingly beautiful and a punch to the gut. The book

10 minute audio interview here

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Scenes from the NYC signing/reading at Barnes and Noble, NYC. Thanks Keith Mayerson and everyone else involved! (Thx Yali for the photos!)

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More unused stuff. There’s a whole other book in there.

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In September 2011, cartoonists Tom Hart and Leela Corman moved from New York City to Gainesville with their young daughter, Rosalie. Two months later, Rosalie died — suddenly and unexpectedly.