I’ve been carrying my son often lately. It’s a natural occurrence in my daily life now. He’s on the verge of walking, but hasn’t found its balance yet and keeps tripping and falling. He’s almost there, but in the meantime, he wants me to carry him, and I gladly pick him up. I know one day it’ll be over, he’ll be too tall or too old and won’t want to be carried anymore, so I cherish every moment I can with him in my arm.

It’s perhaps because of this that I found Dan Berry’s comic Carry Me to be so delightful. It’s a wordless story in which a father carries his daughter through the woods. They are being hunted by this wolf and the father is trying his best to protect her through this whole adventure. It’s affecting and beautiful. A parent protecting his daughter from harm as best he can, for as long as he can and hope they’ll reach safety soon enough.

There’s a fantastic progression of time throughout the comic. The journey takes a long time and the characters evolve accordingly. I liked the uneven application of watercolour. It gave the comic this immediacy and helped with conveying movement as well. Dan Berry recently posted this comic online with some very interesting details on the creation of the comic. Of note, he mentions: I set myself rules – no planning beyond writing down a brief synopsis, no penciling, no correcting mistakes, just jumping straight into my sketchbook with ink and watercolour.

The end result is a beautifully coloured heartfelt comic. It’s great. You can read the whole thing on Dan’s website as well as more details on the making-of this comic.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Hmmm. Given how Mr. Berry draws the animal and the original reactions of the father and daughter, I wonder if the creature is supposed to be an aggressive or feral dog rather than a wolf.

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