Ash’s Cabin
Ash’s CabinCartoonist: Jen Wang
Publisher: First Second / $17.99
August 2024
Gotta get out. The only person Ash can relate to is their late grandfather, a chimera of crucial memories from Ash’s childhood summers, the stories we’re told about our elders by the rest of our family and community, and the records he left behind. The clues to Ash’s Cabin are right there, in the past, if Ash can only figure out what they mean. And then they’ve got to find the actual cabin itself, out in the wilderness, based on the clues. Jen Wang has created a comic that is much more than a mystery, though. Helicopters, pinky promises, grass weaving, wildfire. It seemed like the perfect place to run away to, so that’s just what Ash (and Ash’s dog Chase) decided to do.
Ash’s Cabin is really Ash’s diary, recalling the summer they found the cabin. Ash is a planner, so this is a comic full of lists, inventories, pertinent facts, details that border on the instructional. Ash is dedicated, willing to put their plans into effect no matter what life throws their way. So this is a comic full of hardship. Hands worked bloody chopping wood. A dinner of borage and fennel with rice. But the choice between building a fire and freezing, catching fish or starving, isn’t a choice at all. The dog you took with you because you can’t do it alone (just without people, please) is definitely counting on you. Giving up isn’t an option.
Wang however is willing to let things fall apart. Ash is driven and does the best they can, but life is what it is, so this comic is about failure. Becoming a part of the woods and not a part of society was the ambition, but nature is bigger than you or I and does things sometimes that leave planning and even success meaningless. Things not working out give desire clarity, don’t you think? Finding out what you want isn’t what you want can hurt your heart. In Ash’s case if the woods turn on you, they will do more to your heart than break it, they will stop it completely.
The secret in the cabin is the power of tiny victories. Something Wang’s pacing as a storyteller knows how to give their due. A silent panel speaks to the reader about Ash’s peace of mind in heavily weighted tones. Wang ties it into the importance of everything; though the cabin didn’t end up as anticipated, the time growing there is not a loss. Ash found success through respect for the history that led to the countryside being the way it is. And Ash’s struggle contributed to that history, even if we’re the only ones who will bear witness to it.
Ash’s problem is caring for humanity makes you very angry with them. The trick is finding something you can do that involves isolation (see also Adam de Souza’s The Gulf). Not being good with people because you’ve specifically chosen to not deal with their general BS doesn’t exactly make one a diplomat when it’s time to ask for help in a crisis. Ash meets an Ursula to their Kiki that recalls the bumbling charm of the scientists in Shang Zhang’s Last Chance to Find Duke.
Positive librarian interactions inform Ash’s research and lead to a better understanding of joining an ecosystem versus camping in one. Ash’s frustration with society is rooted in the climate crisis. The desire for self-reliance and to reconnect with their family’s past are intertwined as the role of a good custodian of the land they’re living on. Part of Ash’s burden is saving the world means all the people they’re avoiding have to thrive.
The style Wang uses putting you in Ash’s head is why I can recognize peace of mind in a moment of silence. Only parts of this comic “look like a comic.” Ash’s Cabin is a journal. Not a prose novel cataloging every moment, but the words a teenager wrote for themselves before it got too dark to see the page that night. The text is a key that, when Ash revisits it, unlocks all their memories surrounding it. That is the comic we experience.
There are sequences done with panels and word balloons, but mostly it is not what you picture when someone says comic. It’s a book with a lot of negative space- sometimes used dynamically, mostly because a diary narrative asks for an open page the text can travel across and the art answers with phantom panels. Wang rhythmically gathers art and text together on the page as if panel borders were there when the page was constructed, just taken out after everything else is put in. It’s very clean and spare. The intention in the arrangement on each page pulls the look away from the read, away from journal, and toward its being a book.
I think book is the word because Wang has created a comic literate in many visual languages. Ash’s keeping track of everything they bring with them, prep listing, integrates effortlessly with Wang’s sudden switching to construction schematics for building a shelter or baiting a trap. I’ve long been a fan of others in the YA scene experimenting this way: Lucy Knisley’s Kid Gloves (among others) integrating infographics and comics, Dan Zettwoch’s (s/o USS Catastrophe) contributions to the Science Comics series bringing the Stephen Biesty. Ash’s Cabin integrates these practices instead of showcasing them.
Wang’s illustrations outside the panels are sometimes documentarian, like from a field guide or a forager’s journal, sometimes taking a moment that holds meaning for the story and elevating it. A passage in Ash’s journal will manifest as a drawing not incorporated into the typical passage of time through panels. More about reaching a place inside, and capturing when it happens like a photograph. The story turns to a film, or “becomes a comic,” when the moment sucks you in and you want to follow it faster than a diarist can record, in real time. You have to see if the bolt lands true and saves the dog quicker than you can read about it.
Nonbinary Brontë. A heartbreaking story of growth. That poor dog really is put through it. But what connects Ash’s Cabin to bildungsroman storytelling traditions that go back centuries is Wang’s ability to capture the conflict inside. When your happiness is at odds with the way the world works. The resilience that it takes to be yourself, and how that changes as you experience it.
And a well-researched piece. Rooted in the real but free to be a comic, like this year’s Food School from Jade Armstrong, or the classic The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot. A Herman Melville level of attention to detail like in a hobby manga, like Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier or Sumito Ōwara’s Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! The way it snaps in and out of paneled sequences assumes you’re already familiar with comics and you’re ready for more. Is this josei influenced as well?? It’s too late to start the review over. The publisher is First Second; if this is what the kids are reading, they are alright.
Ash’s Cabin is available from First Second or wherever finer comics and books are sold.
