2024

How Nao, Brown Cow

When you think of comics - what comes to mind: Superman, Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk? Over the last century Marvel and DC have pushed the medium of comic books to the highest ranks of corporate and cultural success. So much so that the word “comic” is synonymous with superheroes for the average person.

A comic is fundamentally a string of images arranged sequentially to form a narrative. The Potential of the medium has never been limited to just super heroes. Series like Arhie and Dick Tract Captured a large audience, in their time, telling much more grounded stories. There was even a period of time where these slice-of-life comics threatened the superhero genre to the point of near extinction.

When the average person thinks of comics, they think about superhero stories. I think that this is a great tragedy for a medium that holds so much potential.

In Alan Moore’s guide to writing comics, he writes on ithe mediums ability to incorporate and build on techniques from all visual arts, editing, and cinematography, painter techniques and composition, narrative devices of great fiction. Comic creators can pull from all of these different devices, with an extra dimension of time - flattened into simultaneous view - like a reel of film

This tradition lives on in the graphic novel. Since the watchmen, popularized the name, graphic novelists have pushed the bounds of what the median is capable of. There are many to choose from, and I’ll get to them eventually. Today, I want to tell you about my favorite novel of all time: The Nao of Brown.

Written by Glynn Dillon (Glyn Dillon: not Steve Dillon, his brother and creator of preacher and hell blazer. The story is about a woman named Nao and her struggle with mental illness. More specifically, her obsession with violent, murderous thoughts. Though, it’s not stated in the book, Nao suffers from harm OCD, a rare form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Violent images flood her mind without reason. She feels guilt. These thoughts make her feel like an awful person. She fights with her internal demons daily while managing the veneer of a normal, artsy 20 something.

I’ve seen mental illness tackled in other mediums to mixed effect. I think what Glynn does is illustrate the subjectivity of human experience. He does it in a way only comic books allow. He uses a blend of monologue, allegory, and surrealist techniques to illustrate Nao’s worldview. These techniques are only magnified by Glynn’s brilliant use of water color. When Nao is sad, you can see the blue creep into her environment. When she is angry her world is covered in red. The panels are unbalanced.

The story does this interesting thing where it can take something mundane like a dinner date, and through Nao’s mental state, the situation is filled with tension. A flight, a long chat with a friend, a taxi ride fascinating from Nao’s perspective.

Then there’s the allegory of Pictor. A cartoon centered around a boy with the head of a gumball seed. Pictor must travel aimlessly searching for true love in order to break the curse put on him. The story is interjected several times throughout the main narratives Acts. It’s meant to mirror the conflict of the original piece. Pictor fears his form makes him unloveable. His own insecurities cause him to hurt those around him, especially the women he attempts to get close to.

An allegory is rarely placed in this fashion. Thematically intertwined, but narratively non-sequitur. Both characters are searching for connection while dealing with personal impediments to human connection. Nao her thoughts of harm and Pictor with his very real burrs, but while Pictor’s story is fantastical and adventurous., Nao’s story is simple and slice-of-life, but nonetheless compelling.

As the story progresses, Nao loses her ability to maintain her facade as the thoughts get stronger and more frequent. She’s having a hard time keeping her worries away from her friends. Nao tries to manage her thoughts. She uses therapy techniques, self assures, frequents meditation sessions. None of which cures her. Nao is looking for a cure to her thoughts. She wants them to stop. All the while her struggles only intensify. Her aversion to the condition only feeds it. If only she could fake normal, she thought, then she would be fine. If only people saw her as good. Just like her mom did. Then she’d be ok. And maybe she’d even believe it herself.

But that’s not what happens. Her efforts to will acceptance from her boyfriend cause his eventual abandonment. I don’t want to spoil the end, but the story culminates in a sudden event that forces Nao into accepting herself. She surrenders to her present condition. Surrender to the now.

The thoughts still exist, but her relationship to them changed. She is able to accept the thoughts for what they are - thoughts, and she learns to accept herself as a result.

While I don’t have OCD or violent thoughts, growing up, I didn’t like myself. I couldn’t fit in. I didn’t get great grades. I was just weird, and I would eat alone often because I was too stuck in my head. You see when I was young, my head was where I went to escape my situation. It was my oasis. My refuge. As I get older I developed a new problem. My inner world got darker and I was trapped in between. As my thoughts became more self-critical. I only isolated further into myself. It’s not lke I didn’t have friends.

And then I found this book one day while wandering through the library. I won’t say it saved me- that would come much later, but it sewed the seeds of the possibility of a different relationship with my thoughts. I didn’t even need to convince myself of my own goodness. I could just be.

I stopped looking at my condition as being simply “damned to myself.” I see it now as a great blessing. I can’t be anyone else. No matter how much I try. I will always expand into what I am.

In the same way, you don’t have to feel damned to yourself. You don’t need to fold yourself to fit others ideas of good. You can just be. Now is the only moment you can change. The past is dissolved and the future has yet to materialize. Accept who, what, and where you are now. Accept it. Then change just as everything changes. In the end, I think what separates The Nao of Brown from everyother story out there is not it’s beautiful brush stroke, not it’s skilled usage of allegory, not even it’s inspired watercolors, it’s Nao’s unique story and characters that feel as real as they are relatable and it’s overarching message of acceptance and exploration of the internal world. It’s a book that speaks to my soul and I hope it will speak to yours. Because you are more than your thoughts. So give yourself a break. Give Now a chance.