Graphic Novel Review: Two Brothers

By Jesse Schedeen

You never can be sure what to expect when reading a comic from Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. These artists have plumbed the weirdest, wildest depths of time and space in their collaborations with Matt Fraction on Casanova. They’ve also told a very personal tale about one man making pivotal life choices in Daytripper. Two Brothers is much closer to the latter project, though tonally and thematically it’s still a very different book. The two things readers can expect from Ba and Moon are passion and quality storytelling, and Two Brothers has both in spades.

Two Brothers is adapted from Brazilian writer Milton Hatoum’s 2000 book Dois Irmãos. It ostensibly revolves around twin brothers Yaqub and Omar, members of a Lebanese Jewish immigrant family living in the Brazilian port town of Manaus. As the story opens, a teenage Yaqub is returning to Brazil after having a falling out with Omar and spending five years in Lebanon. The hows and whys of this troubled relationship and how that feeds into their adult lives are slowly explored over the course of the book.

But while the rift between these brothers forms the center of the conflict, Two Brothers is equally concerned with all members of their profoundly damaged family. Initially, it’s a mystery as to which character is even narrating the story. Ba and Moon essentially throw readers into the deep end with this story. Readers are expected to suss out the relationships and roles of various characters through context clues. However, it’s not long before the pieces fall into place and it becomes clear that the two brothers are less the central protagonists of the story than an embodiment of the themes and struggles of the book. There’s an almost Biblical quality to the conflict, and Yaqub and Omar are very much the Cain and Abel of their particular family unit. That contributes to the general sense of fatalistic doom propelling the story along to its heartbreaking conclusion.

The fairly nonlinear approach to the story also has its benefits. Key moments in the brothers own lives and that of their parents and siblings are saved for when they have maximum impact on the story. The flashback to the early married life of father Halim and mother Zana is especially effective at lending a greater sense of context to the story. That said, certain characters could have been developed a little more. This is most true for Domingas, the family’s servant (and mother of the narrator) who develops a close bond with both brothers in her many decades among the family. As integral as she is to the story, there’s too little sense of who she actually is as a character.

Despite this being an adaptation, Two Brothers has a very personal quality. No doubt the fact that Ba and Moon are twin brothers themselves fed into their passion for Hatoum’s original story, and that passion is evident on every page. This is a story very much concerned with identity and duality. Yaqub and Omar are presented as contradictions of one another. The former is studious, ambitious and cold, while the latter lives a hedonistic lifestyle free of worry or responsibility. But who are these men deep down? Why can’t they bring themselves to reconcile? These are questions the narrator struggles to understand throughout the book. The narrator has an inherent need to define himself through his relationship with these brothers, but ultimately he’s left without any easy answers.

That sense of duality extends to the art, which is presented in a stark, black and white style in contrast to the lush, vibrant colors of Daytripper. The visuals in Two Brothers are all about the interplay of light and shadow, the clash between the harsh angles of the city with the organic jungle that surrounds in, and contrast in general. As always, Ba and Moon are adept at creating a living breathing world while remaining economical about their line-work. Each character is clearly defined and unique. Even the two brothers are rendered in stark contrast despite being physically similar to one another. And while this is a story about contrast, Ba and Moon themselves bleed together into one cohesive storyteller. While the duo have fairly distinct art styles when working on their individual projects, when they collaborate together it’s pretty much impossible to tell where one brother’s work ends and the next begins. They collaborate in a way Yaqub and Omar never could.

As appropriate as the black and white approach is to this story, it’s tough not to wonder how this book might have turned out had Ba and Moon been accompanied by colorist Dave Stewart once again. Stewart’s colors were such a huge part of Daytripper’s storytelling charm. And when you’re talking about a setting as unique and vibrant as Manaus, it seems almost a shame not to go that extra mile. Ultimately, the lack of color is probably more helpful than harmful to the story, but I wouldn’t say no to some sort of colorized Director’s Cut down the road.

In many ways, Two Brothers is a far more pessimistic book than the often exuberant Daytripper. The tumultuous political state of mid-20th Century Brazil forms a backdrop for the story. Even as Yaqub, Omar and the rest of their family grow and evolve over the decades, so too does their geographically isolated city change under the influence of capitalism and globalization. Inevitably, these changes aren’t for the better. There’s a real longing in these pages for a more innocent past and a redemption for Yaqub and Omar that never seems quite in reach. Despite all this, there’s still a certain sense of optimism to the ending, as ambiguous as it is.