As summer progresses, more and more people will get into cars and go on weekend, week-long or month-long drives. A road trip is a classic summer experience, whether alone to get away from your stomping grounds, or as a family to experience something new. Comics are uniquely suited as a medium to depict road trips. The passage of time and space through panels makes road trip comics a lot of fun to read.
As a comics fan, I love seeing how artists depict different locations. Road trips are also great for changing the environment and putting characters in different situations. As a literary device, the road trip is also a great medium for character development and change. When a person changes his physical location, he also gets a new mental location. The road trip comics I’ve collected here run the gamut in genre from memoir to magical realism, but they all go from one place to another.
Memoirs and non-fiction travels
you and a bike and a road by Eleanor Davis
Eleanor Davis’s illustrated account of her bike road trip is so compelling as a travelogue because of its immediacy. He wrote and drew along the way. While riding her father’s bike from Tucson, Arizona, to Athens, Georgia, she could barely explain why she wanted to make such a long trip. As a memoir, it reflects the strangeness of solo travel and the search for meaning.
Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir by pedro martin
Pedro is the seventh oldest in a family of nine children. When his parents told him and his siblings that they were driving the Winnebago to Mexico to pick up their grandfather, he became a little sad. During a road trip to Pegueros, Pedro learns all about his grandfather’s history as a hero in the Mexican Revolution.
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It won’t always be like this By Malka Gharib
As a bicultural child, Gharib is used to living on the road between two countries. When her father remarries, her summer trip to Egypt turns completely different. She is used to showing up in Cairo and knowing what was what, but now it is completely different and she has to do what her step-siblings want. As a memoir, it captures the special strangeness of keeping one’s feet in two different worlds and living in a new family.
Venice history by Enrico Casarosa
In a twist on the road trip format, in Venice you travel over water. During a summer in Venice, Casarosa searches for meaning. It is a very diaristic memoir, consisting of sketches and watercolors along with paragraphs about Casarosa’s writing and artistic process. It connects with what it means to be a writer and storyteller during a difficult period of your life.
imaginary road trips
Flaming Iguana: An Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing By Erica Lopez
With expressive, loud artwork characteristic of ’90s comics, this graphic novel has an equally explosive premise. Ready for a new adventure, Tomato Rodriguez hops on a motorcycle and begins traveling across the country. As she travels, she surveys American peculiarities, what it means to be a woman, and how you can’t walk away from yourself.
Empire State: A Love Story (or Not) By Jason Shiga
When Jimmy’s best friend Sarah moves to New York City, he feels deprived. He is convinced that she loves him too, so he attempts a grand romantic gesture in the form of a letter and asks Sarah to meet him at the Empire State Building. To do this, he sets out on a bus trip across the country.
Among liberal elites: Trump’s road trip exploring concrete social inequalities by Eli Lonan, illustrated by Joan Reilly
After the 2016 US presidential election, Alex and Michael become unable to understand their fellow Americans. On their way to visit the world’s largest frying pan (so American), they have to confront their own societal prejudices and shortcomings. They bring along their pet cat and try to talk to other Americans and find ways to protest the oppressive government.
catherine’s war By Julia Billet and Claire Fauvel
Based on Julia Billet’s mother’s experiences during the war, this historical comic focuses on children fleeing during World War II. Rachel Cohen lives in the Sèvres Children’s Home outside Paris, but when the Nazis take over, she changes her name to Catherine and continues to find a place to hide. Despite the danger, she brings her camera and documents the people who help her along the way.
If you still have the travel bug, check out nonfiction stories about road trips, young adult micro-trends of international road trips, and general feel-good fiction about road trips.
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