The Big Red Machine, Grandma, and Me
If you’re also indifferent at best to sports these days and were scared off by that title, don’t fret! It’s not a particularly sporty comic. If you’re unaware that “the big red machine” even referred to sports, let alone which one, then feel free to ignore me. This is the story of Terry’s younger years, and if you’ve been around this website for any length of time you’ve seen Terry’s work (With Only Five Plums and Far tune being his two series, both of which I’ve raved about, to give you some clue on how this review is likely to go). This one starts off with Terry as a young boy of 6 in Columbus and his parents getting divorced. After his dad moved too far away to visit Terry starting spending a lot more time with his grandma, and we go back a bit to learn about her history and how she was forced to be a single mother after World War II. No, the father didn’t die, they just didn’t seem to be a particularly good fit. This all led to Terry having a unique upbringing, as he was exposed to shows and culture at a young age that he wouldn’t otherwise have seen. This also led to comics, and we probably wouldn’t be reading this review if it wasn’t for that exposure. I appreciated his two pages of images from shows that he watched as a kid; he was nice enough to reveal what they were at the end, but it gave the reader time to guess for themselves. I’m thinking that if you’re not of a certain age they’ll be impossible to guess, but who knows what’s survived and is currently popular with the kids. The end of the book deals with what’s become a recurring theme around here lately, the unreliability of memory, as Terry tries to piece together with his mother what were actual memories and what just couldn’t have happened. And yes, sports fans, the Reds teams from the 70’s were mentioned. It was a nice peek into the history of Columbus and a thoughtful story about his past and formative years. Brian also did an excellent job of illustrating, as always. Maybe those two facts together mean that you should give this one a shot? $5
