Posted in: Comics, Fantagraphics | Tagged: fantagraphics, jordan crane, keeping two

Jonathan Crane's Keeping Two Graphic Novel is Stuck in Chesapeake Bay

Published Wed, 13 Apr 2022 12:58:11 -0500

I mentioned my anticipation of the upcoming graphic novel, Keeping Two by Jordan Crane from Fantagraphics, twenty years in the making, and including previous versions of the comic book. Crane created the comics anthology NON, and the all-ages graphic novel The Clouds Above. In Keeping Two, Crane uses comics to thread several timelines and the interior and exterior lives of its protagonists together to create an increasing, almost Hitchcockian sense of dread and paranoia. It should have been published in March, it is already April and we are going to have to wait even longer. Because the entire 10,000 print run is currently trapped on a boat.

Jonathan Crane's "Keeping Two" Graphic Novel, From Fantagraphics — Jordan Crane's "Keeping Two" Graphic Novel, From Fantagraphics

It is currently in one of five thousand container crates on the Ever Forward, which has been stuck in the Chesapeake Bay for the last month, run aground just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Jacq Cohen, Fantagraphics executive director of consumer marketing and publicity, told Publisher's Weekly that the ship is physically trapped in the Bay and that other publishers also have titles trapped onboard the ship. Which is expected to take weeks to clear…

Jordan Crane's "Keeping Two" Graphic Novel, From Fantagraphics

Behind the drama of a lover's quarrel looms larger crises, in this graphic novel from cartoonist and graphic designer Crane, who is poised to break out to broader readership. A young couple is stuck in traffic, reading a book aloud to each other to pass the time. The relationship is already strained, but between the encroaching road rage, and a novel that hits way too close to home, tensions are running especially high by the time they arrive back at their apartment. When one of them leaves to get takeout and a movie, each of the young lovers is individually forced to confront loss, grief, fear, and insecurities in unexpected and shocking ways.
Crane's formal use of the comics medium ― threading several timelines and the interior and exterior lives of its protagonists together to create an increasing, almost Hitchcockian sense of dread and paranoia ― is masterful. But as the title hints, there are dualities at its core that make it one of the most exciting works of graphic literary fiction in recent memory, a brilliant adult drama that showcases a deep empathy and compassion for its characters as well as a visually arresting showcase of Crane's considerable talents. Keeping Two is ostensibly a story about loss, but by the end, it just might also be about finding something along the way ― something that had seemed irredeemable up to that point. In that way, it's also a deeply romantic book.
Cartoonist Jordan Crane has been one of the most quietly influential comics-makers of the past quarter-century – in multiple senses of the word: as a cartoonist, a designer, an editor, a publisher, a printmaker, an advocate, an archivist, and more. But Keeping Two is his biggest project in close to two decades and will be one of the most anticipated graphic novels of 2022.