Hummingbird Heart

Dandro’s cancer-stricken grandmother urges him to make something of his art. In fact, the teen had finagled a covert expedition with buddy Zung to the Museum of Comic Art, where Dandro merrily imagines entering the worlds of the Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, and Calvin and Hobbes strips displayed. But helping care for Nana—bedpan, colostomy bag, pain pills, pets, contrariness—further challenges a life already full with school, girls, a part-time job, making comics, facing his father’s death by suicide (see King of King Court), and pulling pranks with Zung and Joey. When the feisty Nana dies, he falls apart and gets into vicious fist fights with both friends. It takes a straight-talking, sympathetic school official to reground him by, in part, urging him to make more comics. Dandro’s black-and-white art gets wonderfully detailed for houses and backgrounds while simple for people. He draws himself uniquely without pupils, perhaps implying openness and naivete. Nana’s love for him, her feistiness, her life, and her dying propel her grandson to push forward towards what he wants for his own life.