As summer trudges on, more and more people will pile into cars and take a weekend, week-long, or month-long drive. The 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 appropriate as a medium to show a road trip. The passage of time and space through panels make road trip comics very fun to read.
As a comics fan, I love to see how the artists draw different locations. Road trips are also great for changing up environments and putting the characters in different situations. As a literary device, a road trip is also a great vehicle for character growth and change. Someone physically changing their location also finds a new mental space. The road trip comics I’ve collected here run the genre gamut from memoir to magical realism, but they all move from one place to another.
Memoir and Nonfiction Travels
You & a Bike & a Road by Eleanor Davis
Eleanor Davis’ illustrated account of her bike road trip is so compelling as a travelogue because of its immediacy. She wrote and drew along the way. While taking her father’s bike from Tucson, Arizona to Athens, Georgia, she can barely explain why she wanted to take the long journey. As a memoir, it captures the weirdness of solo travel and the search for meaning.
Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir by Pedro Martín
Pedro is the seventh oldest in a family of nine kids. When his parents tell him and his siblings that they’re taking a Winnebago to Mexico to pick up their grandfather, he’s a little sulky. During the 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 Malaka Gharib
As a two-culture kid, Gharib is used to being on the road between two countries. When her father remarries, her summer trip to Egypt takes on a completely different tone. She is used to showing up in Cairo and knowing what was what, but now it’s totally different and she has to catch up to what her half-siblings want. As a memoir, it captures the particular weirdness of having your feet in two separate worlds, and navigating a new family.
The Venice Chronicles by Enrico Casarosa
In a twist on the road trip format, in Venice you travel over the water. Over one summer in Venice, Casarosa is on a search for meaning. It’s a very diaristic memoir, with sketches and watercolors interspersed with paragraphs about Casarosa’s writing and artistic process. It engages with what it means to be a writer and storyteller through a difficult period in your life.
Fictional Road Trips
Flaming Iguanas: An Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing by Erika Lopez
With expressive, loud artwork characteristic of ‘90s comics, this graphic novel has a similarly bombastic premise. Ready for a new adventure, Tomato Rodriguez hops on a motorcycle and starts cruising across the country. As she travels, she surveys American idiosyncrasies, what it means to be a woman, and how you can’t travel away from yourself.
Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not) by Jason Shiga
When Jimmy’s best friend Sara moves to New York City, he’s feeling bereft. He’s sure that she loves him too, so he attempts a grand romantic gesture in the form of a letter asking Sara to meet him at the Empire State Building. To make it happen, he embarks on a bus trip across the country.
Amongst the Liberal Elite: The Road Trip Exploring Societal Inequities Solidified by Trump by Elly Lonon, illustrated by Joan Reilly
After the U.S. presidential election of 2016, Alex and Michael are at a loss for understanding their fellow Americans. On the way to visit the World’s Largest Frying Pan (so American), they confront their own societal biases and shortcomings. They bring their pet cat along and try to speak to other Americans and find ways to resist the repressive government.
Catherine’s War by Julia Billet and Claire Fauvel
Based on Julia Billet’s mother’s experiences during the war, this historical comic follows children on the run during World War II. Rachel Cohen lives at the Sèvres Children’s Home outside of Paris, but when the Nazis take over, she changes her name to Catherine and keeps finding places 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 about road trips, the young adult microtrend of international road trips, and general feel-good fiction about road trips.
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