Brown: Dead-on detail, flights of fantasy lift Dandro’s teen memoir
The London Free Press | Dan Brown | July 1, 2022
If Extreme’s ballad, More Than Words, meant something to you back in the day, then you’ll appreciate the level of detail Travis Dandro brings to Hummingbird Heart, his newly published memoir of going to high school in the 1990s.
Or maybe you recall when the Ren & Stimpy Show first exploded on the scene. It was in the same era when you had to pay to rent VHS tapes to see Hollywood blockbusters at home.
Such telling references provide the backdrop for the story of how Dandro grew up in small-town Massachusetts, eventually deciding to become a comic artist.
But it’s not just the pop-culture details he gets right, but also the emotional details, chiefly the confusion of being a teenager. By the end of the book, the young cartoonist is ready to fulfil the destiny his dying grandmother foretells. “Promise me that you’ll make something of your art,” his caustic Nana tells him, bringing Dandro’s days of minor vandalism – like stealing and smashing Halloween pumpkins – to a close.
But the stuff I really loved happens when the struggling teen literally loses himself in comic art.
In one dreamlike sequence, he admires a Krazy Kat strip, then enters it. It’s a special effect that only a skilled illustrator could pull off.
Soon Dandro spies Popeye and Olive Oyl in a rowboat, then in the next panel he’s at a fishing hole with Calvin and Hobbes, Pogo, Snoopy and Garfield the cat. What’s so gratifying is how Dandro takes his time, letting the flight of fantasy play out over several pages, not rushing but infusing it with the pace of an actual dream.
This is a young artist and writer who has confidence in his storytelling powers. He does a similar thing later in the book, turning a high-school fight into a whirling dust cloud complete with floating stars and sound effects: Pow! Bam! Aarrgh!
If Hummingbird Heart makes you hunger for more Dandro, check out his 2019 book, King of King Court, which covers his childhood.