In Waves

AJ Dungo is an illustrator from Florida. He studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, andhis work has been shown in several group exhibitions in New York and LA. His work strives to create interesting atmospheres and feelings that viewers can have a reaction to. He Lives in LA

This reissue of Dungo's award-winning debut from 2019 weaves a love story with an elegy-and holds both without flinching. In this graphic memoir of devastating beauty, Dungo tells two stories: He interweaves his relationship with Kristen, a passionate surfer living with cancer, with a richly researched history of surfing, tracing the sport from its early Polynesian roots through to Hawaiian athlete Duke Kahanamoku's Olympic triumphs and Wisconsinite Tom Blake's early-20th-century technological innovations and impact on the sport. The structural conceit is elegant-chapters of personal memoir alternate with historical interludes-and Dungo's color palette makes the leap between timelines feel effortless and instinctive. Warm terracotta and dusty mauve suffuse the historical sequences, while the contemporary story pulses in deep teal and mint green. One page depicts precolonial Hawaiian islanders surfing and carrying goods in a composition that reads like a living frieze-paper-white figures against a warm brown background, human and oceanic forms woven into a single continuous line-capturing at once surfing's communal joy and its deep spiritual roots. Dungo handles grief, when it arrives, with the same honor and skill. There are no dramatic breakdowns; instead, he renders loss through evocative scenes, such as a crowded hospital corridor and a lone surfer dwarfed by a wave. Few graphic memoirs reckon with grief this honestly or this quietly. A rare gem that truly understands and powerfully portrays grief: essential, aching, and unforgettable.