When Nothing Lasts: Carol Tyler’s Reflection on Transience

Carol Tyler, one of the most celebrated and intimate voices in American autobiographical comics, delivers with The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief, published by Fantagraphics, a complete and brutal map of her descent and enduring residence in grief. The work is the result of ten years of artistic and personal processing following consecutive losses beginning in 2011, a magnum opus on the universal theme of loss that documents the physical, biological, mental, and psychological effects of anguish.

The title itself, The Ephemerata, evokes a deep reflection on transience. The term is based on “ephemera”, which is something of short purpose or duration (like notes or receipts), including moments, memories, and our very lives. The addition of the suffix “-ata” reinforces the concept that “nothing lasts”. Tyler warns that by the time the complete work is finished, she will have inhabited the confines of Griefville for a full 16 years.

The Ephemerata is a profound, honest, and essential reading for anyone seeking a new and compassionate language to understand the universal, and at the same time deeply intimate, experience of sorrow.

The Architecture of Pain: Inside Griefville

The book is structured around a powerful central metaphor: Griefville, an imaginary painfully real city where the author finds herself in a “long residency” after losing her family and loved ones. Tyler clarifies that Griefville is open to all who have suffered a loss, regardless of how traumatic or afflicting it may be.

The city has its districts and landmarks, such as Victoria Park, the main entrance named in honor of Queen Victoria, who mourned Prince Albert for 40 years. Inside is the Feign Rue Arena, from which newly afflicted mourners stream into the Corridor of Sacred Duty. This is where the Clorins, the “corpse handlers,” operate, whose task is the “disposition of the deceased.” The Clorins view their mission as essential and good, considering themselves more like mill workers than funeral directors.

A particularly distressing area is the Swale of Wail and Woe, described as Griefville‘s place of the “most low lingering,” especially for those whose losses were caused by crime, violence, suicide, war, or disaster. For them, the process of grief is “densely weighted and complex.”

Grief, as Tyler asserts, is a process of adaptation and adjustment that requires ‘fortitude, tenacity, and grit.

The Inner Mechanics of Grief: Calving and Bitterplanks

Tyler explores its physical and mental impact of grief. The episode of “The Calving” is the artistic representation of an acute psychological collapse. The author recounts that the side of her head sheared off “like an iceberg,” driven by the “panic of believing I was useless in the eyes of my child,” an event that occurred on Christmas Eve: some actions in life are permanent, final, and non-reversible.

In this internal struggle, emotions are personified as Bitterplanks, which the author sees not as negative, but as tools for insight and clues offering a deep understanding of pain. Her main Bitterplank was an “emotionally paralyzing, shut-it-all-down sadness.” Fortunately, the Bovinians (symbols of clarity and intuition) “like to chomp up Bitterplanks like potato chips.” Grief, as Tyler asserts, is a process of adaptation and adjustment that requires “fortitude, tenacity, and grit.” Death itself is defined as the moment when “the sugar is gone.”

Biographical Notes on the Author: Carol Tyler

Carol Tyler (born in Chicago, 1951) is an American cartoonist, painter, and educator, considered one of the most important voices in contemporary and alternative graphic memoir. Noted for her authentic heart and incredible grace, Tyler has been nominated for eleven Eisner Awards and received the Gold Medal Excellence Award from the Society of Illustrators. In 2016, she was honored as a “Master Cartoonist” at the Cartoon Crossroads Columbus Festival.

Tyler has taught comics at the University of Cincinnati and lived with her husband, the cartoonist Justin Green (1945–2022), a pioneering figure in the graphic memoir genre (known for Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary). Their life together, and her eventual loss of Justin, were the subject of the 2023 documentary, Married To Comics.

The Future: The Sequel and the Regenerative Nature of Grief

The Ephemerata is the first of two volumes planned by the author. The next volume, which Tyler has titled Verdante, is expected two years after the first and will “go into the details of his passing,” referring to the death of her husband, Justin. If the first book is the exploration of the “exquisite” (in the sense of intense and detailed) nature of grief, Verdante (meaning “green, flourishing”) will presumably be the documentation of the return to life, the blossoming that follows the emotional winter, and the final metabolization of loss.

The Ephemerata is a profound, honest, and essential reading for anyone seeking a new and compassionate language to understand the universal, and at the same time deeply intimate, experience of sorrow.

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