Fantagraphics has announced the acquisition of the worldwide publishing rights to Keeping Two by the acclaimed cartoonist, printmaker, and designer Jordan Crane, with a publication date of March 20, 2022. Over twenty years in the making, Keeping Two follows a young couple still relatively new at building what they hope will be a lifetime together, over the course of a day. Through a series of events, they are forced to individually confront loss, grief, fear, and insecurity in ways that will either strengthen their bond or tear it apart. Touching, raw, and beautifully illustrated, Crane has crafted a graphic novel that celebrates the comics medium while exploring the depths of the human condition.
Jordan Crane is a cartoonist living in Los Angeles, CA with his wife and kids. Crane first emerged in 1996 with the iconic comics anthology NON, which he edited, designed, printed, contributed to, and published. His previous book was the critically acclaimed all-ages graphic novel The Clouds Above (2008).
In Keeping Two, Crane’s formal use of the comics medium — threading several timelines and the interior and exterior lives of its protagonists together to create an increasing, almost Hitchcockian sense of dread and paranoia — is masterful. But as the title hints, there are dualities at its core that make it one of the most exciting works of graphic literary fiction in recent memory, a brilliant adult drama that showcases a deep empathy and compassion for its characters as well as a visually arresting showcase of Crane’s considerable talents. Keeping Two is ostensibly a story about loss, but by the end, it just might also be about finding something along the way — something that had seemed irredeemable up to that point. In that way, it’s also a deeply romantic book.
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Source: Graphic Policy
