Dusty, sepia-toned darkness blankets the pages of Oasis, a poignant and cinematic graphic novel by Guojing, whose prior acclaimed works include The Only Child and The Flamingo. Previously a concept artist for animated TV shows and games, Guojing has a knack for atmospheric lighting and a strong grasp of the power of scale, which is evident in this eerily beautiful story about two children named JieJie and DiDi (“older sister” and “younger brother” in Chinese) and their efforts to create and maintain a sense of family in an unrelentingly harsh world.
JieJie and DiDi are adorably small, yet hardy and determined: Every day, they hike across massive dunes in a vast desert to a battered phone booth where they can call their mother, who works in Oasis City. In striking contrast to the kids’ lonely existence in a barren, polluted landscape, Oasis City is “a paradise with the purest water and air” that’s “designed, built, and guarded by AI robots.” But the humans—including the children’s mother—who build the robots are “forgotten ones,” who toil in an underground factory.
One fateful day, Mom misses their call. On their way home, the worried children detour into an Oasis trash dump where they discover a broken AI robot. The kids repair it and activate its “Mother Mode,” which kicks off a whirlwind of learning what it would be like to live with a mother every day—as opposed to the children’s reality of only seeing Mom during the annual moon festival. But the children’s longing for their human Mom does not abate, and when she unexpectedly returns, the characters must all reconsider who they are to each other. Can they create a new kind of household that offers hope for their future, and perhaps even the world at large?
Oasis is a visually arresting, emotionally moving tale sure to resonate with readers drawn to stories about family in its many guises, as well as those compelled to contemplate the ways in which technology can pull us apart—or become a surprising catalyst for drawing us closer together.
