Boyd Soloman wants to fly. He's wanted to fly since he was a child. He's disgusted by humanity because we can't fly. His obsession with joining the birds is an uncontrollable force in his life, one that sways in and out of his mind and eventually comes to control his actions. He believes he has his condition in check, but when the events of a hot Tuscon afternoon come flooding back into his life, so also does his obsession with flight, leading him to a balcony on his apartment building with a pair of wings and an overpowering urge to jump.

That's the broad outline of Brian Biggs' graphic novel Dear Julia, but the devil sits in the story's details--the beads of sweat on Boyd's forehead, the loose feathers sitting in his toilet, the empty birdcages that clutter his apartment. It's a cleverly structured story that flies by (pun intended)--the book's a real page-turner--and yet there's so much nuance in the little touches that every re-reading will reveal a new piece to the puzzle. And every piece of the puzzle takes you a step further into Boyd's troubled, desperate mind.

Biggs coaxes those details to the forefront with a strict and hypnotic panel structure of four box panels per page. Only when the narrative briefly leaves the present does Biggs break the four-panel structure, using a series of Polaroid photos to illustrate Boyd's fateful trip to Tuscon. Otherwise, you can easily be lulled into a false sense of speed by the consistent page layouts. At the same time, the structure can force your eyes to pay close attention to the events in each panel. There are no size clues to provide emphasis on particular images. Biggs occasionally draws up some quite cluttered panels as well, which only further forces you to pay attention to details.

That's where the story is really told, in the tiny details. The language and events are so broad that you need to pay close attention to really understand what's happening--and even if you do, it's still layered with mysteries. After two readings, I'm still torn on whether Boyd was eventually able to see his dream come true, or whether he died suffering from extreme and intense hallucinations of flight. Then again, maybe Biggs' ultimate point is that either one is still freedom for Boyd from his burden of desire.

Top Shelf Comix has to be one of the most consistent indie comix publishers active today. Every book is challenging on its own terms, and Dear Julia is no exception. It's always great to encounter a true work of mystery, one that can withstand interpretation, analysis and multiple readings, and Dear Julia is just such a work, a deceptively simple graphic novel that yields its secret under close reading and interpretation. The language is delicate and beautiful, the images are thickly textured and the story is compelling: the tale of a man who longs to fly, yet is trapped on the ground by his humanity.