Once there was a turtle named Chunky Rice. He had a best friend, a mouse named Dandel, who he loved very much. One day Chunky Rice decided he hadn't found where he was supposed to be, so he left his home to head for the Kahootney Islands. He also left Dandel, and they were both very sad to be apart.

That simple plot--as elegant as the clear lines cartoonist Craig Thompson uses to realize his characters on the page--forms the foundation for Good-bye, Chunky Rice, a new graphic novel from a new major force in sequential art. It's a story about a turtle, a mouse, a pair of siamese twins, a bird named Merle and the man who loves him, a captain seduced by the sea and a dozen letters stuffed into bottles. It's also a story about relationships, about the endless search for meaning in life and how that meaning so often resides in another person.

Unless you own a heart of stone, Chunky Rice is one of those works of art that will sneak up on you and captivate you instantly. It's that new record from an unknown artist that stuns you with its brilliance, the movie you never even expected to be so great until you sat down in the theater and gave it a chance. As a debut work from a new creator, it's a remarkable surprise--elegant, profound and exquisitely beautiful.

The separation of Chunky and Dandel is at the heart of Chunky Rice, but there is so much more to savor. Solomon is the guy with the bird named Merle. His memory is plagued by the death of his dog Stomper's puppies. His father made him drown the puppies as a boy, and he struggles with the echoes of their loss as well as his severed relationship with his brother Charles, who has never forgiven him for the puppies' death. He picked up Merle because his wings were broken, but there's more to it than just compassion for a wounded animal--maybe he believes that if he nurses Merle to help, he can repent for the sin of murdering those puppies in his youth. He also finds companionship in Merle, a pretty little friend who needs him and loves him with no strings attached. Merle fills a space in Solomon's heart, and Solomon is crushed when he flies away after his wings heal--and he's overjoyed when Merle returns, missing Solomon as much as Solomon missed him.

That's just one of the subtle relationships brought to life in Chunky Rice. Each character's story unfolds patiently, all of the paths interweaving with one another through Thompson's clever page layouts and flashbacks. In that regard, Chunky Rice stands not just as an emotional tour de force, but an artistic one as well. Thompson uses every trick in the sequential art handbook to communicate the emotions of his characters. In one masterful sequence, a vast sea expanse occupies more and more of a series of progressive panels, until the pulling-back of the viewpoint reveals that the sea has become the liquid sitting at the bottom of a glass bottle. Another page depicts rows of panels surround a drawing of an active house, each row illustrating the activities of the inhabitants as they go about their daily lives.

Thompson's most effective storytelling technique in Chunky Rice is silence. He has a tremendous gift for shutting his characters' mouths and letting an image speak for itself. The high number of panels without dialogue make for a quick initial read, but don't abandon Chunky Rice so quickly. Return to the silent panels and savor them within the context of the story. It's almost as though Thompson's quiet moments allow the reader to enter into the minds of the characters on the page, identifying with their emotions and understanding them in ways no dialogue could allow. That's not to say he isn't good with words--Dandel's speeches throughout Chunky Rice are especially poetic and moving. But Thompson's images speak as much as his words, and in some cases communicate more than words ever could--a truly rare virtue in comics today.

The more I write, the less I can convey about Good-bye, Chunky Rice. If ever there were a graphic novel that needed to be experienced more than explained, this one's it. My words may actually reduce the towering achievement Craig Thompson has pulled off with his debut, so I'll quit my yappin' and simply demand that everyone reading this run out now and buy a copy of the novel. You'll be entranced and entertained, but most certainly of all, you will be moved. All of the above and much more--all from a turtle and a mouse in love.