“A Letter to Jo” is a World War 2 story that based off a letter sent by Joseph Sieracki’s grandfather while deployed in Europe, brought to life in beautiful detail by Kelly Williams. The graphic novel takes the events laid out in this letter, along with historical research into the battles described, and a dash of fictionalized story, all of which combine to create a beautiful, dark, and wholly original graphic novel about the World War 2.
Written by Joseph Sieracki
Illustrated and Colored by Kelly Williams
Lettered by Taylor Esposito
As Leonard fights on the front lines of World War II, memories of Josephine and home help keep him alive. As Josephine contends with life, family, and work in Cleveland, letters from Leonard sustain her. But official censorship forces him to leave out much of the most significant action he sees. Finally, with the war coming to an end, Leonard is able to tell his full story. In a quietly beautiful letter to Josephine, Leonard writes of the loneliness he felt, the camaraderie he experienced, and the terrible violence he witnessed. Now, Josephine and Leonard’s grandson Joseph Sieracki has carefully researched the battles Leonard describes and expanded the letter into a moving tale of a young man’s fears and bravery far from home. Brought to heart-wrenching life by the paintbrushes of Kelly Williams (Creepy, Eerie), A Letter to Jo is at once a tender love story and a harrowing battlefield memoir.
It’s not often that I ascribe much importance to a forward or afterward as integral parts of a story. Generally, I find that front or back matter that spends it time describing the contents of the stories within it to be a little bit condescending. I don’t usually need to have something explained to me before I read it, and I don’t usually need to be talked through what just happened once I’m done. And if you’re at all like me, there are times when you consider skipping any sort of opening or closing pieces of prose within a graphic novel, assuming that they will simply describe for you in paragraphs the experience you’d hoped to have through pictures.
There is a reason that “A Letter to Jo” does not list it’s forward and afterward with those names, instead calling them the prologue and epilogue. They are a lens with which to view this graphic novel. A sharpening of the focus that really allows “A Letter to Jo” to shine. And so, I would urge anyone that is in the habit of skipping these sorts of things to make sure to give the prologue a read before jumping into the story proper.
And, I suppose, after two paragraphs, I could stand to do the same. “A Letter to Jo” is a really well-made story. It takes a letter that was written by author Joseph Sieracki’s grandfather, Len Sieracki, and sent to his grandmother, Jo, and constructs a story of his time in service around the details in this letter.
None of this would work even remotely as well without the artwork of Kelly Williams and lettering of Taylor Esposito. Williams bring a fantastic sense of place to the story. The beautiful watercolors work well in every facet of the story. From the opening before Len’s deployment, up to the darkest, most terrifying moments of the war. Williams is able to shift between modes in a really beautiful way throughout this story, and the colors are a huge part of that.
The colors, though, are just one part of the great work that Williams does here. The line work itself starts a bit cartoony at first. The figures are not entirely proportional, but they drawn in an expressive way that works. And it works even better in the moments where “A Letter to Jo” goes dark. The expressive faces, and relatively simple figures allow a clarity to the action once Len’s campaign starts to take a turn for the worse.
Taylor Esposito’s lettering pulls the entire story together. The font he’s chosen for the letter works perfectly. It recreates a sense of the handwriting that you can see in the actual letter at the end of the graphic novel but is still entirely legible. It’s a fine line to walk, finding something that is both legible and still actually feels like a person handwriting, but Esposito has nailed here. And the rest of the lettering, from word balloons, to the sound effects that are provided by him and the ones drawn in by Williams, all work perfectly.
Continued belowIf there is a single weak point to the story, it is that the version of Len that appears in the fictionalized story that Sieracki has written does not always completely compliment the version of him that seems to have written this letter, or in fact, existed in real life. But this is only a weakness in so far as it’s not purposeful. This is one of the reasons this review spent so much time on the prologue, and one of the reasons I think the prologue is vitally important to understanding this work.
The prologue sets up Len Sieracki as a whole variety of people to the different member of his own family. And it implicitly gives a reading to “A Letter to Jo.” This is not the real Len. The only thing we can know of the real Len is through his own words, included verbatim in the captions throughout the story, and in full in a reproduction of the letter at the end. The rest of “A Letter to Jo,” is simply the version of Len that has been created by his grandson. An equally valid interpretation to that of any of the other members of the Sieracki family, but only an interpretation, nonetheless.
And it’s in this strange grey area that “A Letter to Jo,” exists. The space in between the words that Len has actually written, and the accepting, if at sometimes vicious man that has been created for this retelling. The distance between the Len of reality and the Len that has been created by his grandson echoes the distance between Len and his Wife, and really the distance between anyone and anyone else.
Of course, this is all diving very deep into something that, on the surface, works perfectly well. “A Letter to Jo,” is an effecting, well told war story. It avoids valorizing conflict, and portrays the war, and the tole that war takes on the people fighting it, beautifully. It’s a great story, well told. And even if you don’t care to dive into the implications of who a person is, and what can be known about another, it’s still a fantastic look at what it meant to fight on the front lines of World War 2. Definitely check this one out.
