In Exits, comics artist Daryl Seitchik (Missy) ponders the meaning of one's existence in a fast-moving, often insensitive world. Depressed and self-loathing Claire Kim is a 20-something clerk working for a jerky boss selling mirrors. After leaving work one evening, Claire is followed by a creepy man. As she runs from him, she steps into a puddle of water on the pavement and suddenly disappears from sight before turning the tables on the bully, kicking him and running off. Claire finds her newfound invisibility invigorating and wreaks havoc in people's homes and on the street until the loneliness of her situation both overwhelms and burdens her, making her realize how much she misses being visible.
Seitchik uses incomplete sketches and outlines in her panels, contrasting the visible world in which Claire no longer belongs with the shadowy grey world she inhabits. This leaves readers to ponder the truth of Claire's invisibility--whether it is a coincidence or something more profound. In one particularly touching scene stretching over 21 pages, Claire boards the subway with only her bandaged hand visible; as a faceless conductor hassles a young man for fare, Claire uses her invisibility to toy with the conductor until he leaves the young man alone. The young man then reveals to her that his sister had also turned invisible. These quiet moments bring out the resonance of Seitchik's storytelling: the struggle to become an adult and be recognized in that very adult world. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant