Tet #4

Tet, issue #4

Tet, Issue #4 sees Eugene Smith in a bar in Vietnam, the investigation finally settled, in 1984.  This is used as a framing device for Bao narrating what happened in 1968, during the first few days of the Tet Offensive, when Eugene and Ha became separated and Bao and Ha came together.  Bao was probably in love with Ha back then.  He was her father's friend, and he promised to protect her family.

Tet is a minimalist comic in a way because it leaves so much unsaid, unexplained.  A few issues ago, when Eugene asks Bao what happened in the re-education camp, Bao simply responds, "I was re-educated," glossing over the horrors of what must have happened there.  In The Concept of Dread, Kierkegaard writes that the truest fear is angest, the fear of the unknown.  He postulates that a man knowing he could die at any moment is in more fear than the man who knows he will be executed in 20 days.  Tet is a title of angest.  It terrifies the reader with possibilities.

Permit me to speak a little of the ending.  Read no further if you want to avoid spoilers because this really is the best part of Tet.  Issue #4 ends in the airport with Eugene, battered and bloody from the night before, seeing Ha, who is looking for him.  Ha admits that she wanted to hurt Eugene, and he responds by crumpling up his return ticket, leaving his cane and simply walking for hours, further than he had since the war.  He says that pain is designed to propel people forward.

I love the artwork, specifically the colors, both done by Paul Tucker.  The penultimate page, when Eugene is walking away, is masterfully done.  Te sky goes from yellow to orange to orange-red to red, the shadows to purple.  The purples of night are particularly artful, reminiscent of the blue night scenes of a 1950s movie.  On top of all the writing, this is a beautiful series.