Anyone still conditioned to thinking of comic books as a forum for the exploits of superheroes is advised to check out the catalogue of Drawn & Quarterly, where a stable of visionaries has been amassing a body of work that captures the way real people really live. Paul Moves Out, sequel to the popular Paul Has a Summer Job, is so prosaic in its concern that it may at first seem entirely free of drama. The closest thing to a conventional incident is a clumsy and innocent homosexual pass made at the protagonist. But with Rabagliati the magic is in the details. By paying such close attention to the minutiae of Paul’s inner life, and by rendering his urban surroundings with such exactitude, Rabagliati creates both a universal coming-of-age story and an engaging social history of Montreal in the 1980s. mRb