DREAMOVER
IDW PUBLISHING/Top Shelf Productions
CARTOONIST: Dani Diaz
EDITOR: Leigh Walton
EiC: Chris Staros
ISBN: 978-1-60309-546-4; paperback with French flaps | 6" x 8.5" (January 14, 2025)
Diamond Code: NOV241133 (January 15, 2025)
312pp, Color, $19.99 U.S.; $26.99 CAN
Age: 13 to 17
Grades: 8 to 12
Dreamover is a 2025 original graphic novel created by Dani Diaz. Published by Top Shelf Productions, this full-color, paperback book is Diaz's debut work. Dreamover follows two best friends, adolescents who are becoming more than friends when a sleepover becomes a “dreamover.”
Dreamover opens in the pre-smartphone 2000s. It introduces two characters who have been friends since the third grade. Amber is a headstrong girl and goofball with a temper, while Nico Davis is shy and self-conscious boy. Amber has had a crush on Nico for a long time, and she can't hide her feelings any longer. Amber and Nico are also close with a few other friends. There is Drew, who seems to be on the verge of coming out, and also Stella and Grace, who are already, seemingly a couple.
The friends have just finished eighth-grade, and that milestone is being marked by an eighth-grade beach trip. There, Amber confesses her love to Nico and discovers that the feeling is mutual. This begins a glorious and blissful summer of first love.
However, when the school year comes around again. Amber, Nico, and their friends have entered high school, specifically Barrington High with its 2000 students. Amber and Nico cling to each other through bullies, homework, early mornings, and other stressful situations. As they maintain their closeness, however, Amber and Nico begin to alienate and neglect Drew and Stella and Grace.
Amber wishes she and Nico could get away. One night, Amber gets her wish after the two fall asleep playing video games. Soon, a sleepover turns into a dreamover, but it isn't as perfect and as magical as it sounds...
THE LOWDOWN: I have been on the mailing list of Top Shelf Productions editor-in-chief, Chris Staros, for over two decades. Back in January, I received one of his emails that announce new publications. When I saw the write up and promo art for Dreamover, it was like being struck by magical lightning. I knew I had to read it, and my Amazon gift card balance made that a possibility.
Comics are not so much a “sequential art” as they are a graphics-based art that yields graphical storytelling. In Dreamover, author and creator Dani Diaz through her work here testifies to the fact that not only illustrations, but also colors and lettering are art when it comes to comic book storytelling. They are a narrative grouping that makes storytelling more than about mere words.
Dreamover is a story told through pictures and graphics. The narrative is not about the intellect, but is about emotions, impressions, and visuals. We have to feel as much as we read. That's how we understand Amber and Nico: the tumult and exhilaration which defines both their relationship with one another and with their friends and also the surreal journey through dreams and dreamscapes that ultimately challenges each individual's expectations. Diaz touches upon magical realism, coming-of-age drama, and slice-of-life melodrama, but most of all she grapples with the reality of how a small and intimate relationship between two children involves big and complicated emotions.
In time, as more people discover Dreamover, Dani Diaz may discover the back-handed joy of “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” The visual and graphic splendor of this story and how the author uses it to depict the vagaries of young love has some similarities to the colorful wonderland comics narratives of the past. That includes the work of Windsor McKay, Moebius, Chester Brown, Trina Robbins, and Jim Woodring, to name a few. As these artists had disciples, so I believe that Diaz will, also. I have to believe that Dreamover will have descendants, so to speak. That is because Dreamover is magical and inescapable, and I wish this graphic novel didn't have an ending.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Fans of young adult original graphic novels and of Top Shelf's YA graphic novels will want to read Dreamover.
A+
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
You can buy DREAMOVER directly from Top Shelf Productions or you can buy it from Amazon, in which case I collect a bounty on that sale.
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The text is copyright © 2025 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.
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