About Moses

the Illustrated Obituary of Moses Marques is a graphic elegy and stealth memoir created by Sarah Marques. The book commemorates the life of Moses Marques throughout their eighteen-year coexistence.

Like a poem, the obituary is multi-layered and concentrated. The four-hundred-word obituary, differentiated by a signature font, is hand-drawn and lettered. It winds through the book elaborated with detailed pen and ink drawings while a Greek chorus of background text and imagery amplifies and comments upon the event at hand. The “chorus” includes numerous fictitious obituaries, punctuated by want ads, fragments of poetry, Enlightenment quotations, and other ephemera. It is a pointed mash-up that works as both content and imagery.

Moses was admirably surreptitious and kind of touchy. She was a Bartleby sort of character; all this stuff happened around her yet she . . . maintained.^† She thinks in Edwardian script.

†  From being brought in from the street, and until death returned her to the larger world, Moses’ life unfolded within the relative smallness of apartment interiors. There, she rummaged, faced her fears, refined her palate, confronted homicidal tendencies, and gracefully aged into a life of relaxed birdwatching and restorative lightbulb gazing. I hope this elegy brings her the posterity she deserves.