SECOND GENERATION BLUES

The useful part

Luis Menendez would love to spend his summer vacation creating content about local bands for social media to bolster his music journalism dreams. Hot days in Queens, full of dishwashing and food deliveries for his family's Cuban restaurant, the Havana Express, derail those plans. Fortune smiles upon Luis when he meets Yara, a vivacious, brown-skinned girl, during one of his deliveries.

How it works

• Dryer's grounded artwork remains focused on the characters on each page, using frame breaks during tense moments for greater impact.
• As his dad tries his hardest to get him to focus on "real things," like the restaurant, Luis must determine what's important to him.
• Leveraging a familiar premise, Anta excels at unpacking the intergenerational struggles that at times define immigrant parents and their children.
• Though Luis' tale ends with a glimmer of hope, there's no firm resolution between father and son, an effective choice for this narrative.