It’s not very often I get to review a book for Joyzine, and since I love books almost as much as I love music, it always feels like a small personal celebration when something to read lands on my doorstep — especially a physical copy that has travelled across oceans to get here. (In my very biased opinion, nothing compares to a real book. The weight, the pages, the cover… it’s a full-body joy. But I digress into book-addict territory.)
I don’t read graphic novels all that often these days — especially since Neil Gaiman has thoroughly disgraced himself — but every now and then I like to indulge. So when Disconnect finally arrived, I was genuinely excited to dive in. The premise is an emotional one: two bandmates drifting through grief after the death of their third member. The band falls apart, lives move on, and then suddenly everything shifts again when they discover an unfinished song hidden on their late friend’s laptop. Completing and recording this song becomes their mission — a final act of love, loyalty, and remembrance.
What unfolds is a beautifully tender story about friendship, loss, music, and the complicated mess of trying to hold yourself — and your relationships — together while grief pulls everything in different directions. The artwork is intentionally simplistic, and it works. The slightly rough, unfussy lines mirror the rawness of being human: imperfect, emotional, and trying your best in situations with no easy answers.
One of my favourite artistic touches is how the book visualises sound. Music appears as patterns, shapes, and textures — a sensory representation of what so many of us feel when music isn’t just something we hear, but something we experience. And while music is the backbone of the story, the graphic novel sprinkles references to iconic songs throughout: at one point, one character plays The Beatles’ “Fixing a Hole” while the other literally fixes a hole in their leaky ceiling. It’s subtle but smart, grounding the narrative in small moments of humour and poignancy.
What I appreciated most is that Disconnect doesn’t sugar-coat grief. It doesn’t try to tidy up the edges or offer platitudes. Instead, it shows the emotional push-and-pull of two friends who are grieving in different ways — sometimes together, sometimes painfully out of sync. It feels real in its depth, honest in its portrayal of sadness, and ultimately uplifting in its exploration of how music can connect us even when everything else falls apart.
A quietly powerful story about creativity, loyalty, and the healing (and sometimes haunting) echo of unfinished business.
Disconnect is out now and you can buy it here
You can find Magnus Merklin’s website here
Review by Hayley Foster da Silva
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