This One Summer is a finely nuanced portrait of pubescents at the dawning of their age of sexuality that will have readers slowing down if not stopping in their tracks to pause and soak up every line of stunningly good work.  The Tamaki cousins enter Hernandez brothers territory here, with their deftly characterized and deeply empathic portraits of each pen & ink participant in the drama that unfolds on these pages.  There are echoes, too, of Charles Burns’s Black Hole, in the presentation of the protagonists' stumbling upon detritus strewn outdoor settings that stand as a synecdoche for innocence’s discovering the mysteries of sexual fecundity, flesh, decay and death to come.  Innocence and its loss, the gaining of reproductive maturity and its consequences, the linkages between character formation and parental nurturing styles and much more besides are eloquently delineated in page after page of incisive story-telling powered by breathtakingly good illustration.  While the narrative is likely to particularly resonate with those readers in the demographic portrayed, we can unstintingly recommend This One Summer to all who appreciate fine comics:  it is a real stand out; miss at your own peril.  Also available in hardcover.