Twenty gas stations witnessed in quick succession become a type, and your mind learns to filter out the differences. When you move in a car, you see a lot of things very quickly, and the images run together. A bird’s eye view can be useful, but it can also produce foolish stereotypes. That’s an important choice, because it turns the reader’s eye to the individual instance rather than to generalities. Instead of trying for a Joseph Campbell journey, You & a Bike & a Road focuses on small, specific moments. Its most notable features-a sense of immediacy and unfiltered emotion-are rare and difficult to articulate well. It’s easily one of the year’s best books.

Now you can read her travelogue in her new book, You & a Bike & a Road, which collects those comics and captures the feeling of the journey, while compressing the time it took. The story unfolds slowly, without a classical narrative structure or predictable spikes of drama. Other times she seemed overcome by the beauty of the world or the kindness of strangers. Followers received little dispatches as she made her way from southwest to southeast. Here and there, she drew things she saw and put them on Instagram. In March of 2016, she decided to ride her bicycle from her parents’ house in Arizona to Athens, Georgia, where she lives. That makes her longer work all the more special. Rather than put her energy into long-form works, she’s created shorter comics with a few exceptions.

I have yet to talk to someone who makes or reads comics who doesn’t love her work, which is both wonderfully varied and instantly recognizable. Is it an exaggeration to call Eleanor Davis the most renowned comics artist of her generation? It might not be.

You & a bike & a road eleanor davis