Röhner by Max Baitinger
Baitinger’s Röhner is a very humorous read while also one of the most formally experimental and unique comics I read this past year with Nacho Garcia's Pulir and Pushwagner's Soft City but with a much more approachable narrative.
This can be partially attributed to how relatable it is. We've all been stuck with someone we didn't care much for and imagined various scenarios (more or less illegal) as to how we could get rid of them or, at the very least, avoid them.
When you stop to think about it, behind the fantastic and sometimes abstract artwork, it's surprisingly mundane, much like the work of Chris Ware (Building Stories) and Yoshiharu Tsuge (The man without talent), if not as depressing or existential. The comedy it pursues reminds one (or at least myself) of the American sitcom Seinfeld, with a lot of its humor being situational (though I wouldn’t say Röhner is as conversation-oriented as the former).
The art is quite impressive. Combining what can only be described as stick figures with very detailed and almost architectural interior designs, it creates a feeling of order and, to a certain degree, German-ness that was disrupted whenever the dreadful Röhner took action. It’s then that the comic’s aforementioned surreal qualities make it to the forefront of the narrative, breaking the established order not unlike Röhner himself.
Weathercraft by Jim Woodring
Quite possibly the most bizarre thing I’ve read, Jim Woodring’s wordleess Frank stories definitely deserve the tag something else.
Weathercraft in particular is a relatively long (about 100 pages) independent story that focuses on Manhog, a character who typically takes the role of being the titular Frank’s antagonist. Throughout the story, he suffers at Whim’s will (quite literally, that being the antagonist’s name), which, combined with Woodring’s very particular art, gives the story an almost Biblical tinge.
While I find it quite a difficult story to talk about in general terms, much less critique, I can say it left an impression and I’m almost certain I’ll return to the bizarre world of Woodring’s Frank in the not-so-far-future.
Tears of the leatherbound saints by Casanova Frankenstein
I grabbed this comic mainly for two reasons: it was one of the most mentioned comics in Solrad's Best of 2020 article published early 2021 and the author caused an impression when I watched his interview with Noah Van Sciver (late spring or early summer, I don't quite remember).
I expected a cohesive piece, given the comic's relatively short length (around 30 pages), but got, instead, a collection of short stories, most of them two to three pages long, all related to themes of abuse, freedom, oppression, punk culture, etc.
Most of the stories are about Tad Martin, the author's stand-in, and vary significantly with regards to when they are set (some see him as a child, others an adult). They also add some slight horror elements to the narrative, to exaggerate or maybe give some perspective as to how these events affected him or his current opinion of them.
Personally, punk rock is one of the few "classical" genres of 20th century popular music I haven't dug much into, so his (the author's) comments surrounding the liberating and uniting factors (qualities?) of said music largely went over my head.
As far as the art, I really liked it, especially when he was drawing darker, almost pitch-black pages with his adult self as the lead. His childhood stories, usually drawn with lighter backgrounds and a cleaner (less scratchy) artwork, were not as aesthetically interesting in my opinion. They were also by far the most disturbing, which is unsurprising given how uncomfortable some topics regarding children can make us.
Overall, an interesting toe-dip into one of comic's lesser-known cartoonists that was definitely worth it. Now whether I'll commit to getting his Tad Martin Omnibus and shipping it all the way from the US is another question.
Dwelling in Flowers by Seiichi Hayashi
Seiichi Hayashi’s forty-page story Dwelling in Flowers is collected in the manga Gold Pollen and Other Stories (Picturebox, 2013) as well as in the Spanish edition of that same manga (Gallo Nero, 2021) and in the Spanish anthology Terry (Fulgencio Pimentel, 2014), which is where I read it.
Visually speaking, it is one of the most interesting mangas I've read (not that I've read many, but still). Not only is it in color (which is quite uncommon), but Hayashi's style of drawing people is very distinct, as he combines 2D and 3D to create a unique take on the human body in general and face in particular. When added to his use of very bright and colorful tones (especially reds and blues), this results in art that’s unlike anything I’ve encountered in manga in particular and comics in general.
The narrative; a young man living with his mother and having trouble with her peculiarities as well as with dating and work, is based on his personal experience of living with his mother when he started making comics in the late 60s. That said, it is not really that significant to the overall reading experience, as the author focuses more on evoking a certain emotion rather than telling a particular story. The plot and characters are merely means to an end. An end which, I might add, was very much achieved in my opinion, as it's one of the more emotionally resonant comics I read this year.
The Puerto Rican War by John Vásquez Mejías
At one hundred pages in length, this novelette left me wanting more. More information about the Puerto Rican War, about the people that headed all the different groups and parties, about the people who did small things, like give shelter or a nice speech, about the long-lasting consequences that the event had in modern-day politics in both the USA and Puerto Rico, about how the current generation of Puerto Rican’s feels about all this.
Don’t take this to mean I didn’t enjoy it, quite the opposite; I really enjoyed reading it, it’s just that my points of reference for this type of comics are the likes of Sacco, Guibert and Igort, which means the bar is really high.
That said, the stand-out feature and what lead me to buying this (currently out of print) comic was the art. The “pages” and “panels” aren’t ink on paper or pixels on a screen, instead John Vásquez Mejías carved the images out of wood, a style of art that has been around for millennia and he in particular has always been interested in. The result is a very different visual experience, especially in how instead of having distinctly separate panels, the images and text merge together in a manner that captivated me right from the very beginning.
My living in the EU doesn’t facilitate reading zines and self-pub comics, but of the couple I’ve checked out this year and as a comic in general, Mejías’ The Puerto Rican War is definitely a stand-out reading experience.
The sun also rises by Ernest Hemingway
While I loved Hemingway’s prose and, more specifically, his dialogue, I found his The Sun Also Rises to be a somewhat unmemorable reading experience.
My main gripes with this book come down to the characters (whom I generally didn’t care much about) and the plot itself (which I felt was repetitive and revolved too much around fishing and wine and bulls and more wine). Some people may find the continuous drunken (or semi-drunken) conversations to be interesting, but this was not the case for me, at least as far as this particular story was concerned.
On the other hand, I did, as I mentioned earlier, really like Hemingway’s prose, though maybe not as much as I have Borges’ or Bradbury’s, but still significantly better than what I usually come across. I also quite liked the setting (Paris) of the early chapters of the novel, which I feel was more cohesive with the generally bohemian plot.
Because I liked a lot of the more technical aspects of Hemingway’s writing, I do see myself reading some of his other works in the near future, just maybe something with a bit less wine.
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