Stone Harbor and Photobooth, by Andres
Catter. These are quiet, personal comics about small, intimate
moments. Photobooth takes its inspiration from “the story of J.J.
Belanger and photoboots as a queer safe space”, and the comic
itself is shaped like the strip of photos one might get from said
photobooth. Each page features a different queer couple: smiling,
kissing, touching, embracing. It is a powerful statement of being
seen, even in an otherwise potentially dangerous set of
circumstances. Stone Harbor is a story of late summer and time
slipping away. It's done in colored pencil: blue for the boy who
hurries from a swimming pool with clouds swirling above and red for
his love, waiting for him at the beach. The girl he meets does not
immediately present as male (though she does wear a top and bottom
when they go swimming in the ocean), and this ambiguity is
deliberate. We don't know their story other than their love and that
time may be running out. That each panel is a single page points to
this idea that both want time to go as slowly as possible, savoring
each moment.
Small Plates, The Sound Of Snow, and An
Axe To Grind, by Issy Manley. These are politically charged comics
that question the core beliefs of society. An Axe To Grind
interpolates the Aesop fable “The Man and the Wood” with a speech
by Donald Trump in the wake of the Brett Cavanaugh hearings for the
Supreme Court. It's a clever approach, as the fable's moral is “Give
not your enemy the means to destroy you”. Manley notes that many
white women in particular have fallen right in line with regard to
supporting Trump, despite his policies being actively hostile to
women. She asserts that part of this is because their race and class
make supporting fascism in their best interests overall, so they
become complicit in such policies. Manley uses a naturalistic style
that does the job in terms of getting across her points, but it felt
like she wasn't entirely comfortable drawing this way at times.
Small Plates is a folding comic that
once again hits on a striking image—that of the “small plates”
of many tapas restaurants—and uses that to talk about being in the
service industry. Everything in the restaurant is measured solely by
its utility, and that includes the workers. The contrast between the
care each pair of hands must take with the plates and the way the
workers rip open their disappointing paycheck is the payoff of the
comic, and it works well. The Sound Of Snow is a silent comic about a
woman skiing with a man who's an instructor of some kind. The
question is, what kind? When she creates sounds that are mere echoes
of what's around her, it's an embarrassing failure. When she sits
with nature and actually hears the “real” sound of snow, she's
able to sing it out loud. It's drawn expressively and underlines the
difference between hearing and speaking.
Gemini, Non/Dom and Oscillator, by Tim
Patton. Patton is a member of the mark-making school of comics, where
the line qua line is every bit as important as any narrative it's a
part of. It's all about creating an environment for the characters to
react to. Oscillator is wrapped in a ribbon and bound by three rings,
with each page a different card to flip. The cover page is of a
person (perhaps the author?), whose face is entirely made up of these
rabbit-like creatures. On the following pages, they wriggle, jump,
bounce, vibrate, melt and mutate into all sorts of shapes. It pukes
and multiplies until the hare inevitably is consumed by a tortoise
who becomes full of energy, zips around, gets stuck from being too
big, and cries itself a river. It winds up landing on another rabbit,
discharging its energy. Patton has an extremely assured, thin line
that allows him to craft tiny images with a great deal of clarity.
Non/Dom looks like a jam comic he did
with Hachem Reslan, featuring two characters in bobcat suits doing
all sorts of odd things in the forest. The entire story looks like it
was made up on the spot as they traded a sketchbook back and forth,
both trying to draw in the same hand. It's an interesting experiment
with some funny parts and some surprisingly cogent call-backs, but
its too wobbly to be anything but an experiment. Gemini is Patton
solo once again, and this time he works big but still uses the same
kind of storytelling. This time around, the titular twins are one
being split by lightning and have to find their way back to each
other. It's a wordless epic as they endure hardship as they cross
deserts, mountains and oceans until they see each other and their
mutually binding rope. It's fascinating to watch Patton experiment
like this, as he's clearly thinking about different kinds of
world-building and different methods of achieving it.
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