Paul Hornschemeier

One of the things that distinguishes comics from text-only fiction is how much more clearly influence bleeds through. You can read Jonathan Lethem's As She Crawled Across the Table and not necessarily note the imprimatur of Don DeLillo. You would be hard put, though, in work even as solid as comics artist Paul Hornschemeier's not to see in his drawings and settings the presence of Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware, James Kochalka, perhaps even John Pham, and others. That's fine, as show more those artists draw from each other, but it's still a distraction here.

The story itself is sweet. The suggestion that it is sweet probably counts as a "spoiler," because by all appearances -- that is, to the extent that it resembles several other artists' work, artists who are more associated with downer than sweetness -- it is not to be uplifting in any way, and by any means. A young woman in a dead-end job whose life eerily resembles that of her deader-ender mother recounts her past failed relationships in between ending her most recent and trying out her various next options, all the while avoiding acknowledging to herself just how much she is pining for one person in particular. Her addiction to a cartoon provides the book's title and her moral compass -- to a fault: she ditches one seemingly pleasant companion because he doesn't like the cartoon.

Part of what makes Hornschemeier's work work is that he doesn't have the almost eerily mechanical agility of those other artists (well, put aside Kochalka's playfulness for a moment, and just focus on the others mentioned above). He tries for it -- still figures with slumped shoulders who seem to move even more slowly than the inadequate life around them -- but the subtle variation in how his characters are drawn gives them a life, seemingly despite his attempts at being artfully diagrammatic. It would be great to see him put aside the well-documented comic-book norms of rigid slacker domesticity and take advantage of the variation in his own line. His story is sweet, and his drawing could be, too. show less

WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IN PUBLIC!

I think the word depressive comes short to describe this comic thingy… is there a word that express more depression than well, depression??? Maybe There is a term among my people used to describe depressive songs... it translates to something like “wrist slitters” or something like that. but if there is an actual word for it please let me know so I can update this review! When I asked a friend to pick a short comic for me the other day I was show more expecting something fun and quick so I could go get hammer and enjoy a movie in a really good mood… little did I knew that my plans were about to drastically change… she passed me this depressive as fuck book and told me to read it, with a really cool attitude (she may have say something in the lines of; I didn’t ask you if you like the title I told you to read it) so despite the title I decided to give it a try… 20 minutes later I was in my mighty corner screaming (quietly inside my head) you are not going to cry Alfonso I repeat you are not going to cry like a little bitch in public! I think I used my last reserves of testosterone in me to actually manage that… at the end I have to go and get me a book with funny pictures of cats to cheer me up before I went to my “lets get hammer and watch a movie thing* (I do not drink while depressed or angry)… and one more thing if you have ermm… if you ever experience how it feels to lost a love one… I do not recommend this book… trust me when I say this shit is depressive I mean is good! but is too fucking depressive for me atleast… (still looking for that word more depressive than depression) show less

A meta-autobiographical graphic novel drawn and assembled with exquisite skill and attention to detail. Rating this higher for the conceptual and artistic merits than for the story itself, the fractured ends of which never coalesced into anything particularly memorable.

Amy is a 20-something year old in a dead end job, without many friends, and is suffering from some form of depression. She's just broken up with her latest bad boyfriend and there's seemingly nothing positive on the horizon. And her best friend lives in San Francisco. What's a girl to do? She drowns herself in reruns of a cartoon called "Mr. Dangerous" and trudges through the day to day job, takes care of her cat, and talks with her depressed, divorced mother. But...new people enter her show more world and hope may come from an old friend.

I was really excited when I saw this graphic novel at the local bookstore. When I picked it up and flipped through it I thought the artwork looked interesting and that the description of the story sounded unique. I mean I came close to buying it on the spot. But...while it's a good story it's just more of the same that you already see from people like Daniel Clowes, Chester Brown, Jeffrey Brown and others. I just get tired of reading the same type of story time after time, of a lovelorn something year old that's working a dead end job and just doesn't seem to get out of it or have hope in their world. I want something different and this just doesn't have it. While it's a semi-realistic story, it's just depressing on the whole to read and there are only so many of them that I can read.

The writing style and the artwork both remind me of Daniel Clowes, especially in the color choices with the solid colors, and no real shadows to the figures. The artwork is solid and has some nice character design, and the color choices used are interesting. But...while it isn't bad there just isn't anything that stands out to me as being different or great, other than a few scenes depicting Mr. Dangerous.

It's not a bad book, but after reading it I'm not as excited as I was when I first picked it up. And I would recommend just picking it up from your local library for a read. show less