rave: Couch Tag by Jesse Reklaw / Graphic Memoir
Friday, January 9th, 2015 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jesse_the_kHuge thanks! to whoever pointed me to Couch Tag by Jesse Reklaw. Five stars out of five.
This unusual graphic memoir doesn't distill the artist's experience into this influence and that cause-and-effect. Instead, Reklaw details the difficult interactions in a profoundly dysfunctional family, as well as his contemporaneous responses. As Reklaw grew up, shifting power relations were solved with fists and broken furniture. How does a four-year-old know if this is okay, or typical, or his fault?
Ninety percent of the book is executed in dreamy flat-line style in black-and-white ink washes (printed on buff paper—an intriguing choice which heightens the sensation of peering back at Reklaw's past). The final twenty-six pages are intense, multi-layered color panels, tied to the alphabet. Words escape the speech balloon and appear in washes and scratches of the background.
This excellent interview with Tom Spurgeon at the Comics Reporter provides a thorough background on the events in Couch Tag, as well as four ink-wash pages and one super-color image. Where the book presents the unanalyzed experience of a boy/young man/young adult, the interview explores the impacts of those events on forty-year-old Jesse. The artist also discusses how his bipolar disorder and arthritis have influenced his comics' style and substance. (Guaranteed 100% inspiration porn free.)
Willies by Jesse Reklaw: Five tan beasties, a mix of dog, meerkat and seal, with no hair but white mustaches.
This unusual graphic memoir doesn't distill the artist's experience into this influence and that cause-and-effect. Instead, Reklaw details the difficult interactions in a profoundly dysfunctional family, as well as his contemporaneous responses. As Reklaw grew up, shifting power relations were solved with fists and broken furniture. How does a four-year-old know if this is okay, or typical, or his fault?
Ninety percent of the book is executed in dreamy flat-line style in black-and-white ink washes (printed on buff paper—an intriguing choice which heightens the sensation of peering back at Reklaw's past). The final twenty-six pages are intense, multi-layered color panels, tied to the alphabet. Words escape the speech balloon and appear in washes and scratches of the background.
This excellent interview with Tom Spurgeon at the Comics Reporter provides a thorough background on the events in Couch Tag, as well as four ink-wash pages and one super-color image. Where the book presents the unanalyzed experience of a boy/young man/young adult, the interview explores the impacts of those events on forty-year-old Jesse. The artist also discusses how his bipolar disorder and arthritis have influenced his comics' style and substance. (Guaranteed 100% inspiration porn free.)
Willies by Jesse Reklaw: Five tan beasties, a mix of dog, meerkat and seal, with no hair but white mustaches.