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January 06, 2005
Subway Reading: Skyscrapers of the Midwest
Skyscrapers of the Midwest #1 - I caught a favorable review of this book on another comic blog recently, but I can't remember which blog it was. Whomever that reviewer may have been, I would like to thank him or her for bringing this comic to my attention. Josh Cotter has crafted a delicately ugly and sublimely beautiful work that will haunt you for some time after you read it. The primary stories center around a sad, overweight, outcast cat-boy and his eager-to-please younger brother. Cat-boy? Well, yes. Cotter employs more or less the same anthropomorphic device that Art Spiegelman used in Maus, and the effect is similar. By removing the human appearance of these otherwise human characters, Cotter counter-intuitively makes it easier for the reader to relate to them.
These stories are broken up by one or two page existential shorts featuring rabbits, aliens, robots, and most striking of all, a skeleton. These stories contribute to the tone of melancholic desperation that hangs over this book. In fact, they enhance the communication of this tone because their format and subject matter are so different from the main stories. The longer pieces rely on a more traditional narrative structure, while the short stories use their characters to illustrate simple, direct statements of life's futility and insignificance.
I don't mean to imply that the book is overwhelmingly sad or depressing. The fake ads and advice columns provide deliciously dark humor. The longer cat-family stories rely heavily on the children's imaginations, which are wonderlands of giant robots and grisly action. In these imagination sequences, Cotter simultaneously exposes the dual nature of a young boy's fantasy world: whimsical adventure combined with destructive power fantasies.
Cotter's art is distinctively reminiscent of R. Crumb's, with its obsessive hatching and wobbly lines. The artist's hand is unmistakably involved, and that helps to communicate the intimate nature of these stories. Cotter ably uses lights and darks and heavily-layered hatching to bring depth and clarity to his crowded panels. The lettering has the same semi-obsessive hand-scrawled quality, completing the visual package. 4.5 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at January 6, 2005 12:35 PM