cover image Gulag Casual

Gulag Casual

Austin English. 2dcloud, $24.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-937541-19-4

Cartoonist and fine artist English confounds readers with a collection of abstract short comics about interpersonal relationships. In “A New York Story,” two boys talk of a dream one has about a dead friend. “The Disgusting Room” shows a Kafkaesque nightmare in which a young man is party to an act of violence and seems to see it from a dream-like distance. English draws on visual vocabularies from hybrid artists such as abstract expressionist painter Philip Guston, painter/muralist Ben Shahn, and punk comics artist Gary Panter. The visuals in English’s first graphic novel, Christina and Charles, leaned on what could be called a naive/art brut aesthetic, like a sweeter version of the Fort Thunder art group. In contrast, here the turbulence of the pictures goes beyond any barriers set by his art comics forebears. The stories are uneven, but the mysteries of the visuals reward rereading. A niche audience will find much to chew on, but a general readership will find it difficult to adjust to Austin’s fractured visuals and storytelling. (Apr.)