Penguins

Drawing on the implicit irony of a flightless bird, former Unicorns frontman Thorburn’s graphic novel debut is a curious blend of grotesquerie and fable. In an almost entirely wordless series of comic strips, Thorburn explores a panorama of human emotion via hard-luck tales involving a humanistic penguin character, fourth wall–breaking sociopolitical ruminations, and simple depictions of life’s little cruelties (such as strangers chatting on a park bench—as one of them quietly robs the other). Any given narrative may give way to macabre vignettes as Thorburn melts, disintegrates, explodes, and otherwise deconstructs his own creations, seeking out meaning (or at least emotional resonance) in their death and resurrection (one character is shot over and over in a sequence, only to shakily try to rise again). Squeamish readers may shy away from Thorburn’s vision, like the images of a warped triptych of phalluses and one penguin’s inability to stop urinating, which echo alt-comix influences like Chester Brown’s Ed the Happy Clown. But even Thorburn’s most phallocentric layouts pack a bittersweet, emotional punch. Though this variety show of cautionary tales and body horror may be uneven in appeal, its bizarro creativity is nevertheless a sight to behold. [em](Sept.) [/em]