Cartoonist Matt Madden’s new collection of graphic short fiction Six Treasures of the Spiral: Comics Formed Under Pressure is a savvy selection of experimental comics based on the concept of self-imposed creative restraints. Partly inspired by the writing of French novelist Raymond Queneau, Madden’s inventive short comics are based on a series of shifting, quirky, underlying rules—for instance, make a comic with the same number of panels as letters in the alphabet—that in effect use constraints to prompt fresh problem-solving approaches to story. The book includes a brisk essay by Madden on the structure of many of the pieces. In this 11-page excerpt from the beginning of “Drawn Onward,” a clever palindrome story-loop, a young woman’s encounter with a man on the subway is eventually recreated via the man’s opposing POV. Six Treasures of the Spiral: Comics Formed Under Pressure by Matt Madden is out now from Uncivilized Books.