To Share is to Divide

By Nick Souček
miscomp.wordpress.com

Reading Souček's comics I can't help but feel kind of bad for him. They're filled with near constant existential doubt, anxiety, loneliness, depression, and other bad stuff. I mean, breaking up with someone sucks, being lonely sucks, but neither of those things are the end of the world.

Of course it seems that Souček is exaggerating his feelings for comedic effect. Even ignoring the fact that I don't think I can take the phrase "forever alone" serious in any way, he follows a scene where he is blown out of a tree by loneliness by saying that he has a tendancy to be melodramatic.

Helping to create this sense of melodrama in Souček's comics are the words that he uses to describe the scenes. There's not much dialogue here, instead we have the poetic monologue of Souček himself. I really feel that much of the text here could be reprinted without the pictures as fairly effective blank verse poetry. Of course, if that was done I would read it and then forget it again almost instantly, so clearly Souček has the better idea by pairing his thoughts with images.

Souček's art is at its best when it's drawing inanimate objects (there are some pretty rad boats in here), while the inhabitants of his stories kind of remind me of Lego people. Large heads, no real expressions, grasping claw like hands, they're totally minifigs! Actually, that's pretty awesome. I really like the idea that these are Lego people and that potentially Souček storyboards all of his comics using actual toys.

Okay, that idea is completely ridiculous, but if Souček is allowed to draw himself being eaten by a whale, I'm allowed to imagine what I want. And if I had any minifigs around I would totally make one and either give it to Souček, or make a photo comic in the same style.

Souček also does comics for Boneshaker, an awesome little bicycle magazine. I really liked his comic in the last issue of that.



(This review was originally published on 365 Zines a Year.)