Skyscrapers of the Midwest
Joshua W. Cotter, writer/artist
AdHouse Books, June 2008
282 pages, hardcover
$19.95
The collected Skyscrapers of the Midwest is more than the sum of its parts–and that, friends and neighbors, is really, really saying something. All four of Skyscrapers‘ original issues were dynamite: The first felt like a revival of the old-school one-man anthology altcomix, the second revealed it to be the seeds of a larger story that developed through the remaining three issues, each of which held together as a discrete storytelling unit (gilded with entertaining ACME-style ephemera) but adding depth, breadth, and power to the overall novel. The second issue was, in fact, virtually the perfect comic book. That it sits comfortably between the covers of a larger graphic novel without overwhelming it–that it in fact is enhanced by its new surroundings–is more of a testimonial to Josh Cotter’s work here than I could ever offer.
It’s not just that Cotter’s art take funny-animal-era Crumb crosshatching and doughy character designs; it’s that he applies them to Ware-informed layouts and and subject matter, with the occasional Kupperman-level black-humor interlude thrown in. It’s not just that Cotter matter-of-factly introduces and kills with a seemingly neverending series of crackerjack visual symbols–migraine locusts, cancer squids, God robots, death jetpacks, angel kittens; it’s that sweeping silent sequences where he really lets loose with this stuff segue seamlessly into painfully accurate, rigorously observed recreations of awkward childhood conversations at home, at school, in church. It’s not just that it’s an autobiography that never comes out and says so and is all the more effective for it; it’s that it’s also an equally sensitive and unsentimental portrait of other people in town whose inner lives Cotter couldn’t possibly have access to. It’s not just that it joyously recreates the way pop fantasy figures like He-Man and Marvel superheroes gave kids an outlet for their imaginations above and beyond whatever frequently dreary, yet often wondrous material was actually there; it’s that it also viciously lampoons the material for its benighted assumptions about everything from women to justice, and for the way it literally preyed upon the insecurities of children to make money. It’s not just that it unflinchingly depicts the go-nowhere futility of cancer-ridden, unexamined lower-middle-class life; it’s that it’s also a totally moving tribute to how the relationships we form with one another are the things that last and give us meaning in the face of man’s cruelty to man, man’s cruelty to nature, and God’s cruelty to everything. Skyscrapers of the Midwest, in other words, is simultaneously one of the warmest and the coldest comics ever. It’s brilliant and devastating, and I love it.
Tags: comics, comics reviews, Comics Time, reviews
Man, this book knocked me on my ass. The page at the end of the “backpack” part, with the little brother flying over the pond in his cardboard box, completely broke my heart.