Curses
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
Delving into mythology, belief, and spirituality,Kevin Huizenga's short stories are based on the lives of familiar characters confronting the textures of mortality in unique and sometimes peculiar ways. Huizenga fuses the most banal aspects of modern culture with its most looming questions in a consistently genial style. Lighthearted, but with a healthy dose of nineteenth-century spine tingling, the narratives presented in Curses are insightful portrayals of reality. Huizenga's central character in his comics is Glenn Ganges, a seemingly middle-class man living in the suburbs whose blank-eyed wonderment at everyday experiences brings together such diverse aspects of our world as golf, theology, late-night diners, parenthood, politics, Sudanese refugees, and hallucinatory vision, into a complete experience as multifaceted as our own lives.
Huizenga is regarded by many as one of the most promising young cartoonists of his generation, whose artistic talent, singular writing, and studied substance prove the versatility of his skill. Curses collects his work from Kramer's Ergot and The Drawn & Quarterly Showcase, his award-winning and nominated comic-book series Or Else, and Time magazine; it is the most extensive selection of his comics to date in a single volume.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Huizenga has created some of the most remarkable comics of recent years, and this volume collects stories published in anthologies and random comic books. Huizenga's work, drawn in a deceptively simple and quietly expressive cartoon line, is marked by a focus on philosophical quandaries. Nearly all of his stories take place in an anonymous suburbia, and his everyman protagonist, Glenn Ganges, is a likable character possessed of a Charlie Brown like calm. The strongest story in this book, "28th Street," is a fanciful meditation on fertility in which Ganges turns to supernatural solutions for his all too corporeal problems. Another excellent story, "Jeepers Jacobs," explores the nature of heaven and hell through the fictionalized work of a theologian protagonist. Another story, "Green Tea," is an adaptation of a 19th-century thriller. It's quite a range, and Ganges's thoughtful wonderment at all of his experiences opens up the world to the reader. Huizenga is an inclusive, empathic artist who communicates without lectures rather, he simply shows the world as it might be and allows us, through Ganges, to experience it with him. His excellent ear for dialogue and measured prose style accomplish this without flash. These are wonderfully considered, profound comics.
