It looks like that tricksy Nick Forker has been working on a longer story, so my usual plan to randomly review his issues is not going to work anymore. But hey, this one is comprised of a few short pieces, so I’m going to cheat this time around before going back to them sequentially. More information than anybody would ever need or want, that’s the Optical Sloth promise! Like I said, this is a collection of shorter pieces, with one story that’s obviously part of a bigger narrative. There’s some talking cat and dog mayhem to start things off (if you consider a calm conversation to be mayhem), a peek at some actual aliens and their exact level of competence, a badger confronting several animals in what is a clear attempt by Nick to justify drawing a whole bunch of animals (no shame here, the man can draw all sorts of animals damn near photo realistically), the piece that’s part of the bigger story (that’ll make more sense when I go back through the other issues, but it looks like our hero is headed to the real world), and a bit of commentary on the quality of the drinking water in various cities in the U.S. He’s not wrong, and it would be nice if ANY CITY took pride in their water. Finally there’s a personal story about the time he got beat up about 20 years ago, the damage it did to him physically and mentally, and what it feels like to sneeze when your jaw is wired shut. That image of him on one knee, trying to play off the pain as his friends looked on, is rough to look at. He also goes into his reasoning for talking about this now, and how our identities are a construct of the stories we tell ourselves. I’d recommend going and watching the talk Dan Clowes gave at CXC 2023, as he really dug into the unreliability of memory and how tough it is to nail anything down when the other people who were part of those memories have passed away. What does that leave you with? Anyway, yes, this is another really solid issue, and he’s apparently stuck forever (with Brian Canini and a few others) on the list of artists that I just can’t seem to keep up with here on this blog. Still waiting on that eccentric billionaire that decides to keep me as a pet just so I can read comics and write about them forever… $7
