Page 45 Review by Jonathan
"It's hard to explain. It's full of all these messed up shapes and colours."
"Jeanne-Claude, you talk like a liar."
"It's true! There's like this weird undiscovered ecosystem under the house."
"???"
"And it can only be accessed through the laundry machines."
"PFFFFF."
...
"Oh, hey Daisy! This is Daisy, she just moved here from the States."
"Hey."
"They don't believe me about your basement. We have to prove it!"
"New kids are always so full of shit."
"Come on! Everyone wants to go!"
"Ok, but it won't work unless you're pure of mind and purpose."
And on the very previous page, Daisy had quite clearly asked Jeanne-Claude not to tell anyone... After all, if you'd discovered a psychedelic portal to an immaterial realm in your basement and you were the new kid in town, you'd probably want to keep it quiet too! Consequently it's not long before everyone at school is desperate to take a mind-bending trip through Daisy's mysterious washing machine. Well, and her dryer too because both, with a bit of concentration, allow access to the said world of messed-up shapes and colours. In fact, whilst there, even your own body turns into a strange swirly rainbow affair.
Jesse Jacobs returns to mess with our noggins in his follow up to the equally bizarre SAFARI HONEYMOON, which told the farcical tale of the traditional post-nuptial holiday gone very badly awry. He clearly likes his transmogrification, does our Jesse... The difference here is that he's splashed out on some ink and really given it the full-spectrum spread. So much so, I have a sneaking suspicion that were I able to see up into the ultra-violet and down into the infra-red, there would be probably be a whole lot of additional madness happening on the page at those wavelengths too. If not, that's an idea for his next work!
However, this is a story of spiritual growth, of taking a profound journey towards realising an enlightened state of being. Or just getting completely off your proverbial trolley, depending on how you look at it... And that perspective, that difference in approach, well, that will make a very significant alteration to what you experience within this peculiar state of existence, plus what psychic imprint you leave behind on it, and its inhabitants... For yes, curious metaphysical beings do dwell there... I shall say no more on the plot front, because some things are best experienced without any foreknowledge or pre-conceptions... Suffice to say, I doubt one leaves this work exactly the same as before one first opened the cover...
Art-wise, Jesse is like the perfect hybrid of Box AN ENTITY OBSERVES ALL THINGS Brown, Marc DRAWN & QUARTERLY: 25 YEARS OF CONTEMPORARY CARTOONING Bell and Jim FRAN Woodring and yet has a damn good go at transcending them all with a style that is a sensuous, endless flow of precise parallel lines, perfectly smooth curves, interspersed with intense contorted shapes and bejewelled with mandala-like creations that combine to beguile and delight. And occasionally terrify!
I think it is perhaps, therefore, quite apparent, even from this review, what the not-so-hidden allegorical element(s) to this work might be! I've deliberately put that s in parenthesis because depending on how (deeply) you look at it, I think there's more than one. I loved how the dual potential aspects of the journeys through the realm were presented. Attitude, it seems, really is everything. As a comics creator, Jesse Jacobs certainly has it by the pocket-psychic-universe-full.
