Digested issues 1 - 6.
Created by Booby N.
Published by Gestalt Comics.
£1.99 each on ComiXology - Black and White interiors.
Described by Comixology as ‘A series of short form sequential art by acclaimed Melbourne-based cartoonist Bobby.N.’
That’s rather short and sweet and doesn’t really give you a clue of what these short and square-bound mixtures of prose, comics and poetry provide for your reading pleasure.
I was looking for something to read on a long and quarantined Sunday afternoon. I came across Digested and Gestalt Comics quite by chance on a browse that I was about to give up on and just find something to reread on the shelf.
These actually have some great covers and I can’t help but think that they would have been a comic I would have immediately bought if I saw them in the flesh. Bobby N has a great indie style to his art that wouldn’t seem out of place at Top Shelf or Fantagraphics. He knows how to lay down a deep thick black line. His art mixes some different styles and you see him move about between a social slice of life approach into a more fantastical style here and there. To me there is an element of both Dylan Horrocks and Gilbert Hernandez in his caricatures. There’s also something of the Peter Bagge here too, a little of the extreme occasionally.
So it was the art that drew me in but it was one particular story that got me hooked. A man and a woman are on a date, she is a little traditional in her style of dress and a little shy. They go back to hers and he notices she has a multitude of romance novels. They sit and drink coffee. He suggests that he gets rid of his gum and she directs him to the pedal bin in the kitchen. He flips the top of the bin and notices that there is a whole cucumber in there covered in Vaseline.
Yup....right up my street.
There are mostly shorter stories that show a slice of suburban strangeness in this comics series but there are a few that jump about and continue between issues. An ongoing story has a discussion between a middle management boss and a worker who seem at not point to understand each other or even try to understand each other. Forever at an impasse to weirdly funny results. Another involves an alternative society where gas masks and tentacled creatures seem commonplace.
Another highlight is a short story about a man trying his best to show a sensitive and thoughtful side whilst filling out an online dating questionnaire but finally giving in and saying what he likes best is when a woman can put her whole fist in her mouth! (Don’t we all?)
The stories are well told and with an eye to the inspection of how a person thinks. They show real insight into the quiet moments of solitude brilliantly well.
As I’ve mentioned above this isn’t just comics and has quite a few prose, editorials, letters and poetry in the pages. They weren’t exactly what I came for but I gave quite a few of them a go and liked what I read. I would probably have rather just had a longer collection of comics but sometimes you have to stretch the brain to something a bit different.
You can find more of this cartoonists work over at https://bobbyn.com
Many thanks for reading.
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