Julia Gfrorer

Julia Gfr rer is quietly one of the most influential cartoonists of her generation. Emerging from the Portland scene at the height of the Obama era, her comics augured the dark times to come, using graphic sex, pitch-black horror, a hunger for exploring the past, and a line cruel as a whip to create her own unmistakable sense of millennial melancholy. Reflecting her DIY ethos, much of her work has only been available in self-published zines or independent anthologies, many of them rare or out-of-print -- until now. World Within the World features 30 of Gfr rer's short stories, culled from a decade of writing and drawing at the bleeding edge of the art form. Her tales of desire, despair, and the universal need for connection span centuries, continents, and cultures from prehistoric teenagers in love to Christian martyrs in the making to modern-day vampires on the make. Along the way her bold, confident work leads the reader to some unexpected places, whether erotica inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe or a post-apocalyptic parody of Frasier. In World Within the World, there is no distinction between the realistic and the fantastic, the psychological and the supernatural, the modern and the medieval, the mundane and the sublime -- just the artist's unflinching vision of how it feels to be human, no matter when or where.

A vision-impaired, Victorian spinster in need of primitive cataract surgery has little time for herself between needing to take care of her demanding, invalid sister-in-law, and investigating her brother's mysterious nighttime activities. To escape it all, she engages in a sexual relationship with a haunted mirror in her bedroom. Gfr rer's delicate and dark line-work perfectly complements the period era of the book's setting, bringing the lyricism and romanticism of her stories to the fore.

Det Grymma Svärdet fyller tio år och firar det med sitt tjockaste nummer någonsin, med det flummiga temat "livet". Svek, droger, kärlek, kroppsvätskor, dödsfall, relationer som går sönder.... allt ryms i temat. Men det finns även plats för satir över identitetspolitik, en massa dikter, ostrullning, lantlig misärturism, vårdjobb, syttende maj-firande, tidelag, en stenåldersskildring, dagböcker... luttrade läsare LÄR känna igen sig.

In a plague-ravaged medieval city, survival is a harsher fate than death. As corpses accumulate around her, Agnes, a young widow possessed of supernatural strength, must weigh her obligations to the dead and dying against her desire to protect what little remains. Laid Waste is a graphic novella about love and kindness among vermin in the putrid miasma at the end of the world. As with her evocative debut book, Black is the Color, Julia Gfr rer's delicate, gothic drawing style perfectly complements the period era of the book's setting, bringing the lyricism and romanticism of her prose to the fore.

Black is the Color begins with a 17th-century sailor abandoned at sea by his shipmates, and as it progresses he endures, and eventually succumbs to, both his lingering death sentence and the advances of a cruel and amorous mermaid. The narrative also explores the experiences of the loved ones he leaves behind, on his ship and at home on land, as well as of the mermaids who jadedly witness his destruction. At the heart of the story lie the dubious value of maintaining dignity to the detriment of intimacy, and the erotic potential of the worst-case scenario. Julie Gfrorer's delicate drawing style perfectly complements the period era of Black is the Color, bringing the lyricism and romanticism of Gfrorer's prose to the fore. Black is the Color is a book as seductive as the sirens it depicts.