 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
• News
• Reviews
• Contact
• Buy
Reviews
Up to now, Nick Bertozzi's work has appeared like shooting stars in the
night sky: unexpected, brief, and spectacular. With issue one of RUBBER
NECKER, Nick finally lets loose with a full meteor shower.
It begins with "Drop Ceiling"-the first chapter in an ongoing tale of a
young man, Dennis, clumsily wedged into the yoke of Responsibility. While
learning the ropes at the family business and raising a little boy with
his girlfriend and her uncouth family, Dennis is haunted by echoes of his
scruffy youth-swimming holes, cut-off jeans, and LED ZEPPELIN IV. Although
redolent of the malaise Bertozzi uncorked in THE MASOCHISTS, it's
handled here with a concentrated pen and tight, agile panels that hint at
the story's ambitious scope. You can tell from the start: "Drop Ceiling" is
not a sketch, but a study. A study the reader becomes anxious to continue,
thanks to an abundance of clever teases: "What's with those disappearing
women in the empty lot? Why is Dennis chased off a friend's yard with a leaf
blower? And what's in that mysterious package his late father left him?"
"Adrift in a Mid-Life Melodrama" switches gears, swapping the studied,
realistic approach of "Drop Ceiling" for a distorted, cartoony style:
acurious effect for a curious story about obsession, sculpture, and TNT. The
third feature, "Masochism," looks like it was done by a completely different
artist. The dark, bold details distance this story-in both subject matter
and appearance-from typical Bertozzi fare (if there is such a thing). It's
the tale of a beguiling, post-apocalyptic poetry slam, laced with traces of
mythology and existential hoodoo. Maybe.
RUBBER NECKER never wastes a breath on exposition. You must steer through it
on your own; wrestling with its complex relationships, marveling at its
triumphs, puzzling over its mysteries. Kind of like stargazing. But the
universe doesn't fit on your bookshelf.
Reviewed by Ross Alvord
RUBBER NECKER #1
Alternative Comics. 32 pp. $3.50.
Nick Bertozzi