Woods

Woods is a book I picked up from the same Kickstarter campaign I got Eddie's Week. I had really enjoyed the author's prior book Monkey Chef, and I was eager to see what his new work was like. Whereas that book, and most of Mike Freiheit's other comics work has been autobiographical, this book is a work of fiction. Woods is one of the creepier books I have read of late, and I mean that as a compliment. It's a subtle horror story that combines current events with mental health concerns, mixed with some basic archetypes of scary fiction.

The main characters in this book are Jason and Beth. Beth experiences a mental break after the presidential election of 2016, paranoid about the state of the world and the hate/misogyny she sees everywhere. After convalescing, she and her husband Jason decide to sublet their apartment and move to a cabin in the woods. Jason has a dark complexion (and is meant to be African-American, I think, though it's not explicitly stated), which brings him unwanted attention from the rural locals. They make "jokes," but they also seem menacing. 

All of these aspects coalesce into a terrible scenario. Jason begins to suspect slight instances of sabotage to their land. Beth may or may not be taking her meds faithfully, or perhaps they are not effective. Add to this mix a cold winter, a faulty generator, and an unreliable truck, and what you have is a horrific scene. 

What I admired most about this book was how it establishes a tone of unease and terror through it's raw-feeling artwork and small cracks in the veneer. Beth's descent into paranoia is at once slow and then sudden, and the clues have been dotted along all the while. The artwork indicates these shifts with its use of black and white and a spectrum of lines that run from relatively smooth to more frenetic and jarring. The ways that the local animals are depicted in the background, environment, and also interacting with the main characters add nuance and menace. Overall, I think this book is very effective in creating an ominous tone that touches on horror both in contemporary and classic ways.

The reviews I have read about this book have been positive. Publishers Weekly wrote that he "achieves a claustrophobic sense of threats from both inside and out. Freiheit disconcertingly draws readers into paranoia in this cooped-up cabin fever–dream." John Seven stated, "Freiheit’s artwork in Woods mirrors the frantic nature of the situation the couple is in — stark black and white, sometimes scratchy as if the sanity of the panels are fraying along with Beth and Jason’s perception of the world around them." Ryan C. wrote that "this book excels at making you think. About where we are as a society, how we got here, how or even if we can possibly get out."

 Woods was published by Birdcage Bottom Books, and they offer a preview and more here.

Monkey Chef: A Love Story

I first became aware of this book from a Kickstarter campaign for Kilgore Books and Comics, where I did pitch in to buy a bunch of issues of Noah Van Sciver's Blammo. The title and concept were intriguing, but I was short on funds for getting other books. I was happily surprised when I saw the book and author at HeroesCon this summer tabling right next to my pal Patrick Dean. I bought the book, read it that weekend, and told Mike Freiheit in really awkward ways that (spoiler) I enjoyed it.

Monkey Chef is an autobiographical tale about a man who is looking for ways to escape a dead-end job and also figure out life and love. When the book opens he is in a job he does not really care for, and he's also struggling to date women. Ironically, he meets a really wonderful woman right before he commits to go to South Africa for a year to work at a primate sanctuary. Still, he goes and during that year he learns a lot about himself.

His primary job at the sanctuary is to prepare food for the various monkeys as well as for his fellow co-workers. Over time he really gets to know the monkeys' behaviors and develops some favorites. He also makes lots of observations about how primate behavior relates to what humans do, too. All of these observations come into play when Mike struggles with maintaining a long-distance relationship, dealing with the various travelers who cycle in and out, and just figuring out what it means to be masculine in today's society. I very much appreciated his candor and introspection throughout this book. I also liked how he also inserted humor into all of his ruminations, like you can see in the excerpt below.

In the end, I felt that this was a compelling and thoughtful graphic novel, well rendered in terms of art and story. I loved the overall atmosphere of the narrative, which is conveyed with the muted, cool colors throughout. I also found much to relate to in terms of my own growing up and figuring out the various relationships in my life. I am sorry that I did not get this book sooner, but I am very glad that I got to get it directly from the author, who was also gracious enough to sign my copy.

Mike Freiheit originally published Monkey Chef as a series of mini-comics. In addition to making comics, he helps organize The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) and teaches at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He speaks more about his work on Monkey Chef in this interview.

I was not able to find many reviews of this book online, but Rob Clough wrote about two of the original mini-comics for The Comics Journal. He wrote that he very much appreciated how the story was told, not so much in straight-forward, chronological fashion, but "Freiheit's approach is a more artful one, juxtaposing different events against each other in interesting ways."

Monkey Chef was published by Kilgore Books & Comics, and you can see more about it here. There is also a sizable excerpt of it available here from The Comics Journal.