Jesusmaryandjoseph are there ANY American indie comic creators who had a decent or even normal childhood? Joshua W. Cotter’s fascinating and nightmarish graphic novel Skyscrapers of the Midwest is, first and foremost, 300 (exquisitely packaged) pages of misery and angst. But what beautifully rendered and riveting misery and angst it is.
A deftly woven tapestry of ostensibly autobiographical early-adolescent pain, Skyscrapers is a compellingly structured series of short vignettes and lively stylistic detours (some of them deeply surreal) all relating to the central story of a young social outcast living a dark, tortuous existence with his family in an unnamed mid-western state.
It all sounds basic enough, and a quick glance uncovers a few common modern indie comic tropes: anthropomorphized main characters, robots, awkward and scarring nerd experiences, different styles of comic art, superheroes, black humor. But Skyscrapers is anything but straightforward and/or cliched. Cotter, an immensely talented and thoughtful artist, presents everything so skillfully, economically, and with such bleak but sympathetic honesty that the book rises far, far above the other heavily Ware-inspired work out there. In short, Cotter trusts himself to show and not tell, and some of the more heavy-handed moments are nicely offset by a deep, genuine weirdness that may be Cronenberg inspired.
Either way, it’s the most impressive debut in a long, long while.
