A grim read about what technology, progress, and revolution mean at the end of history. We follow a civil servant who works within a society where small screens are personally catering to every individual, bureaucracy exists to ignore you, and everything is constantly in a state of disarray. They work at the complaint department, where they view automated memories of people having filed their complaints to the state. The POV char does not act on the complaints: that is for the automated state to do. They merely bear witness to their suffering–or mundanity. As revolutionaries begin to seize levers of power, they begin to bring poetic justice to an otherwise “efficient” world.
All of this is through the framing device of a character trying to find their partner after they are left behind. Though the figures are inhuman and silly, the affection and enmity between the POV char and their partner is extremely affecting.
The cartoonist tells the story generally through a four panel grid, peppered with a few “splash” pages and the triangular-paneled B&W complaint sequences. The world’s aforementioned state of disarray is told through frenetic drawings of characters, streets, computer screens all morphing. The screens that the characters are looking at are constantly flashing lights and opening new windows. It’s a world of sensory and emotional overload.
A sardonic take on the confusing and terrible place we’re at. While the contents of this world seem opaque and tough to understand, the feel of our own is there. DeForge does not prescribe an antidote to our sickness, but he expresses the ailment masterfully. Some laughs in here, but it generally made me feel anxious. Great stuff.
