Albert and the Others (vuoden 2008 painos)

So I’ve made my way through most of Guy Delisle’s published corpus, and am now getting into his more obscure works. Hence Albert and the Others. This 2007 work is a collection of 26 wordless short comics, and they are definitely a lot weirder than I expected from his other stuff. Still on the fence if it’s good weird or just weird weird. Undeniably engaging, though.

The vignettes all make heavy use of cartoon physics, hammerspace, and surrealism, and in a way that’s way more ‘mind fuck’ than Looney Tunes. Many of the vignettes deal with relationships between men and women, often depicted in an extremely bizarre and unsettling manner. I assume a fair bit of it is a satirical critique of interpersonal relationships (particularly men’s pursuit of women), but it’s played without any kind of explicit commentary. It’s a little fascinating, I confess, given that almost none of this makes its way into his other works, like a specially-segmented compartment of his mind. Mechanically, the comics all do a very good job of telling concise stories, conveying extensive information without the need for text or detailed illustrations. It took me only about twenty minutes or so to get through them all, so if you’re feeling up for something different, well… ( )

Hilarious, unpredictable, and thoroughly original!

Two thumbs up!

In this male-oriented follow-up to Aline and the Others, Guy Delisle follows the previous pattern of wordless comics detailing the adventures of twenty-six alphabetically arranged protagonists. The individual stories are short and humorous, and just occasionally a little bit shocking. The book is a fun read, if not a particularly new take on a pattern that Delisle established in the previous volume. ( )