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Book Review: Boris Robot of Leisure, Vol. 3 & 4. By Katharine Miller

ROL Vol. 3: Boris Gets A Visitor
ROL Vol. 4: Boris Takes A Nap
By Katharine Miller
Vol. 3 – 101 pages, Vol. 4- 98 pages.
http://www.robotofleisure.com

Well, it’s been almost a year since I read a Bot’ O’ Leisure book and, since author Katharine Miller officially became Canada’s Own Katharine Miller yesterday, I thought I’d celebrate with a quick review the latest of Boris’ offerings. I’ve writen quite a bit about my admiration of Miller’s work already. I gush about her styalistic ellegence here, and spend a lot of time trying to make myself sound smart in phylosophy here. But you clicked this link looking for a short book review, and probably don’t want to ramble over an extra thousand words of my writing, so let me summarize thusly: Boris is sort of a newspaper strip about about The Jetsons as re-imagined by Samuel Beckett. I think that’s a fair discription of the little robot with whom the early twentieth century, Irish nihilist in me first fell in love, and the latest volumes of Miller’s text-less, cartoon series continue in this same, excellent philosophical vein; exploring simply, and usefully the profound joys and sadnesses associated with mundane activity.

In Boris Gets A Visitor, our hero tries, rather unsuccessfully, to impart some of his accumulated wisdom to another of his kind. The story shares the moral of Herman Hess’ Siddhartha, that while many things can be explained, nothing can ever be taught. In Boris Takes A Nap,  our robot has grown board with the common endeavors that once thrilled him, and expands his conscious experience into the realm of impossible dreams. Miller is once again using the perfect absurdity of her adorable robot to explore a fundamental truth of the human condition; in this case, that it is impossible for the normal mind to remain joyfully focused on its true circumstance.

“All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.”

-Yoda, Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back.

Thankfully, Miller also realises, in these newer works, that she has already been leaning on her cute cartoons and philosophical dexterity for two hundred pages. While ROL 1 and 2 were both deeply enjoyable experiences, she wasn’t going to get much more mileage (actually, given that she’s a citizen now, let’s say Kilometerage) out of the character without introducing a more exciting, and perhaps more literary, external conflict. She’s solved this problem beautifully, by introducing an element that my aforementioned hero Beckett spent his entire career deliberately avoiding, back-story.

The absence of all senescent life in the Boris universe was something I had been taking for granted. I was passively curious about it. I made a few casual guesses about what might have happened to all the people, but I’d seen Endgame, I knew that it didn’t mater. The end of the world, I thought, was not the story, simply a necessary stage for the performance of it. It seem, however, that I was wrong. I am shocked, awed and sincerely excited (as I suppose Boris must be) discover some clues. Not only clues to the mystery of Boris’ existence, but possibly clues to the mystery the ghost town where he resides. I’m all a tingle to think that Boris, the robot with human drives and yearnings, may be about to uncover an answer to one of the most fundamental human questions: Where Do I Come From?

Please read all of Miller’s books, and join me, in hot anticipation of the upcoming ROL. 5: Boris Meets His Maker.

Merry Christmas!!!

From Wooden Rocket Press

Review: Freelance Blues issues 3 & 4

FREELANCE BLUES

by Ian Daffern and Mike Leone. Art by Vicki Tierney
Issue  3 – 26pg; Issue 4 – 26pg
Available at freelanceblues.com

You get up, you go to work. You expect little change, and if one or two interesting things happen, it makes your day exciting, or terrible, or perfect. For Lance, the monster-fighting everyman at the heart of Freelance Blues, fighting terrifying monsters is the routine, and having expectations shattered is somewhat the norm. For a book series that is rapidly approaching its conclusion, I began to wonder before cracking open Issue 3 how many more surprises Daffern and Leone had up their sleeves.

Where we last left Lance Bunkman he was on his way across the country to be with his grandfather and two sisters, whom he supports with a string of low-pay freelance jobs that invariably end with him fighting some giant insect, or yeti, or zombie, or army of bewitched garden gnomes, or… well, you get the idea. The character is a little tired, and hurt, but there’s a heart behind every conversation he makes to the girls back home and you never question what brings him to get back to work the next day. Lance is as likable as ever, and Daffern and Leone have hit their stride in writing his bizarre circumstances as though they were the most normal in the world.

What didn’t strike me in my first review and hits me broadly in the face now is just how much these two guys can get done in 26 pages. They’ve boiled the Freelance Blues story machine to such a degree of acceptable lunacy that they can get away with launching right in to stranger and stranger encounters almost immediately, and still have time to flesh out the personal relationships between Lance and his twin sisters.

I want to say that Issue 3 offers the least interesting monster encounter to date, but I can’t fault the guys for a seemingly bottomless reservoir of originality. As issues of FLB continue, I’m sure they’ll eventually hit some classic-horror cliche that maybe doesn’t please everyone, but each iteration is always presented within a hilarious and original enough framework that shows that these guys really know their way around a monster story. Issue 4 makes up for any lapse of interest for this reviewer by exploring the monstrous possibilities of a Kobe beef ranch that lets patrons “experience the life of a cow.” Yeah, just let that one take you.

Vicki Tierney’s art is on point as always, offering some of the most exciting multi-panel work I have ever seen in an independent comic. In these issues we get to see more of Lance’s family and his trademark sneer and jawline shows its lineage, giving me a sense that Vicki is no mere hired gun, and she cares enough about her panels to fine-tune every expression.

The shining moments of FLB3 &4 are the brief-but-beautiful interactions Lance has with his sisters in phone conversations cut short, or looking at maps of jobs they have plotted out for him all across the continental U.S.A., bringing the relationship to such genuine and sweet focus that I can’t help but think “what a nice thing for them to do.” A monologue mid-issue 4 that wedges all of Bunkman’s job-hate into an just-ill-fitting-enough-to-be-charming Hamlet homage reminds us that the guy is not just family-oriented, and has enough personal layers that the fact that he keeps on these job quests is a stronger testament to his character than any narrator could have offered.

My only moment of fatigue happened in between FLB3 & 4, when I realized that a pre-determined list of part time jobs could lead to a lot of episodic repetition. Lance’s sudden appearance on a cattle farm made me lose touch for only a moment, as I was hoping for more of the driving, more of the phone calls, the in-between stuff that really shines.

While it would be a crime for FLB to become a series of one-issue monster gags, the labels on the front page remind me constantly that Daffern and Leone know what they’re doing. Each of these is an issue of 6, and every step brings us a little closer to understanding what it is that forces Lance to always be employed by the forces of evil (a mystery the twins start exploring that really got me excited). While the tone of this review may seem a little middle-ground, you must remember that I can’t look at FLB as stand-alone books anymore, because it is definitely a book that will standout as a strong, complete work when it is finished, with each page keeping you feeling anything but routine.