Straight off, one suspects from the plasticized matte cover and thick stock (and high price) that this comic has been built to last. And once again, as in all his work, Siris presents us with urban fables good for posterity. A bouncy comic-video (“to be read to a ska beat”) called “Eat Your Socks” whisks you into a world where characters with no money to buy food are drawn on empty paper bags. Siris’s rooster, his main character, bounces off welfare at the end of the strip to end up stocking a buffet at some crappy restaurant. Next strip finds him working as a babysitter, which works out better despite the gruesome deaths of several kids. As usual each story has a unique framing device, with the panels outlined in bad plumbing, placed on billboards, set into doorways through which characters walk to other panels from, etc. The playfulness and the cartoonish rendering of the characters contrasts interestingly with the subject matter: a transvestite whore is beaten up by the cops and later found dead on the street by his wife; a middle-aged welfare couple devote their sordid lives to the bottle, patrolling the neighborhood on garbage day to find stuff they can sell at the junkshop; and lastly, the rooster returns to take vengeance on his loud pet-infested neighborhood by processing and canning each individual animal, leaving them on their owners’ doorsteps. As usual, it’s a pleasure to read the work of an established comic artist in full command of the form. It’s also fun to get a laugh out of such a pitiful portrait of our urban existence. (LR)
#2 , French, comic / main creator: Siris / $6 plus $2 post. / 1510 Aylwin, Montreal, Que. H1W 3B7