Blue Block – Review

It’s too bad so many excellent comics from smaller or independent publishers aren’t better known because there are so many forgotten or buried gems out there. Blue Block from Kitchen Sink Press is one of these buried, forgotten gems and it’s also one of the best one-shot comics that I have read.

In just 32 short pages, Scott Deschaine and Jim Woodring weave two interlinked tales (with the same protagonist) that, at first glance, seem totally unrelated but are symbolically linked. One is a simple fable, told mostly through images, of a man trying to free a cat whose head is stuck inside a broken glass bottle. The other is a somewhat bizarre, cartoonish, dystopian sci-fi story starring the same man.

Both stories are really about freedom and liberation and thereby linked. I read this comic when it first came out and didn’t really understand the point. I just thought it was an exercise in surrealism. When I read it again just recently, the message was glaringly obvious and I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been when I was younger to miss it.  I was even oddly moved as while these are stories of liberation, they don’t go about the theme in the usual, obvious ways.

This is one of the harder to find indie comics from the past. But if you can find it, and you appreciate quality comics that aren’t about superheroes, get it. [subscribe2]