Dressing - Hardcover

DeForge, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1927668220 ISBN 13: 9781927668221

Publisher: Koyama Press, 2015

Synopsis

Michael DeForge makes comics like no one else. This collection of the cartoonist's mini-comics, zines, anthology work, and more, is a follow up to the award-winning Very Casual, and shows the artist at the height of his occasionally fever-induced powers.

A prolific artist who is constantly producing work in a variety of media, DeForge is a designer and storyboard artist on the Emmy Award-winning show Adventure Time. One can see hints of that show's house style filtered through the Lynchian landscapes and otherworldly vistas of DeForge's vision.

Michael DeForge currently lives and works in Toronto as a cartoonist, commercial illustrator, and designer for the hit Cartoon Network program Adventure Time. His one-person anthology series Lose has received great critical and commercial success, having been nominated for every major comics award including the Ignatz and Eisner Awards.

About this title

Review

The winner of the 2016 Doug Wright Award for Best Book

"Dressing is another crucial Koyama Press collection of DeForge's short stories from all over the place: minicomics, anthologies, etc." ― Rob Clough, High-Low

"Michael DeForge is one of the industry's most exciting cartoonists, largely because he puts out a huge amount of work that consistently pushes boundaries." ― Oliver Sava, A.V. Club

"The author's usual anxieties about our weird bodies have rarely been more eyeball-searing or uncomfortably funny." ― The Globe and Mail

"The diverse visual approaches to the stories―the drawings veer from borderline cutesy to squirmingly grotesque; some are told in conventional right-angled panels with word balloons, while others consist of full-page illustrations with a single block of text―attest to the depth of DeForge's formidable abilities." ― Gordon Flagg, Booklist

"Other worldly collection of short stories by Michael Deforge. For the person that thinks they have seen it all and have it all. False. Fool. Truly jaw-droppingly nutty images, stories and ideas. It's the gift that causes eyeballs to melt. Recommended." ― David, The Secret Headquarters

"DeForge's work is so different from anything else out there that it looks like it was made on another planet. Yet, it's the unexpected humanity―his keen observations and sense of humor―that is embedded in all the weirdness that makes his comics a must-read." ― Rich Barrett, mental_floss

"Like the best fairy tales, DeForge uses transformation and strange situations to enter a side door towards human cruelties and tendernesses, betrayals and quiet loyalties, and the confused paths through which we navigate our desires." ― Annie Mok, The Comics Journal

"Count DeForge among that class of literary trickster―Donald Barthelme or, heck, why not Kafka―whose bizarre, melancholic fancies map onto amorphous modern anxieties in ways that realist fiction could never imagine." ― Sean Rogers, The Globe and Mail

"[T]he heart of DeForge's body of work is in the struggle of his characters/creatures to evolve―physically, mentally, mystically, metaphorically―into something better positioned to survive the consumptive and uncaring character of nature." ― Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"What stands out about DeForge's work is its ability to connect with the reader on a very visceral, instinctive level. His commentary, often quite subtle, on the human condition―told through the frantic activities of deer, ants, misshapen rock stars, lonely teens, hypochondriacs, and a menagerie of other sympathetic grotesques―provoke and soothe in equal measure." ― Laura Sneddon, Publishers Weekly

"With DeForge, reality becomes a horror show not of blood and gore but of uncertainty...His stories of changing identity combined his existence-warping artwork make us question our own concept of self." ― Scott Cederlund, Panel Patter

"DeForge's comic universe reflects the dark corners of our real one, but ― sensitive and hopeful storyteller that he is ― he hasn't forgotten about the exuberance, wonder and happiness there either." ― Chris Hampton, The Toronto Star

"Toronto's comics arts scene is thriving, and young Michael DeForge, with his penchant for body horror and cute-meets-perverse aesthetic, is at its hub." ― Carla Gillis, Glenn Sumi, NOW Magazine

"DeForge's world is not for the squeamish. But it is one whose grotesqueries increasingly mirror, rather than distort, the mundane world with which we think we are familiar." ― Sean Rogers, The Globe and Mail

"One of the most exciting and unpredictable cartoonists working in comics, Michael DeForge has a unique perspective that juggles humor, tragedy, whimsy and horror to create unforgettable stories." ― Oliver Sava, Los Angeles Times

"Everything and everyone in his [DeForge's] drawings is dripping, bubbling and developing unsightly growths. He warps and dents the assured, geometrical forms of vintage newspaper strips and new wave-era graphics into oddly adorable horrors; his stories are prone to whiplash formal shifts." ― Douglas Wolk, The New York Times

"Prolific young Canadian-born avant-garde artist DeForge has become one of his generation's most admired cartoonists, and this is his first sizable collection. While often willfully unsettling, DeForge' work resonates on many levels." ― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“As they transform and lose their language and memories of earth, Deforge’s illustrations squiggle and ooze and run. We feel a calm in the face of inevitability, but that doesn’t make the change any less disorienting or sad.” ― Davey Davis, Lit Hub

About the Author

Michael DeForge currently lives and works in Toronto as a cartoonist, commercial illustrator and designer for the hit Cartoon Network program Adventure Time. His one-person anthology series Lose has received great critical and commercial success, having been nominated for every major comics award including the Ignatz and Eisner Awards.

About this edition

• Publisher: Koyama Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1927668220
• ISBN 13: 9781927668221
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 120