Crash Site
Crash Site
By Nathan Cowdry. Published by Fantagraphics.
Hardcover, 130 pages, Colour, 2021.
A black comedy of high order, this debut graphic novel doubles as a psychological drama set in the heart of the Amazon jungle and featuring an absurdist cast of drug traffickers — including a young woman, a codependent talking dog, and an anthropomorphic pair of sociopathic underwear.
Crash Site, the debut graphic novel from British cartoonist Nathan Cowdry, is the story of Rosie, a young drug trafficker who uses her lovelorn talking dog, Denton, to mule drugs across international lines. When Rosie and Denton's return flight to England goes down and they find themselves stranded in the Amazon basin (with fifty grand worth of coke in Denton's stomach), well, getting busted becomes the least of their concerns as they try to find their way out. Did we mention that Rosie is also wearing a pair of anthropomorphic underwear she calls Pants Dude, and that he may have other plans for her and Denton?
Crash Site is a darkly funny, character-driven graphic novel that calls to mind the sense of humor of Simon Hanselmann, with a Tarantino-level appetite for gratuitous acts of sex and violence and use of flashbacks to allow the story to unfold. Cowdry's confident storytelling skills, attractive artwork, and sense of comedic timing makes Crash Site a winning recipe for fans of adult humor.
"Blood sprays, hearts break, and anthropomorphic underwear denies that the Holocaust ever happened in this dark, absurdly funny, and graphically violent thriller." — Library Journal