Uptight #5

By Jordan Crane. Published by Fantagraphics.

Softcover, 112 pages, B&W and 2-Colour, 2016. 

A disappearing girlfriend and an outer space repairman populate this solo cartoonist anthology, drawn in a way the evokes mid-century Modern design movements such as Bauhaus, Constructivism, and neoplasticism.

In this 80-page volume, Jordan Crane draws us in with two gripping and wrenching stories, one of the mundane, and the other of the fantastic. First, there is "Keeping Two." William's girlfriend goes missing during a trip to the supermarket, and he must look down the long dark narrow tunnel that his life will become without her. He is reading a book, but the book doesn't help, and indeed feeds his anxieties, rendering his loss in starkly contrasting lines. The second story, "Discovering the Dark," is 26 pages and drawn with two colors. Akihiro Akaike is employed as a repairman aboard an asteroid mining ship in the year 2033. In his spare time, he is an amateur astrophysicist, and a discovery he makes drives him steal supplies and a company ship in order to make a clandestine 7-month voyage. However, when the mining operation discovers his plans, he is forced into a rapidly deteriorating set of probabilities.

"The work of an artist of great confidence who's finding new and interesting ways to tell comics stories." — Slate

"Interesting not merely on the strength of the work, but because of the alacrity with which Jordan Crane approaches the presentation of his material. This is a novel format, and the glossy-magazine presentation frames the stories in an interesting way. It feels like a substantial chunk of reading while also seeming like a bargain." — The A.V. Club