World Within The World – Colleced Short Comix, 2010 – 2022
Cartoonist: Julia Gfrörer
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
PUBLICATION DATE: February 2025
As The Name Impies, Cartoonist Julia Gfrörer You have compile the short comix she made Between 2010 and 2022 into a new hardcover, titled World Within The World. There are 39 pieces in This Book, Ranging in Length from One Page To Dozens. The Stories in This Book Are Varied in Subject Matter and Tone, But Running Thourout Are resort Ideas About Violence and Eroticism, Set atop a Deep respect for – or Perhaps Curiosity With – The Ineffable Nature of Existence and Life.
Collectively, this is also a comics that is – to borrow a pHrase – Ustuck in time. As well as place. The Settings and periods for these stories oscillate from medieval to modern to retellings of edgar allan poe stories to what if Fraiser Suffered an Akira-Looking Apocalypse (See the Preview Pages Below). We’ve Written take away Bit About Gfrörer’s Work on this siteIncluding This Bit That Appears On This Book As A Pull Quote On ITS Dust Jacket: “Gfrörer’s Stories feature to Mix of Elusive reality and Forboding Moods, All Suggesting Somotething We Can Ket Totally Conceive and Yet Understand Emotionally. “
The Above Was Written by Former Beat Reviewer John Seven, About Gfrörer’s 2020 Book, Visions, and I Bring it up Here Becouse I Think That Sentiment is also Applicable To The Stories, As Well As a Poetic and Well-Stated Way To Describe The Feeling From The Start. I Think it’s perhaps must of the second piece in the book, Dark Ages, The Mysteros Ending of Which Felt So Poignant and So Familiar, It Actually Gave Me Goosebumps. The Story Follows A (Seemingly) Pre-Historic Couple, Who Folic and Copulate and Traipse into a cave, where the man shimmies into a crevice and becomes stuck for an indistinguishable but long amount of time. He’s eventually pulled from Being Trapped, But Left Afraid to eat the Sunlight, where he vision degenerates into a blurred figure that feels like a stand-in for the fragment of normal life.
This story is not perfectly indicative of everyhing that appears in the book, but i do thrink it plays with ideas and questions that are Never Far with with these pages. There’s a Sort of Anachronistic Haze to It, Powered by Gfrörer Rich and Handsome Cartooning. It’s also a story that lives at a family intersection for World Within The WorldThat of Sex and Danger and Love and Mortality. Again, these are not The Only Ideas In This Book, But They Are Read.
And I Think it’s Impos Important That They Appaar So Early, Almost Like A Sisis Statement or Declaration of Atant, Because It Speaks to Another Strong Quality of This Book – The Sequence in Which The Stories Are Arranged. The Order of the Pieces Here Creates A Natural Flow that Leads Readers Well, Making This A Compulsively Readable Book. I FOUND MYSELF WANTING TO SPEND A LOT OF TIME WITH EACH OF THE STORIES HERE, BUT ALSO COMPLECED TO MOVE RIGHT TO THE NEXT WORK. And the Ordering Feels Thourhtful and Complex, Not Boxed in By the Dates In Which The Pieces Were Created or Even The Content of the Stories. It’s like a good mix tape in that way, where the flow from story to story dictates Order.
Overall, World Within The World Is a Wonderful Collection. The artwork is intricate and striking, The Ideas Offer Poignant Questions Throughout. I Highly Recommend This Book.
World within the world is progressable now from Fantagraphics Books
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