Red Eye, Black Eye

September 2001, New York City: in the space of a few days Jensen loses his girlfriend, his apartment, his job, his grandmother and a local landmark. He decides to buy an Ameripass on Greyhound and travel around America by bus for the next two months, staying with people he knows only via the Internet, in a bid to find himself... or at least the secret of life. Instead of any such easy tropes, Jensen finds "the common man" of today—an America of decent enough Gen-X and Gen-Y slackers. This graphic novel is mostly their little oddball stories—a woman whose co-worker wears her aborted fetus as a necklace; a childhood quest for Bigfoot that turns up a bum; a sloppy roommate from hell. Jensen's own quest is mostly a litany of uncomfortable bus rides and the constant need for a shower. His journey is portrayed as surprisingly mundane except for a surreal stop in a Southern town whose residents amuse themselves by pulling flaming sofas behind trucks. Jensen resists all attempts at sentimentality; similarly, the rough, blocky art makes no pretense at beauty for its own sake, but gets across these sympathetic, quirky tales with brisk efficiency. (Feb.)