The Israeli comics collective Actus Tragicus demonstrates again their ability to charm and disturb. This effort presents the twisted ways people attempt to console themselves in the face of disappointment with life. Each slim, full-color volume in this boxed set showcases the work of one of the collective's five members. The gloomiest and most abstract of the series, Batia Kolton's We Are Seven, presents three sets of lyrics juxtaposed with eerie illustrations that subtly reinterpret the lyrics' themes. The protagonists of Mira Friedmann's Royal Sable
and Itzik Rennert's Pretenders
are destroyed by their own fears of worthlessness. In the first, a Czech tailor living in Tehran receives a commission to create a fur coat for the princess but loses confidence in his ability to create it. Meanwhile, his untalented sister indulges self-delusions of a film career. In Pretenders,
a bitter taxi driver fancies himself an artist and projects his desires onto a wealthy, high-powered career woman. Failing to live up to his artist fantasies, their relationship sours and in a surreal twist, he is forced to literally confront himself. Rutu Modan's comical The Panty Killer
presents a lighthearted treatment of a police investigation into a serial killer who, due to a trivial childhood trauma, pulls underwear over victims' heads. The most touching volume, Yirmi Pinkus's Crumpet Ladies, surveys the psychological states—loneliness, boredom, humiliation—of a series of older women. Each of these artists offers a unique visual pleasure, but taken together, their graphic novellas deliver an impressively concentrated collective vision of social anxiety. (Nov.)
