The Lonesome Go

Lane’s (Abandoned Cars) glorious intricate panegyric of American wanderlust may be comics in its purest form. In several short, punchy stories, he spins visual and verbal tales of hobos, grifters, estranged exes, and other wanderers through abandoned fun houses, and motor inns, with lurid sex and hallucinatory episodes. Lane’s subtle and meticulous merging of art and words displays the full range of his skill, offering bleak no-moral tales and sour vignettes that build on the experience and mythology of traveling the darker paths of the road. The yarns aren’t pleasant or feel-good, but studying individual panels of tortured figures and well-balanced shading reveals a greater beauty behind them. The wide range of art styles that Lane draws upon throughout the different chapters contributes to the book’s gritty realism, and several memorably bleak sequences are reminiscent of the deepest, darkest film noir. Lane is one of those rare comics storytellers who understands and deftly captures the lure of the road and memorably portrays America’s seedy underbelly. (Oct.)