Adversary

Delliquanti (Across a Field of Starlight) delivers a thoughtful and tense graphic novella about the uneasy sexual relationship between Curtis, a newly out 50-something self-defense teacher, and his former student, who has since their last encounter transitioned to the male gender. The story is set in spring 2021 Minneapolis, amid the lingering threat of Covid and the fallout from the murder of George Floyd. The former student, Anton, approaches Curtis in a bar, buys him a drink, and entices him into reenacting familiar self-defense role-playing exercises as consensual adult sex scenes. But Anton is cagey about his motivations and Curtis begins to chafe: “Why does every question you ask me feel like a test?” Eventually, secrets and sorrows are revealed. Anton sums up a central theme—the unknowability of others and the roles people play, consciously and unconsciously, in relationships—in his response to Curtis’s question: “Every interaction is a test of what reality the other person lives in. If we can trust each other.” Delliquanti shows a nuanced hand when it comes to character development, infusing Curtis’s and Anton’s role-playing scenes with sharp eroticism. They also ably capture the streets of Minneapolis through small details (graffiti; shop signs), evoking a city that—like these two protagonists—still grapples with multiple traumas. This complex work rewards multiple readings. (Mar.)