A comiXologist Recommends:
Leah Wishnia recommends Harold
In a time in which many comics seem to strive for a slick and colorful exterior, each page densely packed with calculated, witty one-liners, and every shade of the color-wheel represented in all its Photoshopped glory, a quieter, more nuanced work like “Harold” comes along and reminds us that comics, the wonderfully malleable medium that they are, can still be brilliant and attention-grabbing without all the excess.
“Harold,” Antoine Cossé’s fourth or fifth long-form comic published in the last year, starts off with several full-panel pages of silent observation. We see the silhouette of a dog running in the distance, contrasted against an array of vast mountainous landscapes, black on white, white on black, and so on. As the comic panels progress and multiply, the single silhouette of the dog turns into a herd of silhouettes, running onwards through each frame of Cossé’s continued world of silence. It’s a quiet that further tunes us into the subtle, unspoken visual elements of each page. As trees sway in the wind behind the running herd, one can almost hear their leaves rustling along with the patter of each dog’s footstep. As the herd moves on past our field of vision, the frame slowly zooms in on a dominant structure in the distance, eventually focusing in on the narrative’s main characters standing within it, famous movie star J.1137, and his mysterious, all-knowing bodyguard, Harold. And with that, the story unfolds.
Like Antoine Cossé’s other recent comic works, “Harold” is poetically enigmatic and surreal in its tone and general approach; one must read between the panels in order to fully realize the true meaning behind the narrative. With delicate and deliberately inked forms, brush strokes, and light washes, Cossé’s line work is a visual treat, likewise serving as an aid to help digest and interpret some of the social commentary that has been quietly inserted into the overarching, pseudo-futuristic, semi-dystopian, and occasionally psychotropic narrative that Cossé has created. Fans of comic works such as The Backwards Folding Mirror by Jesse Moynihan (Alternative Comics), Luv Sucker by Charles Forsman (Oily Comics) or MA by Matt Huynh (self-published, via submit) could easily fall in love with “Harold” and Cossé’s multitude of other small-press titles, as could a reader less familiar with the comics form, even those of a more abstract and poetic nature such as Cossé’s.
I’ve been keeping an eye on Antoine Cossé’s progress as an artist and cartoonist for a few years, having seen his work go from relative obscurity to greater demand and recognition in the alternative comics community. With that, I am personally elated to see his work finally available on ComiXology’s digital platform, for it means a much wider audience will be able to enjoy his enthralling visual narratives as he continues to flourish. Take the leap and try Harold!
Leah Wishnia is a digital assets specialist at ComiXology, and a working artist and cartoonist based in NYC.
