Couch Tag

Jesse Reklaw

Fantagraphics, 2013, 192 pages

Jesse Reklaw’s graphic memoir, told through conceits like cat histories and card games, is about his childhood and involves family, death, mental illness, sex and drug use. 

Veteran alternative cartoonist Jesse Reklaw, creator of the long-running weekly comic strip Slow Wave, delivers this tragicomic graphic memoir, his first long-form work. Presented as a series of comic novellas that together comprise a thoughtful, sometimes dark and often hilarious memoir about childhood, family, death, mental illness, sex and drug use, the entire book is told through cleverly inviting conceits like cat histories and card games. The graphic novel is told in five parts: In “Thirteen Cats” (featured in The Best American Comics), Reklaw discovers coping mechanisms that mimic his family pets; “Toys I Love” relates the author’s pre-pubescent brushes with deviant sexual activity, and the way innocence converges with real sexual trauma; “The Fred Robinson Story” tells the story of Reklaw’s period stalking perfect strangers; “The Stacked Deck,” in which hereditary influences towards criminal behavior, drug use and depression are explored via card games the author played with his family; and “Lessoned,” a family history of mental illness. Black & white throughout.