ONE MORE YEAR- SIMON HANSELMANN

I’ve been a fan of Megg, Mogg and Owl for a while, since I saw it in Vice. Since I now live in Seattle, I’ve seen Hanselmann at some events and I was excited to see this new book at the library (c’mon Fantagraphics, $40 for this thing is steep). It delivers. Megg, Mogg and Owl gets darker, if that’s possible, since the last book contained an amazing panel where Megg’s depression is depicted as huge faces manifesting out of her walls and pouring some sort of black inky slime out of their mouths, flooding the room. Hanselmann can pivot from that sort of stuff (like, in this book, Mogg asking if they can live in “drug-world” forever and Megg saying, sadly, “one more year”) to goofy/gross stoner antics (which are often dark and sad, look at Werewolf Jones’ children) to backstory that fills in the relationships between these witches and wizards and owls and werewolves. I like how Hanselmann shows how depression can not only make one pitiable but also a real dick to people, both on purpose and inadvertently. I like Megg and Mogg’s codependency, they come off as very broken. This thing is great. 5 joints.