LEAVING RICHARD’S VALLEY - MICHEAL DEFORGE

Unsurprisingly, the Seattle Public Library has a pretty hip and current comix selection. I have to assume that the job to buy comix for the SPL is a very coveted and hard to get job. Very prestigious. Therefore, I ran into this when I was wandering around the library during a rainy lunch. I work downtown now and I like to meander around aimlessly on my lunch break, tho the climate in Seattle can complicate that during the DarkWetCold. Irregardless, I’ve made my way through most of the DeForge but didn’t even know about this, the newest joint. DeForge is amazing, top 10 living and creating for sure. He also worked on AdventureTime so he’s approaching young god status. This book definitely adds to his legacy. Initially, I was drawn to DeForge because of the art and the colors. His style is so unique and specific, and it seemed to me to arrive basically fully formed. The stories were always crazy and far-out, which I love, but not the most important part. This book flips that. The art is still unique and specific, it is certainly DeForge and DeForge alone, it’s more paired back and simple than his other work. Fewer big splash panels, all the characters are drawn simply, almost abstractly (raccoons are drawn as large hearts, there are large sections drawn on mostly black panels, etc.) and most shocking, there is no color. I understand that this was published a daily comic, almost all of them are four panel strips that wouldn't be out of place in a newspaper, so coloring them all, especially in the lush and thoughtful and innovative way that DeForge colors, isn’t really feasible. That all being said, he makes up for it with this with a deeper commitment to plot and character and theme. The book is about a group of animals, squirrels and spiders and racoons, etc., who live in a sort of silvian paradise lead by a beautiful shirtless human named Richard. There’s all sorts of weird cult-y rules and traditions. As you can probably gather from the title, some of the animals run afoul of the rules and are banished. They then try to start a new life in Toronto proper (towards the end of the book it’s made clear that we’re in Toronto and the valley of the title is somewhere in Hyde Park) where they deal with modern life. Like most DeForge it’s mostly whimsical and fun, though this book is more connected to real world issues than his early stuff. There’s great stuff about Gentrification (DeForge really does well drawing those “proposed use” billboards that we also have in Seattle to signify a condo is coming), art (specifically noise music, which is also very Seattle), religions and cults, friendship and revenge. Made me wish I did more cartooning and it made me hope that DeForge goes back to color. 6 Valleys.