REINCARNATION STORIES - KIM DEITCH

The library is back open so I’m able to do things like grab Deitch comics on the fly. Deitch is someone I’ve enjoyed for a while, he comes out of the weirdo 60’s milieu that produced R. Crumb and others, but since the early 2000’s he’s channeled that sensibility into longer, complicated graphic novels that frequently play with the space between reality and comic and creates a sort of alternate comics universe, a la Marvel. If you’ve read his other stuff, especially BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS, you should be familiar with Waldo, his Felix the Cat like cat character who is actually an ancient demon who torments comics writers. Waldo is here, as is “Kim Deitch” the character who now has even more overlap with the real Kim Deitch, to a truly disorienting degree. For instance, the book mentions dozens of real celebrities and situations in Deitich’s life, such as his time at the East Village Other and a recent bout with some sort of degenerative eye disease, but then mixes them up with fictional, parallel histories, like ones in which Deitich is beyond successful and has opened a multi-story toy museum for kids. These toy museum pages are in super bright saturated colors, which is a bit unusual for Deitch, who I associate with masterful black and white drawings. The layout of the book is also unique and master-level. There’s minimal “panels” in the book, most pages are large splash pages that are navigated by text in arrows that show you how to read it. This allows Deitch to show off his insane drafting skills that partly capture the sort of early cartoon feel of Felix the Cat or Betty Bop or Steamboat Willy but also really lean into the underground psychedelic comix look that he help invent in the 60’s. The story itself is what the title suggests. Deitch is trying to unlock the secrets of his past lives, both his human ones and the occasional monkey past life. As you can imagine, the story folds in on itself and recurs and calls back to early episodes constantly. Like I said, the demonic Waldo, who features quite heavily in his other work, shows up and adds more layers of meta-complications. The last few chapters of the book are titled things like, “Who is Jack Hoxie?” “or, “Who was Spain Rodriguez?” that seek to add in some “real” biographical details about characters who feature in his fictional narrative, even if these details are being delivered, in the Spain case, by time-travelling hyper-evolved cats from the future. Very weird stuff. I liked this as much as I’ve like any other Deitch, he’s really on a late career roll and appears to have total mastery of comix. I’m especially fond of his hyper rich color pages, I hope the next comic is all in color. 1885 past lives.