Misinterpreted Complications Book Four

By Nick Souček
miscomp.wordpress.com

In one or two panels per page Souček tells brief stories that are described as “autobiography of imagination”. Did these events happen? Some of them did, presumably, but maybe not in the way they are portrayed here (ie. I don’t think Souček sat in a tree singing songs while wearing a bird beak, though I kind of hope he did).

The stories are rather bleak and existential. They deal with angst, rejection, loneliness, and loss. My two favourites were probably the one about falling out of love (brutal!), and the one about being a robot and shutting down your systems until someone compatible came alone.

Souček’s artwork isn’t the most detailed. Yet the blank backgrounds, and emotion- and feature-less characters only help to create a sense of isolation and sadness in the stories and the reader.

Overall the stories made me feel kind of crappy because they’re expressing a lot of feelings that I deal with (I’m going to be alone forever *sob*), but this should be seen as a good point of Souček’s work, as he manages to tap into these feelings that presumably (hopefully) many people feel.

Souček also contributes to the rather rad Boneshaker Magazine, which is really nicely put together and definitely worth checking out if you're into bicycles.