Lone Pilgrim and Orochi Pilgrim

By David Blandy and Daniel Locke
www.daniellocke.com

Saturday: I photocopy some zines, I walk around town, I go into an art gallery. Oh that's cool, this artist has made action figures of himself, and created a fighting game staring himself, and made some comic books about himself (or his various alter egos). Neat.

Sunday: Maybe I should read this comic I got like a year ago. Oh wait, that name looks familiar. Ah, I see it was written by the guy who did that art show yesterday. Wait, what? That's a kind of strange coincidence. Especially as I got the comics in different cities, bought one directly from the artist (who is different from the artist of the other two comics), and have never met the writer. Still, it was bound to happen eventually I guess.

The comic is a discussion of philosophy, the meaning of life, and the way of the samurai. It's kind of strange as the characters mostly just walk through a garden and discuss various ideas like the concept of Mu, the idea that reality is an illusion, and similar things. It's probably a bit hard to understand if you don't have some familiarity with East Asian philosophy, though there's an amusing bit of self reference when a character says "Those things that are easily understood are rather shallow."

Locke does a pretty good job of illustrating the many pages of talking heads, though I wouldn't have minded a few more backgrounds. His art style isn't particularly Lone Wolf and Cub-like, but he uses some Japanese styles, and it's all perefectly fine for the type of story being told.

Why'd I just mention Lone Wolf and Cub? Well the comic is designed to look like the Lone Wolf and Cub volmes that Dark Horse put out a few years ago. There's even a neat little glossery in the back like they had! It's a really nice homage to a pretty rad comic series, and it's amusing to see a glossery that switches between discussing aspects of Japanese Buddhism with describing characters from '90s fighting games.