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The Daily Compulsion #5
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August 2013 |
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| The Daily Compulsion #5, by Nathan Rice. This is a crude, powerful howl of a personal zine. Rice apologizes up front for the seven year (!) delay between issues, but the jumble of stories, diary strips, jokes, flashbacks and vignettes quickly susses out why: Rice was going through recovery for alcoholism, a process he's still clearly square in the middle of. Rice faces up to every demon imaginable in this comic without flinching, including suicide, the uneasy camaraderie found in rehab clinics, stultifying boredom, a loss of identity, abandoning friends because they were uncomfortable with his drinking and much more. It's all done in a slightly detached, jokey matter, which only serves to heighten the artist's sense of loneliness and isolation. Rice's linework is crude at best, but there's an undeniable power and energy to be found on his pages, especially in terms of how he draws himself. Rice's voice as an artist is distinctive and creates a fascinating tension between dwelling in the moments of his misery and feeling a million miles away from it at the same time. reviewed by Rob Clough for High-Low December 30, 2013 |
The Daily Compulsion #5 by Nathan Rice is comix mostly about alcohol and its effects. It's also somewhat about relationship pain and AA. I like the autobiographical-ness and the candor. It's interesting to learn about Rice's life. It's also sad. There's some humor here, like with the Alcoholic Anarchists Anonymous poster, but it's mostly sad. This zine gives me a sense of gratefulness that I don't have the types of problems the zine displays. I think it would be perfect for other people who struggle with alcohol addiction to feel like they're not alone. Rice handles these issues with skill, and I wish him all success in both the zine world and the larger world. reviewed by Laura-Marie for Laura-Marie's zine reviews September 16, 2013 |
How many daily diary strips do you think have existed in comics since James Kochalka started his? Granted, he wasn't the first person to do it ever, but that's what seemed to make it a "thing," so go with me on this one. Out of all of those diary strips, what do you think was the average strip number when the cartoonist did a strip about how they were sick of doing a daily strip? Nathan makes it #10 in this one, but he only did 11 strips, so at least he didn't drag it out like some people do. Has there ever been a daily diary strip where at least one of the strips wasn't about the creator being sick of making it? Hey internet, somebody out there must have far too much free time on their hands, get on this please! While we're waiting for the numbers to come in, how about I talk about this comic for a bit? This is Nathan's first book in 7 years, meaning that at least two of the strips show opinions that he no longer has (he mentions this in the intro). To me this raises the obvious question of why he bothered to include them at all, but if he's trying to show an accurate timeline of his life they do come in handy. The first disavowed strip deals with cocaine and how it has messed up different people in his life (which makes me wonder why he no longer stands by it, unless it's because of that silly conspiracy theory about the Clintons and coke on the last panel) and the second strip deals with why people really commit suicide and how the best way to avoid it is to think a few steps ahead and realize that things will get better. These would have been totally unremarkable if it wasn't for that intro, but now they stand out a bit. Other strips in here include his regrets about never becoming friends with a guy because they both liked the same girl, the 11 diary strips he made it through when he briefly quit drinking (most of these were pretty good strips, but he didn't have years to get sick of doing them either), a few different recovery jokes/strips from AA, and a pretty funny bit about Alcoholic Anarchists Anonymous. The best part of the comic is the last story, a continuing piece about how he ignored all kinds of signs about how his drinking was out of control, how he quit for a bit and then fell back into it. Here's hoping it's not another seven years until his next comic, as I'm curious to see how that all turned out. Overall it's a good comic with all kinds of different stories for that old fashioned price of $1, so give it a look. reviewed by Whitey for Optical Sloth September 25, 2013 |
This is a short comic documenting the author's struggle with alcoholism and their path to sobriety. It chronicles snippets of the last seven years of their life and also talks about their struggle with depression and relationships. I think it's really important that people share stories of their paths to sobriety because it offers support for others who are also struggling. It can also humanize people who are usually pushed out of communities and stigmatized due to their substance abuse. Maybe with these stories we can create sustainable systems of care and support in our own communities. Overall this is a really humbling read, the art is pretty cool, basic comic style with a slight grey-wash in various tones and color sprinkled throughout. But I can do without the appropriation of insurrectionary anarchist imagery to promote hard line-esque beliefs and sexism sprinkled within this work. reviewed by Ari Perezdiez for Maximum Rocknroll #367 December 2013 |