Highbone Theater

By Joe Daly
Publisher: Fantagraphics
ISBN: 9781606999226

Surreal yet grounded, unsettling yet normal, Joe Daly’s work is some of the strangest in comics. He sets his tales in suburbia amongst an assortment of drop-outs, slackers and oddities, all leading humdrum lives, and then odd stuff happens, often on a heroic scale. Highbone Theater is all of that.

In an added twist of strangeness, all the male characters are enormous hulking beasts with tiny heads, as if everyone works out constantly with the women not too dissimilar. So from the second page things are off kilter and they never quite right themselves from there on in. We’re invited to follow the life of Palmer, a quiet young man who begins to take matters into his own hands by finally leaving home and renting a room with a friend. Except, something weird is going on that involves mysticism, conspiracies, and falling in love. We get to follow Palmer on a journey of self discovery as he fulfils his destiny, but it’s one paved with very unusual steps, mysterious characters and a dream-like narrative that never seems entirely clear as to where it’s taking us. Inexplicably, though, it remains captivating.

The, book, and it’s a mighty book at well over 500 pages, is mostly black and white, a medium Daly is very comfortable with, but for some of the more outlandish scenes he uses garish colours to heighten the contrast between Palmer’s experiences. I don’t doubt that the book won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I love its unpredictable, daring attitude to the storytelling. If you like Charles Burns or Dave Cooper then you’re going to like this.

And if you liked that: Take a look at Daly’s Dungeon Quest