Review: Masterful Illustrations Evoke Great Pleasure In ‘Swan Songs’ #5
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
It’s ironic that a story about a man who can’t feel pain is dominated by imagery that evokes such strong emotional responses. The master illustrations and cut-paper collages perfectly demonstrate the main character’s out-of-body feelings, helping the reader to feel empathy with someone they might not otherwise understand.
Overall
9.5/10Imagine not being able to enjoy the smell of freshly baked bread. What if being in the company of friends was more like a cacophony of sounds that resulted in a headache? What would it be like to look at your own child and not feel joy?
For this suffering from anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure is a constant struggle. And it is the focus of Swan Songs #5, the anthology series that deals with endings.
In this issue, Albert undergoes hypnosis to try to treat the condition. He explores his old house and even meets a familiar figure who reminds him of the days when he felt joy from everything.
Artist Alex Eckman-Lawn masterfully renders Albert as a cut-out figure. In virtually every panel, Albert has a white border around him, suggesting that he doesn’t belong here, but rather was cut and pasted from somewhere else. It’s such a simple yet incredibly effective way of showing his detachment from the rest of the world.
And that is only the beginning of Eckman-Lawn’s great work in this issue. As Albert delves into his own subconscious, the illustrator gets to show off – and he does an amazing job. Albert’s childhood home appears, looking like a haunted house, inside and out. With Albert himself, Eckman-Lawn echoes W. Maxwell Prince’s script by turning Albert into a literal collage – a collection of eyeballs and blood vessels and bones pulled from various media. Again, it’s a great way of showing his disconnectedness from the rest of the world.
Credit Prince for a strong script, though that is hardly a surprise. His work on this limited series as well as in writing Ice Cream Man, has been top-notch lately. Don’t look for easy answers in this story, though. Albert clearly leaves his therapy session in better shape then when he entered, but his journey looks to be a long, complicated one.
Prince wraps up this miniseries next issue with his Ice Cream Man co-creator, Martin Morazzo. It has all the makings of a great ending to a series about endings.
Swan Songs #5 will be available for purchase today.
