cbr17bingo I (I is for IN THE END)
The cover image I do not believe is in In the End We All Die: A Graphic Novel by Tobias Aeschbacher, but honestly I am not completely sure because I was trying to figure out the cast of characters. These sad, lonely, pathetic, pitiful, hopeless, petty, wretched individuals are made up of tails, snails, and mud. On the surface they might look okay, but two of them (a male and female couple) rob food trucks, three men are thugs, one is a pervy voyeuristic landlord, and the others? Well sex, drugs and guns all play a part in the set up of this day in their lives when they all cross paths. It’s not just a blood bath, but a FLIPPING (only I didn’t say flipping) bloody shame.
To be honest, I hated everything about this book and gave it a two. That is mostly because the illustrations are off-center. Now, I can’t draw a stick figure, so I’m not saying I could do better, but they are not my personal tastes. The color makes everything dingy and not likeable. But the people help there, too. As you will learn, even the people are dingy and not likeable (well maybe the old couple is mostly likeable). However, as you see each person and the screwed up living or existence they are part of, something happened. I was never rooting for them, but I was curious about them. There is some clever word play, that is far from tasteful (one of the thugs has a gun and he calls it Carol, one of his buddies gives him a hard time and when Thug Gun is threatening someone Thug Giving A Hard Time to Thug Gun, says “You want Carol to give him a BJ?”) but there was something, well maybe skillful about the writing. That makes things up to a three. Still, I would say the book is a C (though I am using it for the Bingo Square I), so maybe then I liked it a bit more than I thought? Average it all out and it comes out a 2.75, so a three?
Back to the book and the spoiler part. There is an old couple and if you know what sad people are apt to do when they are old with have physical and mental pains, you know what is going to happen to them. Therefore I have one question: Do I include them in the horrible people above? (Like I said, maybe they are likable). I mean, since we are only getting this one night, who knows how “good” or “bad” they were. And the husband does have himself a pervy, dirty old man mind (and mouth). And though they seem like nice people, maybe they have a backstory that isn’t nice. After all there are hints they are like the food truck people (who remember are thieves and stole something with more value than money).
Now the trigger warnings: Including but not limited to: sex, severe violence, blood (lots of blood), suicide, murder, drug use, voyeurism, injury, gun use, vomit, getting high, murder, and eating really old pizza that leads to the vomit. Some I don’t even know about, but of course, someone will find them. This is, to say the very least, not for young readers and not for the sensitive reader. It has a maturity to it that is also sophomoric. It is contradictions and dizzyfying. I hated everything about this book, and yet, I am drawn to it like it is a written car wreck.
Read via an online reader copy, but currently available.