Gennis, Emi – The Collyer Brothers

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The Collyer Brothers

And here I was thinking that this would be a mostly throwaway comic. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Emi’s work up to this point, and I was curious to see what she did with this story. Still, I got the general impression that most of her creative energies (in terms of comics at least) went to her Spaz comic. Turns out that she has plenty of that energy to spare for side projects like this, as it’s one damned fine comic. This is a story taken from Wikipedia (just in case you can’t read that cover and are afraid of the image embiggening process) about two brothers who lived as hermits in Harlem in the early 1900’s. The neighborhood changed around them, they both became hermits and withdrew from the world. When I say “hermit” I don’t mean your average person with little to no social life. No, I’m talking about two guys who would scavenge food from dumpsters and avoid paying bills until they were trying to generate their own electricity. And they were rich! Anyway, life went on, one brother had a stroke that left him blind, and their refusal to sell the house led to rampant speculation about the treasures hidden inside. I can’t say much more without ruining the ending, but Emi’s use of perspective leading up to that last page was a wonderful thing to behold. I still have a new Spaz to get to in the coming weeks, but this deserves the attention of the comic reading masses. I’m thinking maybe this is a concept she should really get behind, as there have to be a huge pile of stories about the internet involving people dying in bizarre ways. It’s a bit macabre, I guess, but Emi lists on her website that she lives with two cats and ghost, so how much weirder could it get? This isn’t listed on her website at the moment, but I’m guessing that if you send her $2 and request this book that she’ll be willing to help you out. Or add a dollar or two if you’re not sure, or contact her first. You know the drill.