Agans, Chris & Strauss, Dan – Cigghartha

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Cigghartha

See, artists with crappy titles, this is how you make it easy for people to find you on the internet. I did a search for this title and (after I reminded Google that I wasn’t actually looking for “Siddhartha”) only came up with four hits. People who go with untitled books or “my first mini comic by Dan Smith,” take note. This book was hand-made (which you can tell by the string used as binding, among other things) and it’s gorgeous. The description of it is “one man’s spiritual journey,” and that works. This starts off with a man being born as a full grown man, complete with a cigar in his mouth. You may start to see a theme on this front. The man sets off on his own, trying to learn from a mystic of some kind, before eventually finding himself on the street, begging for money. He solves this problem rather deftly and manages to enjoy life for a bit, but those good times could only last for so long and he soon finds himself back on the streets. Well, the forest, in this case, but I can’t say much more without telling you everything. On the whole this book is an interesting search for meaning, and we’re happily not left with much of an answer one way or the other. Which, if you think about it, IS the answer, and it eventually becomes obvious to everybody. Well, it does in my happy version of the world, anyway. This couldn’t be more different in tone than the other book I’ve reviewed from these folks (Seething With Hatred), but they’re both well worth a look. It’s kind of expensive, as hand-making your books will do that to the price, but hey, who needs food anyway? $6