zine review:
Genevieve #2, Red and Gold
Strange, eerie, and compelling, genevieve is a collection of stories in the form of both text and comics. The stories focus on a group of teenagers and their world, which appears to be some sort of enclosed environment acting as an apparent social experiment.
The first chapter of the zine reads like a creation story as a baby boy’s perception of the strange world is narrated. This piece sets the strange atmosphere and eerie tone through the experiences of the boy: hunger, interacting with another, fascination with a mysterious box that has taken away one that has fallen deathly quiet.
For the comic portions of the zine, the art plays a key role in setting the world’s atmosphere, as the rough ink sketches give a view of the world that isn’t perfect but still recognizable. Character features are simple and at times rough, but this visual disparity between this setting and reality adds to the fact that the characters are isolated in some place that isn’t the world as we know it. The effect of darkness and shadows is created by heavy uses of greys and blacks combined with vigorous pen scratches, which gives the world an appropriate not-quite-right quality.
Despite being trapped in some mysterious prison and being spoken to by disembodied voices–including one that everybody refers to as “Mom,” most of the characters seem to be content with their imprisonment because they’re too preoccupied with living and being teenagers. The setting is strange and almost absurd, but the stories being told in this zine show that being young, naïve, awkward and angsty is innately human. (Terry Harjanto)
Comic, Efehan Elbi, efehan.ca, familycontact.ca