On Sneaking
Comic, Jon Iñaki, 44 pgs, Small Sword Press, adequatewebsite.com, $15
I’m not necessarily a “big” guy, but at 6’2”, sneaking is not my forte. Try as I might to crawl under lasers or somersault my way past cameras, I keep getting caught and causing exclamation points to appear over the heads of Shadow Moses security guards. Blessedly, Jon Iñaki’s On Sneaking has fallen into my hands. Giant searchlights will spot me prowling across courtyards no more.
On Sneaking sees the fittingly named Sneaker outline their philosophy and tips to avoid detection. You must avoid lures that lead you into traps. You must unmesh yourself from the distortions that have so far distracted you from your path. As Iñaki notes midway through, “People whose world is black and white have nowhere to hide but oblivion. But you’re strong when you don’t exist.”
At just about 3 by 5 inches, On Sneaking isn’t the biggest comic, but Iñaki certainly squeezes some big ideas into it. Across its 44 pages, the ‘silliness’ it opens with gives way to pages that are heartfelt and emotional. As Iñaki notes on the final page, some moments of On Sneaking were ones they experienced themselves, revealing that Iñaki’s stylistic and artistic choices — be they the cuteness of the character or the detached narration — are just another form of sneaking. Very sneaky.
Iñaki’s use of red and blue risograph ink and pink paper combines to create an intensity to things that would otherwise have been absent had it been produced any other way. It’s a truly effective melding of the comic’s con-tent, and the comic itself as a physical object. It’s a small and impactful little package that, one might say, really sneaks in under the radar. Sorry. Had to sneak that one in.