Ogner Stump's One Thousand Sorrows
By A. Goldfarb
Published by Wonderella Printed
Andrew Goldfarb has decided that life contains 1,000 sorrows and he intends to document them all; he gets through the first couple dozen in this charmingly dark excursion into his consciousness.
A compact and beautifully printed book, Ogner Stump's One Thousand Sorrows seems to me like a marriage of the styles of Dan Clowes and Charles Burns; the content of the book is bleakly sardonic, finding misery not only in "Disease" and "Defecation," but in seemingly more pleasent (or at least less harmful) concepts such as "Guests," "Islands," "Triangles" and "Space."
Each Sorrow receives due attention, some taking only a single panel, some taking multiple pages to elaborate upon. Each reveals a cynical but keen observer that is a joy to bear witness to. In the manner of the legendary Eightball #22, each Sorrow stands alone but informs each of the others and move the book along its whimsically tragic path.
As is often the case with creativity of this stripe, Goldfarb creates a new vocabulary for his art -- what does it mean, "Bethuseluh?" Is there a funnier turn of phrase than "Sweet Jesus, I've caught the pox. I better get to bed!" I think not.
Some creative decisions work better than others -- an extended soliloquy in the "Guests" chapter had my eyes glazed over from the massive block of text, and a more simply designed, non-sorrow story in the back of the book really doesn't fit with the overall tone of the volume. For the most part, though, it all flows well and holds together and should amuse those with a somewhat dark outlook on life and humour.
Increasingly I find that smaller-format books like this (or Image's recent The Bunker by Bruce Mutard) appeal to me -- compact, well-produced and modest presentations that hold great potential for entertainment and/or enlightenment without breaking the bank or requiring me to build an addition on to the back of the house.
Yes, Ogner Stump's One Thousand Sorrows is a small book but its wonders are many and various. The design of the object will bring a twinkle of recollection to the minds of readers with tastes discerning enough to have experienced works by such artists as Ware, Chris and Hornschemeier, Paul. There are many worse cartoonist to which one could be compared. Grade: 4/5
Grade: 4/5