In a wonderfully lit combination of adult words and drawings, creator Molly Mendoza (Portland Oregon: The New York Times, The Marshall Project, Wired, and Hazlitt, etc) brings us into the world of Stray, published by Bulgilhan Press.
Stray, where everything topples into something else, poetically. The colourful story of Jack, a chaotic romantic, who collides with Stray, and everything changes. It’s lovestruck and moody, with hard edges of hard-edged characters showing real tears in real moments. Too, it’s hard-edged in its graphic hi-con sensibility, its sensitivity to gender fluidity, its plight-by-night misery in the making.
The moments of magic, the ambiguity of love, and the sense that romance might be doomed or unbelievably apt. The humanity reaching out, the lost heart seeking a connection.
Mendoza keeps it poetic and puzzling, like the song that mesmerizes, and you sing along with its chorus. But can’t wait to hear it again, straining to make out the meaning, the wispy memories, the melody familiar, but enveloped in its own secrets, only revealing a truth upon repeat listening.
If you like the heart-torn narrative that stitches by threads, by thin gossamer hints, and double-backed trails, you will love the deeply emotional landscape of Stray! The coloured art is entrancing, with free-flowing loose lines, organic and harsh shadows, backed with soft and pastel shades of saturation.
Stray is available from the Bulgilhan Press website! https://bulgilhanpress.com/store/stray-molly-mendoza
Bulgilhan Press, Stray, $12 for 52 pages of content, 5.2” x 8” full colour
Newsdesk