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AN AXE FELL
by Brian Musikoff
($1.25,
www.manualcomics.com)
Review by Mike Hunter
This exquisitely produced mini - slick stock, crisp color printing - tells parallel stories. The drawings deftly depict the familiar tale of the sinking of the Titanic in a dozen images. The accompanying narration tells an apparently autobiographical account of Brian Musikoff's experience in landing a comfortable job in New York. "After a few promotions I was living more comfortably than I ever had in my entire life...As far as I could tell I would be living the good life for years to come." Meantime, the passengers of the ill-fated ship clink glasses of bubbly and sail blithely on. As the iceberg is spotted, Musikoff writes, "Out of the blue, a friend in human resources tipped me off that the company was not doing so hot." He ends up "...tossed into the freezing black sea called unemployment...", a Titanic passenger clutching a life preserver as he plunges into the waters. The present is shown in the drawings for the first time, the World Trade Center towers billowing smoke, "...throwing our city into a nauseating tailspin." The Titanic survivors shoot flares into the night sky, while Musikoff sends "...out resume after resume...to no avail..." The present appears again in the artwork, now combined with the sinking-ship symbolism, as the narrator clambers aboard a lifeboat: "...two friends offered me full time work in their bar..."
Now Musikoff's given up on a corporate career, and settled in a stable bartending job, which "...also affords [him] time to return to...cartoon work." (And should provide some great material for future comics.) Yet the chilling memories of scrambling for a job to survive remain: "The freezing black water is so close I can taste it."
Musikoff's comparison of his unemployment with a shipwreck may strike some as excessive, but - particularly with the social safety net grown so increasingly frayed - it aptly invokes the clawing-to-survive, helpless dread of the experience. Special praise must be given to the cover, which lovingly simulates the leather binding of a battered old book.
An Axe Fell can be also be seen
online, but fanciers of minis owe it to themselves to order the beautiful printed version.
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