08/27/2018

Caleb Orecchio here with brief thoughts on Lale Westvind’s, Grip.

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I’ll keep this brief; Lale Westvind’s Grip, part 1, is on the cutting edge of comics. Sally wrote about this book a month ago and I don’t have much to add to her praise, but it’s worth re-emphasizing the brilliance of this comic. Lale has been at the forefront of the wave of young cartoonists for years now and this volume has cemented this fact.

Grip harnesses the bold visual whacky-ness of the Golden Age while maintaing the solid structure of the Silver Age, and blasts forward and upward as a work of immediacy that speaks to today’s consciousness. To compare the work to any “Age” really other than maybe “the PictureBox Age” can do this comic a disservice because, despite the influence, Westvind has left the past in the dust and has crafted a brand new comic that has no better home in time other than the present.

The riso colors, printed by Perfectly Acceptable Press, sing. Westvind makes great use of the printing technology. So much so that, I’m not even going to add my favorite images to this blog post because I want you to look at them for yourself in real life.

It is worth noting the omission of words. This, I think, elevates the work immensely and benefits from individual interpretation. There is an obvious thread of an appreciation of women who work with their hands that is at the visual forefront of the narrative, but the very nature of the sequencing leaves a lot to the reader to decide what the underlying symbolism means for themselves.

I said keep I’d this brief so I will end by simply stating the obvious that this is a very exciting book to say the least.

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