Written and Illustrated by Simon Hanselmann
Published by Fantagraphics Books
Early on in, Crisis Zone, the character known as Owl witnesses two other characters having very energetic sex in front of the residents of a house and declares, “This is really f***ed-up and excessively gratuitous…but also weirdly beautiful.”
Such a statement sums this book up perfectly as well. For those not aware, Hanselmann started posting, Crisis Zone, comics almost daily from March 13th, 2020 to December 22nd, 2020 on Instagram.
He took many of his beloved/hated characters and put them–real-time–through the early days of the pandemic, the year’s social unrest, and our society’s obsession with Netflix shows as well as, Animal Crossing.
Usually when we say something is a, “Product of its time,” that is meant more as an insult or explanation for its content.
Well, Crisis Zone, is a product of its time and I mean that with the highest of praise. It is a comic that only could have happened in 2020 as it basically chronicled all the ways the World went to Hell and then maybe slowly recovered, but in some ways just got even more messed up.
Hanselmann takes his well-known main characters of Megg (a witch), Mogg (a cat) Werewolf Jones (self-explanatory), Owl (also self-explanatory), and Booger (a boogy-woman), as well as other wacky individuals and drops this version of them right into the mayhem we all faced. Each character is both likable and terrible in their own way with a built-in unpredictability that you don’t know what might happen to them (or because of them) next. Everyone is trying, but struggling to just survive in this new normal.
Hanselmann walks a razor-thin line of misery and hilarity in Crisis Zone. You’ll go from feeling awful for a character to laughing at just how insane things get over the span of the comic. A lot of the credit for this goes to Hanselmann’s fantastic art. He is a master of the comic form, marrying surreal images such as a witch, talking cat, and so forth to the grimy reality of store shelves bare of any toilet paper or people fighting in the street over politics. Hanselmann doesn’t take much of a side in left-versus-right, instead mostly having his characters express a deep cynicism towards anyone thinking marching in the street or tweeting outrage will bring about change. As much as his artwork bleeds style, it also oozes with derision to those who, “Believe,” in anything. This pessimistic view lasts up through towards the end of the book where he maybe softens up a bit and offers us as happy a conclusion as we could hope for.
Even if you read, Crisis Zone online it is worth picking the book up as it is a true, “Director’s Cut,” with extra panels and some edits to art in the main comic. Plus, there is a very detailed section of footnotes labeled as the, “Director’s Commentary,” and there is a short book-exclusive epilogue! It takes place some weeks into the early part of 2021 and wraps up a few loose ends the Instagram comic left behind.
Before, Crisis Zone, Simon Hanselmann had made some fantastic comics, but this is arguably his biggest, strangest, and best work so far. It can be extremely graphic and dark one moment and absolutely hilarious and insightful the next. Every page is a feast for the eyes and the whole thing makes you marvel at how Hanselmann managed to create these works on an almost daily basis.
During 2020 I found reading, Crisis Zone, was a highlight of many otherwise awful days as I went through a lot in that year. Now, it serves as the perfect piece to summarize where we were back then as a World and where we may very well go in 2021, 2022, and beyond…if we aren’t careful.
5 out of 5 stars.
David Bitterbaum is the author behind the popular-culture blog, “The Newest Rant,” and has contributed to FOG at various points in time. His 2021 has been 100X better than his 2020 already.
