Febrewary: Cinnamon Porter

~ lobablanca

Brewer: Flying Dog Brewery
Location: Frederick, Maryland
Type: American Porter
ABV: 6%

I honestly wasn’t planning on doing another beer review quite this soon. After the last beer beat down, I thought it would be wise to give myself a little bit of recuperation time. However, the best laid plans of mice and beer lovers…you know how that goes.

Back in early December of last year, Flying Dog had a really groovy release party at their brewery for the last Brewhouse Rarities beer they created for 2013: Cinnamon Porter.

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For those unfamiliar with the Brewhouse Rarities series, it is pretty much the brewers (and, really, any Flying Dog employee) getting together at the end of the year or the beginning of the next and deciding on some spectacularly bat-shit crazy flavor ideas for beers. They typically either make them only for on-tap sales or they bottle a very limited supply (like the Green Tea Imperial Stout that I have aging downstairs right now). The slogan and inspiration for all of Flying Dog’s Brewhouse Rarities is a Hunter S. Thompson quote: “Too weird to live. Too rare to die.”

As much as I wanted to go to the release party for the Cinnamon Porter (not only did I think it sounded like an awesome way to spend an evening, but it was also the only place I could get this porter in a bottle), they had the party on a Tuesday evening. Even in the best traffic conditions, that would have been a really bad idea.

So next best thing? Stalk my regular beer haunts until one of them finally announced that they had a keg of Cinnamon Porter to tap! That’s precisely what I have been doing for the better part of a month. My pay-off came with a special DM this morning from one of my regular go-tos, letting me know that now was my time. After work, I headed on over, and I enjoyed one of the very first pints pulled from this freshly tapped keg.

My first comment is less about the beer itself and more about how places serve dark beers. This particular place served me a very, very cold porter. I will say this until I have no more ability to speak…and then I will write it: Porters and stouts should not be served cold. At most, if you are worried about your clientele complaining that the beer is too warm, then at least knock it up a few degrees from how you would serve a pale ale or a lager.

This beer was so cold that it was unwilling to give up even the slightest bit of flavor beyond the basics present in most porters. I even had a very difficult time discerning much from the nose. So, I patiently picked up my glass and cradled it in both of my hands, strolling around the perimeter of the store while looking at their beer and wine selections. Those who know me know that I don’t have the warmest hands, so this attempt on my part to warm the porter took a significant amount of time and energy on my part.

However, I do have to say that I was rewarded with a worthwhile payoff. As the porter began to warm, I could start to smell the gentle waft of cinnamon stick rising from my glass…not ground cinnamon, mind you, but the actual sticks. That muted, mellifluous scent…that promise of woodsy spice, just a scratch or two away.

Drinking the slightly warmed beer revealed even more of that soft, mulled flavor. I admittedly had no idea what to expect with this beer, but I know that when Flying Dog wants to knock you across the room with flavors, they do that in spades. This however, was a surprisingly delicate soup

Febrewary: Tokio*

~ LobaBlanca

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Brewer: BrewDog
Location: Fraserburgh, Scotland
Type: Intergalactic Fantastic Oak Aged Stout
ABV: 18.2%

This is a beer inspired by a 1980s space invaders arcade game played in Japan’s capital.

The irony of existentialism, the parody of being, and the inherent contradictions of post-modernism, all so delicately conveyed by the blocky, pixelated arcade action have all been painstakingly recreated in this bottle’s contents.

This imperial stout is brewed with copious amounts of specialty malts, jasmine, and cranberries. After fermentation, we then dry-hop this killer stout with a bucketload of our favorite hops before carefully aging the beer on French toasted oak chips.

Our approach has the same contempt of the mass beer market that the old-school punks had for pop culture. BrewDog is a modern-day rebellion against soulless corporate bureaucracy and the bland, apathetic beer they industrially produce.

I told you that I had more BrewDogs in the aging queue. This bottle of Tokio* (strangely, this is the only time I have ever seen this beer’s name spelled with an “i”; every other bottle I’ve seen, including the other bottle I have aging, is spelled with a “y”), has been aging for almost three years. It was one of the oldest beers in my collection. Weirdly enough? I’ve never tried this beer fresh, so I have absolutely no frame of comparison for Tokio*. That’s kind of a shame, because I would really like to know if this beer is as abusive a beast fresh as it is aged.

One of the things that I love most about trying different craft beers from different craft breweries is that there is so much daring and creativity going on out there in the beer making universe right now. Case in point are two of my favorite domestic breweries, Flying Dog and Dogfish Head. They both take risks with ingredients, flavor profiles, ABVs, and so forth. Sometimes, they fail…but they are spectacular even in their failures.

I believe that BrewDog exemplifies this daring attitude toward beer making as well. They even state in Tokio*s humorous description that they are fighting against the “soulless corporate bureaucracy and the bland, apathetic beer they industrially produce.” If ever there was a better description of that St. Louis brewery, I’ve never read it.

Still, where do you draw the line for daring? Do you draw a line? I don’t really know the answer. I do, however, know my own personal limits, and I think this bottle of stout far surpassed it. Black as the depths of space and rolling across your senses with the crushing weight of an 18.2-percent ABV, Tokio* is the city that would have made Godzilla nothing more than a smear in the middle of the road.

Inhale and feel it saturating your olfactory senses, burning into your alveoli. It reeks of alcohol like that rarely seen third cousin twice removed who staggers in late to holiday parties, hits on you without realizing you’re related, before passing out face-first into the artichoke dip. Underneath the alcohol, there roils a sweet-and-sour mix of dry fruit, bitter baker’s chocolate, burnt sugar, piercing decadence, shoes and ships and sealing wax…no cabbages or kings.

Drink. No. Sip. You cannot but sip. Even sipping is like being grabbed around the throat and dragged into the dangerous shadows of a back alley where Tokio* pummels your taste buds unmercifully. It is a monstrous beer, inescapable from its presence, its smells, its flavors…too rich, too intense, too…everything. It will boil your kid’s bunny and come at you like a knifed-up spider monkey on speed if you try to ignore it. IT WILL NOT BE IGNORED.

Tokio* is a flavor ravaging. Pick a safe word before you try it, but know that it will disregard whatever word you pick. It just doesn’t care.

I am concerned that I have another one of these beers aging in my collection. I feel as though I am harboring a dangerous criminal. For all my love of daring brews and daring dos, I have to say that Tokio* is more than I prefer. Makes me wonder what my reaction would have been to BrewDog’s Tactical Nuclear Penguin, which was a freeze-distilled stout that weighed in at 36-percent ABV. They also did a massive IPA, Sink the Bismarck, which clobbered drinkers with a 41-percent ABV, as well as another freeze-distilled stout they dubbed “The End of History” and packed with a 55-percent ABV. According to what I’ve read, they only made 12 bottles of this beer, which they shipped in small, taxidermist-prepared animals.

And that, denizens, is called overkill.

When they aren’t doing brewing meant just to garner attention, BrewDog actually makes some really good beers as well as some beers that I read about and would really, really love to try. Just for shits and giggles, I went to BrewDog’s site just now and put together a case of some of their brews that I would love to try (both fresh and aged). Sadly, with the conversion rate, I would be paying more than $250 for the joy of total BrewDog immersion. I simply cannot justify that much for beer. So, dear Anchor Brewing, please start importing more BrewDog, STAT. Thank you. Love and kisses, Loba B.

Putting the “Brew” in Febrewary

~ LobaBlanca

So how could I possibly call this “Febrewary” without actually brewing some beer? I just can’t, denizens. Therefore, I give you this:

honeyporter

Seems that I’ve made a bit of a habit in recent years of spending my cold weather holidays brewing beers…a habit that I sadly didn’t continue throughout 2013 because…well, because life. That’s pretty much why.

Now, not to say that I don’t have a life this year, but I do have a bit more free time than I did last year. Plus, with about a foot of snow still on the ground and daytime highs still below freezing, I’m thinking that staying indoors on my day off isn’t necessarily a bad idea.

Plus, there’s the added bonus of recently relocating a gift card that my cousins gave me to Northern Brewer Homebrew Supply, that must have gotten lost in our recent move. When I looked through Northern Brewer’s brew kits and saw that they offered, among other tasty concoctions, a White House honey porter? I took that as a sign that my Presidents’ Day was set.

I’ve written before about my beer brewing adventures. I have to say that those previous kits can’t even compare to the simplicity of the Northern Brewer kit that I used today. In some ways, I feel like it was almost too easy…like I missed a step or didn’t have all the ingredients or forgot something or…I don’t know. It just wasn’t anywhere near as complicated as the previous kits made the process out to be.

Instead, the Northern Brewer White House honey porter kit was a breeze as well as way neater, way quicker, and way more fun. I’m not saying that the other kits were bad; on the contrary, they were the ones that got me hooked on homebrewing in the first place. However, Northern Brewer has shown that applying a little bit of creativity to a process can simplify and streamline it in ways that make everything more awesome. And who doesn’t want more awesome in their lives?

So right now, my gallon jug full of honey porter is sitting down in the dark coolness of our storage room (a storage room! Such beer-making luxury!), its little airlock in place, just waiting for the yeast to start the fermentation process. Minus the feeling that this was simply too easy, I’m very pleased with today’s brewing exercise. I was also very pleased with the Star San sanitation process I used. Again, made everything way easier.

This whole experience has revived my love for making my own beer. I guess I had forgotten how much fun it can be to create something that I love…and obviously, I love beer. Now that we have more space, including an area of the house where I can keep my brews cool and dark while they beerify themselves, I might start doing this more frequently. Hell, I might even start moving into deeper homebrew waters, beyond the relative safety of these types of one-gallon kits. However, I already have another gallon kit waiting in the wings once today’s batch has finished fermenting and I’ve bottled it. Plus, I have a little more money left on my gift card. Methinks it’s time to treat myself to some more professional brewing equipment.

Stay tuned, denizens. Bottling is only two weeks away…and then, two weeks after that? It’s Millah Time! (Only way better than actual Miller. I hope.)

OMG Update!

While testing the links in this post, I loaded Northern Brewer’s home page, only to find this: Wil Wheaton’s VandalEyes PA!

SHUT. UP!

Seriously, I wrote in my first blog post about my homebrewing adventures that Wil Wheaton was the main inspiration for my interest in this hobby in the first place. What can I say? I really am just a geek. Just like Wil.

I wish that I liked IPAs, because I would buy this kit in a heartbeat if I did, just to experience the love that he’s invested into creating his own beer. I bet it wins everything. But it’s an IPA. With an awesome name. So if that’s your bag, denizens? Give it a go, and be sure to let me know how it goes!

Also? This makes me love Northern Brewer that much more. Wil Wheaton. So much awesome.

Febrewary: Alice Porter

~ lobablanca

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Brewer: Brew Dog
Location: Fraserburgh, Scotland
Type: Renaissance Baltic Porter
ABV: 6.2%

The profoundly puzzling Alice Porter.

Cryptic. Enigmatic. Alchemistic.

Few beers are shrouded in secrecy like the porter; a beer whose roots are said to be punctuated by hurried footsteps along cobbled London streets and swirls of mist from atop the River Thames.

Decloaked and radically reinvisaged, BrewDog’s Alice Porter is a 6.2% sacred union of one 300-year-old recipe and two cross-continental hop varieties.

A delicate mirage of chocolate, red fruit and burnt sugar, let Alice Porter whisk you away to a forgotten time juxtaposed against the backdrop of modernity.

And then, before you know it, she’s gone…tumbling down a rabbit hole into the same obscurity that first caught your attention.

Leaving but the question…who or what is Alice Porter?

I thought you all might enjoy a little story as your first official introduction to the brewer of tonight’s beer. See, once upon a time, in the far-away land of Scotland, a little brewery named BrewDog began. And they liked to make really crazy beers, oftentimes with mind-smashingly high ABVs and flavor profiles like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots crushing tastes directly into your mouth. Sometimes, they were great. Sometimes, they were destructive. Sometimes, they were just left enough of center to drop-kick you right into Nirvana. Nearly always, they brought along a story to tell us a little more about their existence. Or to just confuse us even more regarding what we’re tasting. Either way, it’s always been a fun ride.

Sadly, for the longest time, I couldn’t really find many BrewDog beers on this side of the pond. Now, however, I’m pleased to report that San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company is now responsible for importing BrewDog. I hope, I hope, I hope that this means that we’ll be seeing more of their options over here.

Tonight, however, I come to review a beer that was gifted to me several moons ago by one of my lovely, lovely ImagiFriendsTM. He gave me two bottles of Alice Porter, actually. One, I drank only a few days after I received it. I even snapped a photo:

aliceporter1

(And this would be why tonight’s beer is in that same Wonder Woman glass, by the by. Call back!)

When I drank this porter relatively fresh from the source, I commented that it was “Definitely a full frontal start followed by a startling dropoff. Strange. But delightful. Like tumbling down a rabbit hole…”

I wrote that on July 20, 2012. Tonight’s tasting comes more than a year later, and I have to report that this beer would have made a hops fan ecstatic. As I learned from some reading this evening, this porter uses two different type of hops, an English varietal known as Bramling X and a Japanese varietal called Sorachi Ace. I’m not familiar with the flavor profiles of either of these hops (not like I am with, say, a Willamette hops), but I’m assuming that it’s this combination that gave the fresher beer its precipitous flavor profile, and what consequently turned this aged bottle into a tangy sucker-punch that nearly shorted out the entirety of my palate.

I seriously was not expecting the vicious sharpness of this porter’s taste after aging. However, I knew that something was definitely changed in ways I wasn’t anticipating when I drew a deep breath from the glass and felt the metallic sting of the beer’s bouquet. I pushed the beer aside for a little while, allowing it some settling time. I’ve learned that BrewDog’s beers are never completely “clean,” often requiring a bit of settling time before drinking. That’s not that big a deal, though; my attempts at home brewing have taught me that sometimes, you’re just going to end up with some sediment, but that’s not going to ruin anything.

I remember back in Darktober, I reviewed a bottle of Tr

Febrewary: Palo Santo Marron

~ lobablanca

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Brewer: Dogfish Head
Location: Milton, Delaware
Type: American Brown Ale
ABV: 12%

How best to regroup after a thoroughly disappointing beer experience? Get up, dust your taste buds off, and ease back into the game by way of a tried-and-true favorite. I wrote very approvingly of Delaware’s Dogfish Head back in Darktober. Even after more than a year of drinking other beers on tap and from bottles, I still consider Bitches Brew to be one of my all-time favorite flavor discoveries. (This also reminds me that I still need to buy a bottle for aging.) And DFH’s Indian Brown Ale remains one of my favorite go-to beers for when I want a nice, solid, reliably delicious brew.

However, when I want to treat myself with a delicious DFH beer without breaking the bank on something like a bottle of Bitches Brew or their deliciously overpriced World Wide Stout, but a little higher on the scale than the Indian Brown? I go with their Palo Santo Marron.

First, here is what DFH writes about this beer on its label:

An unfiltered, unfettered, unprecedented Brown Ale aged in handmade wooden brewing vessels. The caramel and vanilla complexity unique to this ale comes from the exotic Paraguayan Palo Santo wood from which these tanks were crafted. At 10,000 gallons each, these are the largest wooden brewing vessels built in America since before Prohibition. It’s all very exciting. We have wood. Now you do, too.

Silly guys.

Whatever they say about this beer, I say it’s one of my all-time favorites. In fact, whenever I go to one of DFH’s pubs, I struggle even to consider trying anything else on tap (unless they happen to have World Wide Stout, then that’s a no-brainer), because I know…I know that this beer is going to blow my mind, every time. For my particular beer preferences, this is a sensory feast, with rich, bold flavors; sumptuous aromas; and a massive mouth feel that invades every last inch of your palate.

Deep, impenetrable pour with a flutter of foam, but don’t mistake the absence of carbonation as a hint of flatness (like other recent appearances). This beer keeps some surprises internal. However, inhale and the blitz of smells is intense: malty sweetness, cinnamon-spiced complexity, fresh vanilla, toasted caramel, baking breads and dried dark fruits…plums, figs, cherries…a subtle scintillation, even, of pipe tobacco…all topped off with a woody freshness, for good measure. I think that might be my favorite part of this beer’s bouquet. Ever taken a deep breath in a wood shop? Or opened a drawer to a freshly built piece of furniture? Or even stood at a Christmas tree farm, surrounded by freshly cut conifers? That sensation…not necessarily the particular scents of these various woods…but that experience of inhaling something sylvan…organic…fresh…these are all intertwined throughout the nose I catch from Palo Santo Marron.

One sip and you discover where the carbonation was hiding. Not overwhelmingly bubbly, but enough to give the mouth feel a joyful effervescence as a counterpoint to the silky smooth rush of flavors. One of the wonderfully surprising thing about this beer (and several of DFH’s more “spirited” brews) is that the relatively high ABV doesn’t make itself overbearing at any point while drinking this beer. Another delightfully dangerous beer.

As for the flavor profile, I love bold malty brews that have nary a hint of hops, and this falls right in line with that particular personal preference. I fall in love with this beer a little bit more each time that I drink it. Riotously flavorful, smooth, complex, and satisfying, it has never been anything less that pleasing to me. The only way I haven’t yet had this one is aged in my collection, simply because I can never hold on to one long enough.

I’m going to try this time to save one bottle for at least a year. I’ll let you know how that goes…

Febrewary: Alta Gracia Coffee Porter

~ LobaBlanca

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Brewer: Otter Creek BrewingCompany
Location: Middlebury, Vermont
Type: American Porter
ABV: 5%

Let this be a lesson to us all, denizens. Always read the full label before making a purchase. Had I done this with the “Wolaver’s Fine Organic Ales” coffee porter that I’m here to review now…well, let’s just say that I would have probably thought twice about actually buying it. Wolaver’s is a line brewed by Vermont’s Otter Creek Brewing Company. I gave their Stovepipe Porter a less than enthusiastic review back in Darktober.

And so it goes with this beer. It seems as if the only real hat trick that this Wolaver beer has is that it is an “unfiltered and unpasteurized porter brewed with Vermont grown organic coffee and aged on organic vanilla beans.” Wonderful It’s an organic beer. But it claims to use excellent coffee and vanilla beans, which when combined, should make a fantabulous beer…something right up my alley, so to speak.

This beer barely fizzled as I poured it, even though I did try to encourage some sign of carbonated life. Regardless of my attempts at carbonation resuscitation, this beer was practically DOA. Drinking it was an equally lifeless experience, each swallow going down like flat bargain bin soda left out on the table for hours.

With hardly any carbonation also came the disappointing realization that this porter had hardly any nose whatsoever. It smelled kind of like a cup of watered-down coffee, but nothing extraordinarily noteworthy beyond that. Limp, weak mouth feel and a taste that I can only describe as my sad attempt as a child to make a chocolate soda by squeezing Hershey’s syrup into a glass of Pepsi. I can report that this experiment was an unequivocal failure.

Kind of like this porter.

Were I in a more charitable mood (which I suppose I should be in, considering the holiday and all), I would say that I plan on giving this beer another try. However, combined with my previously unenthusiastic experience with Otter Creek, I’m going to say no. No to this beer and no to Otter Creek. Again, there is no lack of dark beer goodness out there. I really don’t see the point in subjecting myself to beers this lackluster.

Daft Luge

~ lobablanca

Today was unofficially a snow day here at the lair. My company was closed because of the snowy pummeling we received overnight and through most of the morning. I was still on-call, but because most of our work comes from the government (which was closed), there wasn’t much call for me. So, in between random projects, social media blurbling, and putting all my workout muscles to use during marathon shoveling sessions, I finally took the time to make a PhotoShop trickery idea a reality.

It started after watching this great PSA, put together by the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion in response to Olympic host country Russia’s abysmal treatment of gays:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/n4CEaoNADiY

Yet another way Canada has already won the Olympics.

Anyway, I liked the way the visors blacked out the luge team’s faces. Kind of like Daft Punk’s helmets totally black out their faces. And that was all I needed to come up with this:

daft-luge2

You’re welcome.

Febrewary: Milk Stout Nitro

~ LobaBlanca

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Brewer: Left Hand Brewing Company
Location: Longmont, Colorado
Type: Sweet Stout
ABV: 6%

As I mentioned back in Darktober while reviewing a beer from a different Colorado-based craft brewery, I love Left Hand Brewing Company, simply because they introduced me to their beautiful milk stout. Well, that and the fact that I’m left-handed. But that’s neither here nor there.

It was no surprise, then, that when I first read about their success in bottling a nitrogen-charged beer, and that said beer was my favorite of their brews that I have tried? Well, I had to have some.

If you’re curious, charging a beer with a nitrogen/carbon dioxide mix rather than just carbon dioxide gives the brew an intense, silky mouth feel. It’s also supposed to accentuate sweeter flavors within the beer (it’s not surprising, then, that Left Hand would choose their milk stout for this experiment). It used to be that you could only get “on nitro” in bars that had the right equipment to pull a proper draft. That or those silly Guinness bottles and cans with the little ping-pong balls and rockets inside. Those never tasted convincing…or good, by the by.

For this beer, Left Hand uses no foreign objects…just a two-word instruction: Pour Hard.

And that’s precisely what I did: Popped the top and upended the bottle into my glass in a perfectly vertical position. The nitrogen charge holds in place rather than fizzing out of the glass, instead pulling downward in that beautiful “cascade effect” made most famous by Guinness. I wish I could have gotten a photo of that, but it happens quite quickly before slowing and reversing upward into a gorgeous frothy frosting of foam atop the beer.

Visual feast aside, sweetness assails my sense of smell as this beer burbles and frolics in its glass. I’ve read that Left Hand recommends chilling this beer before serving. I don’t, simply because I have learned that darker beers offer up so much more complexity when warmer. Therefore, right from the start, I detect scents of chocolate, coffee, cream…something soft and sweet like a mocha latte made from a perfectly dark-roasted blend.

Again, thank the nitrogen for the full-bodied mouth feel and the creamy slip of every sip of this beer along my tongue. Milk Stout Nitro is the epitome of a dessert beer. Thick, luscious, delectable…with one slight misstep. There’s a strange metallic aftertaste. I’d describe it as comparable to licking a nearly dead AA battery after each swallow (but not a 9-volt!). I’ve had many a regular milk stout from this brewer, so I know that this isn’t normal for this beer. It’s something that settles into the other flavors with a little time, but I’m wondering if this is the one down side of Left Hand’s attempt at nitro-charged bottling.

Honestly, though, if this is the only hiccup, I’m okay with it. The resultant beer drinking experience you get from a bottle of Milk Stout Nitro is nothing short of wondrous. Obviously, others have agreed in large enough numbers that Left Hand has introduced nitrogen-charged versions of their Sawtooth All-American Ale and their Wake Up Dead Stout. I can assure you, I am already on the lookout for these two new experiences.

Febrewary: K-9 Winter Ale

~ lobablanca

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Brewer: Flying Dog Brewery
Location: Frederick, Maryland
Type: English Strong Ale
ABV: 7.4%

Hey, denizens. It’s snowing. Again. It’s only supposed to be “conversational” snow, which I suppose it is…if the conversation consists of the phrase, “Damn, why is it sticking to the roads?”

Guess it’s time to seek comfort once more with a four-legged purveyor of liquid winter warmth. This time, it’s the K-9 Winter Ale from my much-adored friends at Flying Dog. As is the case with many of Flying Dog’s brews, this one comes with a happy little story:

Your legs are strained and your ass is clenched as you descend down the face. You don’t even notice the blood dripping from your nose as the powder is crushed beneath you. It’s freezing cold, but you don’t feel a goddamn thing.

Oh, Flying Dog. You spin such heart-warming tales. Fo shizzle.

Apparently, this particular brew shifts its flavor profile each year, based on the whims of its brewers. I’ve never tried it before, so I can’t make the expected comparisons with previous beers. I can, however, say that this is probably the first time that I have been decidedly “meh” toward a Flying Dog beer.

It’s a beautiful beer, to be sure

BookBin2014: Swallow Me Whole

~ lobablanca

smw

Publishers Weekly wrote this about Nate Powell’s graphic novel Swallow Me Whole:

Indy comic artist Powell, an Eisner-nominee, works full-time with adults with developmental disabilities, which may have been an inspiration for Swallow Me Whole, a stand-alone graphic novel about two teenage step-siblings with psychological problems. Ruth suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and thinks she can hear insects speak, making it difficult for her to walk across grassy lawns but landing her a sweet internship in the natural history museum. Perry sometimes sees a tiny wizard who speaks to him about his destiny, which would be cute if this were a fantasy comic; instead, it’s sadly tragic since Perry recognizes the wizard as nothing more than a troublesome hallucination. It should be obvious from the start that things will not end well. Dark inks and elongated whispering word balloons carry us into Ruth’s world of voices and missing time, while experimental paneling masterfully conveys the characters’ inner worlds and altered states. Powell’s ultimate message remains unclear: Is this a cautionary tale reminding ill teens to take their medication(s)? Or should we take a hopeful message away from Ruth’s tragic story, knowing that one need not give in completely to one’s delusions?

I place this here because I believe this is an excellent summary of a novel that in many ways defies summarizing. Even this tidy little blurb misses so much. Powell delivers a haunting and complicated attempt at viewing the world through the inescapable maze of mental illness. Ruth in particular was poignant in her alienation, tragic in her magnificence. He uses the visual aid of his chosen medium to leave us just as confused, just as lost, just as frustrated and bewildered as Ruth and Perry. His artistry, at times bleak, primitive, decorates the landscapes of Ruth’s and Perry’s world in deep shadows, ghostly gray mists, and sharp lines of light. At times, he erases all boundaries, leaving a page emblazoned with a single image, the surrounding blackness threatening to completely devour it. Sometimes, the nothingness wins…entire pages devoured, formless, empty.

Worth second mention is Powell’s ingenious use of word balloons. Conversations snake through the air in contorted streams, shrink in size and trail away…made pointless by some mental disturbance that steals meaning from spoken words and focuses our attention on the slow disentanglement of our protagonists from reality.

Even though the plots are quite different, Powell’s novel reminded me in many ways of David Beauchard’s graphic novel Epileptic. Both deliver stories involving extremely difficult mental/medical conditions as experienced through younger perspectives. Again, I believe this dismisses the author from having to provide a convoluted (and possibly overwhelming) level of medical explanation, instead allowing us to experience the transpiring events on the same level as the main characters.

Final Verdict: While I don’t know if I would like to add this book to my own library, I’d be interested to see if Powell is able to provide the same level of power and control. Perhaps reading some of his other works would inspire me to want to bring several of his works into my graphic novel collection.