I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: July 15, 2023] Algorithmic Reality

I received this book at work with a bunch of other graphic novels from NBM.  I liked the stuff they sent out–anti-corporate and promoting the underground.  And this book fits in with that ethic.

I don’t know David Sánchez’s work, but his style in this book reminds me of Chris Ware and Ted Rall.  Ware in particular because the characters look vaguely the same in every panel (on purpose) with minimal changes between panels.  Damian Bradfield is a British businessman (that’s pretty much all it says about him on the book) and he has written four tales of dystopian technology takeover.

In the first, a man goes to a store to buy a pair of shoes.  He doesn’t buy any but the employee follows him seemingly everywhere to make sure he doesn’t want them.  On the street.  In the grocery store (where the employee has photos of the sneakers).  Then he sees the employee in different outfits everywhere until finally the employee is in his house. The employee is never aggressive, just always there–like your ads on your phone.

In the second one a man is informed that his insurance is about to expire but he is illegible for a new comprehensive insurance.  For $100 a month, you get full life, travel, car and house insurance.  All you need to do is connect your bank account, Facebook Account, Google account and your iPhone so they can monitor you.  The punchline in this one is pretty good.

The third one is set right after lockdown.  A woman goes to Half Foods and notices that everyone else there seems kind of like a zombie–staring at their phones and not engaging with anyone else.  When she gets closer she realizes they are all looking at amazin (sic) account  all working for the global company.  The final panel is not too subtle.

The Hoarder is the darkest one of all.  A man who is totally old school rides a bus.  He uses a film camera, listens to cassettes and buys vinyl.  His phone is an old flip phone. When he goes into a cafe, there’s a sig that they don’t take cash anymore–only electronic payments.  When he gets home, his apartment is a shrine to old tech–VHS tapes, vinyl records.  he gets a visitor–his sister and his nephew.  The little boy is utterly puzzled by a David Bowie record.  When the story ends, the man is being taken away by the police (with the amazon arrow on their logo) because of data avoidance.

The final piece is called California’s Boomtown Tours.  It starts with the Gold Industry– a town that once held 10,000 people in 1880 reduced to just 120 by 1920.  Up next is the Oil Industry–an oil boom town from 1876 to 1900.  The final stop is Silicon Valley.  It was once the most expensive retail space in the world.  What’s next?

The drawing style left the entire book very deadpan, which worked.  But the whole books comes off as a little more preachy than I wanted.  It’s potentially funny, but its earnestness is a little offputting.  But at the same time, he’s not really wrong.