Connective Tissue

Darla Vogel is a snarky college dropout with “tits and hips and about an acre of ass” who works as a video store clerk. She’s a typically cynical New Yorker, coping with such annoynaces as her quirky boss and stoner roommate. When Darla gets experimental meat-flavored candy from one of the store’s regulars – a bobble-headed prodigy who rents tentacle porn – she finds herself in a surreal world with no way out.

Connective Tissue ($22.99, Fantagraphics) is the latest work from Bob Fingerman. After writing his first novel – Bottomfeeder – Fingerman goes for a mix of prose and images, similar to Deitch’s Pictorama . Darla’s journey into the bizarre world benefits from this format; a traditional graphic novel would have told the story with a lot more pages, Darla’s descriptions of her surroundings are left to the reader’s imagination, with the illustrations helping out along the way. Fingerman does a good job with the visuals, complete with pages of naked people, vein-filled buildings, jelly-headed creatures, and other odd denizens of the world. Fingerman’s exaggerated style works for Darla as well, with her exaggerated hips and bottom, giant bows in her hair, and nipples jutting out from underneath her top.

The story is intriguing to follow, as Darla’s trip into the unknown grows weirder and weirder. Her running commentary doesn’t wear too thin, as she snarks on her surroundings. The biggest flaw is the climax; after spending pages on establishing how Darla got to this strange world, Fingerman veers the story into a final explanation that seems forced and pedestrian. He does get points for throwing in an epilogue in a more traditional graphic novel style, almost as an apology for the underwhelming conclusion.

In the end, Connective Tissue does make for an engaging read, even with the mediocre finish. While Darla sounds like she could be a handful, she is a good and sympathetic protagonist, making her a modern-day Alice in a 21st century Wonderland.

-Jason Borelli

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