Writer/Artist: Paul Hornschemeier
Collecting FORLORN FUNNIES #2-4, plus additional material
Price: $14.95
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
ISBN: 1-59307-037-3

In Paul Hornschemeier's debut graphic novel MOTHER, COME HOME, Thomas Tennant is a motherless son attempting to rearrange his recently entropic family life. After the death of Thomas's mother, his father David descends into his own shattered mind, attempting to live his life intentionally unaware of his wife's death.

Wearing a plasticine lion mask and faux ermine cape given to him by his mother, Thomas assumes the role of groundskeeper, tending to the areas of his household and his life that are neglected in her absence, exerting what little control he has over the chaotic forces that threaten to rend Thomas and his father apart.

Unfortunately, David doesn't seem to have anything as tangible to cling to, or the will do to so, and is eventually committed to an asylum, physically and mentally trapped and unable to force the wriggle room he needs to accept the truth. Thomas, as a vigilant groundskeeper, recognises his father's need, and takes it upon himself to release him.

MOTHER, COME HOME is a short, powerful work energised by the unique tension Hornschemeier is able to create in the Tennants' struggles between freedom and control, a struggle that is evident with each phrase of dialogue taut with multiple meanings, every carefully bisected panel superimposing more limits upon their rapidly shrinking lives.

Though MOTHER, COME HOME will undoubtedly cast a greater public awareness on his work, Hornschemeier has been toiling away in the independents for a few years now with impressive results. His experimental series SEQUENTIAL, while certainly the work of a young cartoonist eager to discover new territory, displayed a rapidly-maturing sense of place and style with each successive issue, coalescing in the story 'Ex Falso Quodlibet', from SEQUENTIAL #7, the series' finale. Sensing perhaps the pinnacle of his SEQUENTIAL experiments, Hornschemeier then unveiled FORLORN FUNNIES, from which MOTHER, COME HOME is taken.

Although he's most certainly a formalist, Hornschemeier is a formalist unlike most others. The misconception that most beneath this categorical umbrella hold is that complex constructions, eccentric layouts or experimental approaches will produce unique, perhaps even fantastic results. These attempts at innovation, while novel and in a way invigorating, frequently do little more than favour form at the expense of content; style over substance; narrative in lieu of story.

Hornschemeier's formalistic inventions are far subtler and certainly more effective. Although there are certainly visual and physical aspects of his approach - an understated yet effective colouring technique, his careful attention to the minutia of the reading experience that most ignore (paper stock, cover design, etc.) - his most impressive tinkering is applied to the story itself.

By allowing himself the freedom to experiment with the structure of the story rather than the structure of the page, Hornschemeier does a few fascinating things with MOTHER, COME HOME. The intro to the book, a dreamy, squamous smear of black on the pages, takes place after the climax of the book, and adds even more gravity to the story upon a second reading.

The book is narrated by an adult Thomas writing an introduction to a larger work, though in several places the older Thomas' voice drops out, and the younger Thomas takes over and the quality of the illustration - which is mostly very simple, but confident and effortlessly representational - descends into childlike chicken scratches. The story proper of MOTHER, COME HOME is enveloped in a unique outer structure, that of the book introduction, which at first seems perfunctory at best, art school wankery at worst, but which eventually delivers many details of Thomas as the man he came to be, as well as an effective and uplifting four word epitaph to the events.

All of this is not to suggest that Hornschemeier neglected the visual aspects of his approach. Quite the opposite, actually. As I mentioned earlier, there's always something going on within the panels that comments on the moment that the panel represents. As David retreats further into his self-destructive solipsism, the very panels seem to exert an extra force upon him, trapping him in rooms within rooms, the perfectly rectangular windowpane, etc. Also of note is Hornschemeier's muted colouring technique, as simple an approach as you can find, but subtly affecting upon the environment, the characters, and the readers.

MOTHER, COME HOME is a book that I think will escape true appreciation for some time. Not because it's underrated - in fact, everybody who reviews it seems to love it as I do - but because it seems that no matter how far you dig, you will never reach the bottom of Hornschemeier's levels of meaning.

Like the films of Charlie Kaufman or the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, it seems that most of the things you're processing are spontaneous, meaningless, weightless in the overall scope of the story. But every time you process the work again, something that once seemed so tangential now becomes another artery connected directly to the heart of the story.

MOTHER, COME HOME is a book unlike most others. It manages to impress visually, technically, and emotionally without being self-conscious or pretentious. It's a good book for its creator's audacity alone, in attempting something that has never quite been done before, in so unique and unconventional a fashion. What makes it a great book is Hornschemeier's success.

John Parker lives, works, and writes in Kansas City, Missouri.