BOOK REVIEWS
Ojingogo
by Matthew Forsythe
Age group: 12+
Price: $14.95 paper
ISBN: 978-1-897299-69-2
Page count: 152 pp.
Size: 5½ x 7½
Released: Sept.
Ojingogo (pronounced “oh-JING-aw-go,” according to the book’s jacket copy) takes place in a surreal world of walking cubes, foods that cause people and creatures to grow and shrink, and giant, furry men being carried off by even gianter dragonflies. It’s a world where the law of gravity mostly applies, but that’s about it – other physical laws are determined by what the world’s creator, Montreal-based illustrator Matthew Forsythe, decides he wants to draw.
Forsythe’s book began life as a web comic that ended up garnering much praise and a few awards. This deluxe (and low-priced, it must be noted) edition eschews anything so mundane as an introduction, and instead jumps right into the craziness. The mostly wordless tale (when characters speak, it’s in a kind of faux Korean) is of a small girl who loses her camera and must forge an uneasy partnership with an unfriendly one-eyed squid. She does battle with various entities along the way, including a pair of hapless midget mummies whose intention of eating her is made plain by their carrying a set of cutlery and a salt shaker that are twice their size.
Forsythe, who has illustrated for chickaDEE magazine and The Wall Street Journal – an interesting combination in itself – employs a visual style much informed by manga and Korean illustration. The black-and-white pencil drawings are fun and bizarre, the tone often reminiscent of the “just accept it” dream-logic of a Miyazaki film (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle). It’s likely that the majority of the book’s readers will be post-secondary hipsters and comics enthusiasts, but it works perfectly for the tween and teen set.
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