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Somnambulance
Collecting a career in comics from 1983-2017 by a joyous, feminist contemporary of Julie Doucet, Seth and Chester Brown.
A comics collection by Canadian cartoonist, painter, and illustrator Fiona Smyth. Over thirty years of comics that feature Fiona's world of sexy ladies, precocious girls, and vindictive goddesses is revealed in all its feminist glory. This is recommended reading for sleepwalkers on a female planet.
Fiona Smyth is a Toronto based painter, educator, illustrator, and cartoonist. Her feminist artwork has exhibited internationally. Fiona collaborated with writer and sex educator Cory Silverberg on the kids' series What Makes A Baby in 2013, and Sex Is A Funny Word in 2015, published by Seven Stories Press.
A comics collection by Canadian cartoonist, painter, and illustrator Fiona Smyth. Over thirty years of comics that feature Fiona's world of sexy ladies, precocious girls, and vindictive goddesses is revealed in all its feminist glory. This is recommended reading for sleepwalkers on a female planet.
Fiona Smyth is a Toronto based painter, educator, illustrator, and cartoonist. Her feminist artwork has exhibited internationally. Fiona collaborated with writer and sex educator Cory Silverberg on the kids' series What Makes A Baby in 2013, and Sex Is A Funny Word in 2015, published by Seven Stories Press.
368 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 14, 2018
A big collection of various works from Smyth, including cartoons, poster illustrations, comics. Al t comix, Canadian scene. I connect her with the work of Chet Brown, Julie Doucet, that playfully and humorously explores sex (she wrote a book, Sex Is A Funny Word). Maybe the sometimes buys style connects her for me to Doucet.
Here's a bit about her where you can see a few images:
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/s/smy...
Here's a short interview with her:
http://enmasse.info/interview-with-fi...
Here's a bit about her where you can see a few images:
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/s/smy...
Here's a short interview with her:
http://enmasse.info/interview-with-fi...
August 18, 2018
No, a somnambulance is not what you ride in if you want a nap on the way to the hospital.
Sorry.
Actually, this is a massive collection of stories and illustrations from Smyth’s career, some of them dating back to the mid 80's. Her work rarely has any sort of storyline. It's more about dreams and imagery and filling every square inch of available space. There are recurring characters and motifs and forms. You can see the evolution of her work over the years. Her line becomes more fluid, less angular and scratchy. Early works seem dashed off in a caffeinated frenzy, while later pieces seem to have just flowed right onto the page. Her work is very much in the Julie Doucet/Lynda Barry/Mary Fleener mode, maybe with a bit of Rory Hayes for good measure.
I enjoyed this book a great deal, but I’ll concede that it's some of the most abstract art still recognizable as comics that I’ve ever seen. Probably not to everyone's taste, but nonetheless recommended!
Sorry.
Actually, this is a massive collection of stories and illustrations from Smyth’s career, some of them dating back to the mid 80's. Her work rarely has any sort of storyline. It's more about dreams and imagery and filling every square inch of available space. There are recurring characters and motifs and forms. You can see the evolution of her work over the years. Her line becomes more fluid, less angular and scratchy. Early works seem dashed off in a caffeinated frenzy, while later pieces seem to have just flowed right onto the page. Her work is very much in the Julie Doucet/Lynda Barry/Mary Fleener mode, maybe with a bit of Rory Hayes for good measure.
I enjoyed this book a great deal, but I’ll concede that it's some of the most abstract art still recognizable as comics that I’ve ever seen. Probably not to everyone's taste, but nonetheless recommended!
June 25, 2018
A fascinating overview of many of Smyth's comics. Some of these are stories, fleshed out to one degree or another, but many of the pieces that make up Somnambulance are illustrations. Regardless, Smyth's art is a joy to behold, with all of its baroque, punk glory.
January 29, 2019
As with most collections of a cartoonist’s work across multiple decades, this collection is filled with both hits and misses. Because it’s arranged chronologically (as are most other similar collections) you can see Smyth’s ideas become more developed, abandoned, resurrected, transformed, and so on.
I was largely unfamiliar with Smyth’s work before reading this book. After making my way slowly through it, I can say confidently that her style isn’t made for this kind of collection. Her work isn’t about stories or character development. It’s about visual and emotional depth and fine-tuned detail. Her pages, panels, covers, and posters demand time, not page-turning. I’d much rather encounter one of these works on a wall every day over the course of a few years rather than to have burned my way through this collection cover to cover.
In sum, her work is absolutely incredible, but it isn’t well suited to the collection format.
I was largely unfamiliar with Smyth’s work before reading this book. After making my way slowly through it, I can say confidently that her style isn’t made for this kind of collection. Her work isn’t about stories or character development. It’s about visual and emotional depth and fine-tuned detail. Her pages, panels, covers, and posters demand time, not page-turning. I’d much rather encounter one of these works on a wall every day over the course of a few years rather than to have burned my way through this collection cover to cover.
In sum, her work is absolutely incredible, but it isn’t well suited to the collection format.
April 24, 2020
Some form of sex -symbolically, <(*)>dentified, invented or in action- makes its way onto 19 of every 20 pages. So you know that
~Her PhalloVulvular ensemble snatched my eye and penetrated my mind~
It took me four or five sessions to read this deceptively heavy slabawood because it's exasperating- sometimes to a mild but uncomfortable dizziness.
In my fashion I was obliged ‽often begrudgingly≠ to frequently endeavor tedious effort towards understanding and decoding every detail in each maniacally dense, compulsively cluttered and deeply black ink-soaked panel.
Spending the time and intellectualabor to find a coherence between all the symbols, numbers and stray letters was a big mistake. I'd ditch the effort if you don't notice some significance in the first twenty pages.
FioSyth documents and exhibits an intriguingly intimate and explosion-jumbled stew of mainly three varieties of character. Zero pretense humans who span gender spectrum, Pseudo-Sapiens of a myriad of combinations and Anima-Arcano-Primal creations populate all 367 pages.
She achieves conceptual and sexual heights with a symphony of internal and external congress of mind, body and soul that showcases the ordinary but basks lavishly in the extraordinary!
Take your time bouncing through this loosely correlated collection of mostly vague shorts, independent or character interactions and full page symbolic physiocentric art- all spreading haphazardly towards the apex of intentionally mysterioladen miscellaneous.
FioSyth's career seems to never sway from a fierce determination to consistently spotlight or imply the tantalizing, titillating and taboo in altogether engrossing visio-language!
‽≠‽_BUT after a certain amount of pages it became a total hallucinatory mess that seems to be barfing wormy fish in my face._≠‽≠
Certain unintelligible spaz "stories" eventually got on my nerves so it would've been better consumed and digested if split between three books- appropriately spread between its 30 years of output. The content was more concurrent and there wouldn't be so much to try to understand at once.
I'll get "All Fiona" here:
I see this as a tapestry collection of an individual's art-soul who seeks to edify or relate to her readers about their SpirituaSexualities and conjure awareness towards widely unfamiliar -if even recognized- and rarely understood brothers and sisters for the good of humanity with her singular commentary.
<(*)>DENTIFY
It's like the "Shep Fairey `OBEY'" in her own way!
(concentrated on I- about self and rendered)
* I apologize for shooting neologisms into an already pregnantly worded review *
~Her PhalloVulvular ensemble snatched my eye and penetrated my mind~
It took me four or five sessions to read this deceptively heavy slabawood because it's exasperating- sometimes to a mild but uncomfortable dizziness.
In my fashion I was obliged ‽often begrudgingly≠ to frequently endeavor tedious effort towards understanding and decoding every detail in each maniacally dense, compulsively cluttered and deeply black ink-soaked panel.
Spending the time and intellectualabor to find a coherence between all the symbols, numbers and stray letters was a big mistake. I'd ditch the effort if you don't notice some significance in the first twenty pages.
FioSyth documents and exhibits an intriguingly intimate and explosion-jumbled stew of mainly three varieties of character. Zero pretense humans who span gender spectrum, Pseudo-Sapiens of a myriad of combinations and Anima-Arcano-Primal creations populate all 367 pages.
She achieves conceptual and sexual heights with a symphony of internal and external congress of mind, body and soul that showcases the ordinary but basks lavishly in the extraordinary!
Take your time bouncing through this loosely correlated collection of mostly vague shorts, independent or character interactions and full page symbolic physiocentric art- all spreading haphazardly towards the apex of intentionally mysterioladen miscellaneous.
FioSyth's career seems to never sway from a fierce determination to consistently spotlight or imply the tantalizing, titillating and taboo in altogether engrossing visio-language!
‽≠‽_BUT after a certain amount of pages it became a total hallucinatory mess that seems to be barfing wormy fish in my face._≠‽≠
Certain unintelligible spaz "stories" eventually got on my nerves so it would've been better consumed and digested if split between three books- appropriately spread between its 30 years of output. The content was more concurrent and there wouldn't be so much to try to understand at once.
I'll get "All Fiona" here:
I see this as a tapestry collection of an individual's art-soul who seeks to edify or relate to her readers about their SpirituaSexualities and conjure awareness towards widely unfamiliar -if even recognized- and rarely understood brothers and sisters for the good of humanity with her singular commentary.
<(*)>DENTIFY
It's like the "Shep Fairey `OBEY'" in her own way!
(concentrated on I- about self and rendered)
* I apologize for shooting neologisms into an already pregnantly worded review *
January 16, 2022
The title speaks well to how this volume comes across. This collection of work by Fiona Smyth is quite eclectic, but many, if not most, of the pieces in here seems dominated by a dream logic (if by any logic at all). The "stories," if one can call them that, are surreal, often wordless--or, if they use words, often in sequences of panels with single words juxtaposed against each other. Some have little to no narrative logic. Smyth's style is ragged and cluttered, often unappealing to look at--and deliberately so, obviously. I confess that I rarely felt much of a sense of connection with what I was looking at, visually strange and powerful as it often was. Certain images stand out--the number of flaming vaginas is impressive--but I remained mostly disengaged. Important underground/alternative work, but not as appealing to me as a lot of other similar stuff.
November 20, 2024
A vivid, almost chaotic collection of very 90s-looking works. A few days later I'm not sure I remember much about any of the stories, just the persistent appearances of different characters between different works, which is exactly the type of self-referential lore you can really catch in a complete collection like this vs just reading the Nocturnal Emission series, for instance. Shades of Julie Doucet, Mary Fleener, et al. Reading this made me want to finally finish Eightball.
November 7, 2020
I could happily spend an entire afternoon getting lost in the sauce of the illustration details
October 25, 2022
Probably good to have for certain folks who may not be represented in traditional media. I picked it up as the library was featuring it. Felt like a teenager's fever dream.
August 29, 2018
Definitely outside of my normal range of books.
http://pussreboots.com/blog/2018/comm...
http://pussreboots.com/blog/2018/comm...
December 31, 2020
This book gave me a headache. The graphics were exasperating with few exceptions among the ~350+ pages, which made me just kind of skim through half of the whole thing. I think many of Smyth’s works here would have benefited from looking more closely and studying each page at lenght, but this was a random pick and I found rather quickly that the style doesn’t really work for me, so I felt like meh, gave it a go, moving on.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews