Stum

by Yann Taillefer

Une souris au triste destin se retrouve entre les mains d'une société mystérieuse et tentaculaire, AG-Corp. Accompagnée de sa tumeur maligne (inoculée par AG-Corp), elle va vite découvrir que l'économie de l'entreprise repose, parmi ses diverses activités douteuses, sur la mise en place d'un système de recyclage permettant de transformer des citoyens considérés comme indésirables en matériaux de construction. A elles deux, elles vont semer le trouble dans la mécanique bien huilée d'AG-Corp...

96 pages, Paperback

Published October 18, 2019

Reviews

[Soteralzobooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.6

[Simon Chadwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew nothing of Yann Taillefer's work when I came across Stum in a marketing email from The Mansion Press. What immediately caught my eye was the extraordinary artwork, a glorious combination of rubber-hose dynamism and surreal characters in a grim, urban setting. But the real attention grabber was how it was drawn. All the colouring and linework is created in blue and red, with deft hatching providing shape and depth that brings every page alive. What's more, the pages are wordless, so Taillefer leans into extreme expressions and exaggerated body language to get intentions and reactions across.

Stum contains several tales, loosely entwined to build a larger world. There's an oversized fly battling to remain in his apartment, an office worker doomed to experience every indignity, the children of an impoverished mouse sold into experimentation, and the brief life of an anthropomorphic match, all rendered in wondrous detail.

It's probably no coincidence that Dave Cooper's recent return to comics is also through The Mansion Press as both creators share a visual aesthetic where the boundaries between organic and non-organic are blurred. But although they share some similarities, this is indeed a unique work displaying a disturbing, nightmarish, dystopian vision populated with cute, wide-eyed characters. Often gross, and definitely for adults, it is visual storytelling at its very best.

[Titus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim volume contains four different wordless comics, each of which stands on its own, despite them all appearing to share a setting – a bizarre dystopian world, inhabited by a motley assortment of funny animals, robots and miscellaneous freaks. The stories aren't especially deep or sophisticated, but they're wild, wacky and a lot of fun. Moreover, the artwork is absolutely gorgeous, using a wonderfully cartoony style beautifully rendered in what looks like coloured pens.

Both visually and narratively, I feel like this comic joins the dots between Winshluss and Dave Cooper – two creators I'd never particularly thought of as similar before, but whom Taillefer connects seamlessly. I consider that comparison very high praise, even if I have to qualify it by saying that “Stum” lacks the artistic eclecticism of “Pinocchio” and the emotional resonance and ineffable eeriness of “Dan & Larry”.

Narratively speaking, the comics in “Stum” are fairly simple and straightforward – zany romps that feel like a grown-up version of the Looney Tunes or Cartoon Network animations I watched as a kid. That's probably not the kind of thing I'm ever going to consider an all-time favourite, but it's still something I thoroughly enjoy. Indeed, I’d be happy to see more comics in this vein, and I'll gladly pick up more of Taillefer’s work.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A perverse wordless comic in the vein of Jim Woodring or Dave Cooper, Stum follows the fate of a mouse and its sentient tumor who finds themselves amidst the industrial activities of a sprawling company. The characters find themselves delving deep into the heart of the company's bizarre machinery as they observe many unwanted living beings being transformed into building materials. The logic in Stum is fairly similar to Woodring's various "Frank" stories, but Yann Taillefer accentuates the grotesque to another level.

Rendered fully in colored pens, the artwork is incredibly detailed with the cross-hatching and textures, evoking the sensibilities seen with artists like Dave Cooper and Emil Ferris. Taillefer preferentially utilizes a lot of reddish-pink inks throughout, giving a lot of the character designs a rather gory, fleshy appearance that can be a bit overwhelming at times but it does achieve the disconcerting sensation the story goes for. There isn't too much to the story - it's really the technical mastery and meticulous designs that Teillefer demonstrates here that is mostly worth checking out.