Saint Cole

by Noah Van Sciver

This sophomore graphic novel from Noah Van Sciver may seem like a left turn from his critically acclaimed debut graphic novel biography of Abraham Lincoln (The Hypo), yet upon closer reflection, it showcases Van Sciver's preoccupation with pathos and the human condition. Saint Cole depicts four days in the life of a twenty-eight-year-old suburbanite named Joe, who works at a pizzeria to support his girlfriend Nicole and their infant child and then Nicole invites her troubled mother to move into their two-bedroom apartment until she lands on her feet again. Joe reacts by retreating into alcohol: he wants out, and he's angry. He s in a position to act rashly and he does.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Comix, The United States Of America, Comic Book

112 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2015

About the author

[copied from: http://nvansciver.wordpress.com/about/]

I am THE one and only Noah Van Sciver, cartoonist/comic strip artist and illustrator. I’m best known for my alternative comic book series Blammo and my weekly comic strip 4 Questions which appears every week in the alternative newspaper Westword. My work has appeared in The Best American comics 2011, Mad magazine, Sunstone, The Comics Journal, MOME and numerous comics anthologies. I’m currently hard at work on my first graphic novel The Hypo which will be published by Fantagraphics books upon its completion. I’m a cancer and I hate seafood, and adventure.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joe is Noah Van Sciver’s typical working class loser protagonist (literally an “Average Joe”). Working as a waiter at a local pizza joint, Joe struggles to make rent money while dealing with being a husband and father, neither of which he’s mentally prepared to be at 28 years old - he’s clearly still a manchild looking to party, screw around, etc. The pressure builds, his drinking spirals out of hand and things come to a head when his meth-ed out mother-in-law comes to stay in their crappy apartment.

Unlike most of Van Sciver’s comics, I didn’t love Saint Cole but it wasn’t bad either. It’s always morbidly interesting to see someone’s life implode and the story has dramatic tension as Joe’s drinking increases and his already-shaky frame of mind begins to unravel faster and faster. But, aside from the final page, it’s a fairly predictable and mundane tale of a desperate fuckup that Van Sciver’s done better and more memorably before, most notably in 1999 which has a similar protagonist/story.

The ending is definitely surprising and unexpected but also far too abrupt, underwhelming and unsatisfying. Van Sciver’s art is fine as always but he’s not doing anything especially different from his other comics and it remains a firmly secondary aspect to his writing.

There was enough to Saint Cole to keep me more-or-less entertained though it’s definitely not one of Van Sciver’s more compelling books. It doesn’t have a gripping story or a unique character portrait, it generally feels like a retread of older material, and I wasn’t sure what he was aiming for. Still, it’s not a bad comic either and Noah Van Sciver fans will probably get something out of it.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read Van Sciver's Youth is Wasted, a collection of short stories, and I said in my review for it that I preferred the longer ones. So I get my wish in this novella about a loser in his twenties who is spinning out of control. This is a dark tale and he is basically an anti-hero, a jerk, and the tale seems bitter, but maybe more importantly, honest, real. I really think this feels like a huge leap in his storytelling and artistic skills.

It also feels like a lot of slacker/loser comics by and about guys in their twenties, deeply angsty, geez I got a kid and a girlfriend and no money, but I still seem to like these stories. Joe is a drunk who works at a pizzeria, though still is broke, of course, with a girlfriend home with a baby, and the girlfriend's (out of control, drunk, stoner) mother moves in for some time and things get rapidly worse. Lots of drunken craziness.

I think one powerful aspect of it is the economic issues. I think Joe would maybe be a jerk anyway, one way or the other. Maybe. But there's also strong evidence that the crazy stupid drunken crazy mistakes he makes come from all the stress from working long hours and not being able to make it. In that sense, it very much is a commentary on the times.

I'll add a comment after now having read The Hypo, which is a study of Lincoln as bipolar, primarily depressed, so Joe fits in this category. And now I have heard Van Sciver has suffered from depression, so maybe much of this work explores mental illness, finally, including in some autobiographical sense, his own struggles.

[Jan Philipzig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Existential, gritty, authentic, miserable, awkward, fresh, darkly funny, heartfelt, unpredictable, ambiguous - I love Noah Van Sciver's storytelling style! Thank you, Dan, for bringing "the master" to my attention! :)

[Shazia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, this was really something. I need to read more Noah Van Sciver.

[Derek Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the joys of Noah Van Sciver's writing is its realistic quality, it authenticity and true-to-lifeness without coming across as simple, outright autobiography. Many of Van Sciver's shorter comics -- for which he is better known -- have this quality. One way of reading Saint Cole is as a longer-form exercise in what he does with shorter fiction. Call it a "graphic novel," if you prefer, or perhaps even closer to something like a novella. The "lived" feeling of this story, right down to its unpredictable and ambiguous ending, is what makes it resonate.

[Stephanie (aka WW) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was entertained, but, boy, what a depressing little comic. Poor Joe’s situation went from bad to much worse...especially that one, cringeworthy night. I feel bad thinking the ending is a positive one, but that is the intention- I think.

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe, the protagonist, just has the shittiest life ever. It's terrifying to read about because of how mundane it is. I could very easily imagine a similar outcome for myself if I'd taken a few wrong turns. Turned to alcohol instead of school, had a falling out with my parents (my financial support), and then had an accidental baby with one of the many awful girlfriends I had in my early 20s. I could be in a similar situation! It's terrifying to think about for me even if it is fairly unrealistic for me. I think my biggest fear in life (right now) is addiction (and other mental health issues) and unwanted babies... young male problems.

Joe's descent into depravity seemed very realistic to me.

The overtone of economic issues struck a chord with me. Joe needs to balance having a low paying fatiguing job with supporting his unemployed wife, child, house, and increasing reliance on alcohol. It's a dangerous spiral. I feel like once you get stuck into a system like that it must be incredibly hard to escape. At one point Joe sees a commercial advertising a 3-week college program. It's too good to be true, and is. It's not that easy to escape - and Joe doesn't seem to make an effort to do that. He's still a young kid ready to party in the body of a 28-year old father. But it is wild how fast your 20s go by. It'd be easy to forget about going to school or finding gainful employment and realize you're too old to start.

Joe's life has hints of improvement (a promotion at work, being more friendly with his wife, his wife wanting to get a job) but then Sciver digs in at Joe's life just completely unravels in the most disgustingly satisfying way.

I really didn't enjoy reading this book until things got so crazy that I was able to separate myself from the action. It made me uneasy.

[Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other than the abrupt ending, I really enjoyed this.

I like books about losers.

I write books about losers.

I enjoy reading about losers too.

I was a loser once.

Drank too much, didn’t make enough to pay the bills. Kind of bummed around as a father when my first was born.

So there were parts of this story I could identify with.

I also know so many people like this. Just kind of trapped.

In the end he gets a sort of small mercy, but he’s fucked up so bad in other ways that shit is likely going to fall apart no matter what.

I guess the ending was fine, but I wanted more. I guess I can’t decide if it is a good wanting more or bad.

Solid work overall.

[Jon Hewelt · Rating 5 out of 5]

well that was fucked up

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una bajada a los infiernos de la mano de un joven asfixiado por el curro, la familia y el alcoholismo con un final inesperado.
Una locuron.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another gritty, darkly funny tale of a downwardly spiraling twenty-nothing from the master, Noah Van Sciver. Van Sciver's art is just getting better and better, and his dialogue and characterizations all carry the ring of truth. The ending came as a complete surprise (though clues are scattered throughout); it is one I will not soon forget.

[J.T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just noticed I never wrote a review for this one. It's been a long time since I read it, but hell, it's by Noah Van Sciver so you know it's fantastic.

[Hannah Garden · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK yikes, how to talk about this book. Mmm . . . this book is so gross and evil! Yuck! It is about the worst most shitty little shitlord man and terrible gross sad things happen the end.

Aaaaaaand . . . five stars, beautiful book.

I just reread all the Fante Bukowskis with Joe (he read the first and part of the second, I read all three) and our takeaways were pretty different. He'd only ever heard me rave about Van Sciver as one of my main favorites and he didn't really get it. Fante seemed like a broad target, and it's like OK yeah this is a funny comic strip but it's kinda dumb and mean.

Whereas my main takeaway is that a comic like this is an exercise in seeking to conceive of the mind and world of the detestable self, so that you can write it out of yourself like a ghost. Which is I think my whole theory about art anymore? That if it's art, it's a confession, and vice versa?? Idk. In any case Van Sciver's work is a good example of that gross, embarrassing, necessary effort, embodying the aspects of character that most disturb you, that you have resistance to, so that you can appraise them as your own creations and transcend their petty grievances. And probably love them, idk. No pressure.

This work, Saint Cole, is much cruder than Fante. It's hard to read it as an attempt to conceive, at all. It is more of an excretion of the detestable self. The way he draws the girlfriend's mother's face. It is so ugly, it is the pain of horror and grief at being overwhelmed by bile and venom.

Which . . . idk. Seems like that stuff has to come up just like the other stuff does. It probably has to come up before you can start getting to the other stuff, even. It might be necessary to purge this stuff before you can experience anything like friendliness or curiosity. Idk.

So I hate pretty much everything that happens in this book and yet if there is a line between the human who needed to punish punish punish and the human who laughing with mercy comes through the forest and looks up at the stars, it's in Van Sciver's hand.

[Tom Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains some of the typical Van Sciver themes: a focus on the psyche of a disappointed male protagonist and his rather bleak, disappointing existence. One of the really interesting things Van Sciver does here is use his artwork to denote the different states of intoxication the protagonist is in throughout the book. Of any Van Sciver book I've read, I think that Saint Cole is the one whose artwork alone was most affecting. Combine that with a characteristic Noah Van Sciver story, and this is really successful, if depressing. And the ending is pretty great: it's one that hammers home the theme of the story as well as offering some clarity to the previously mysterious title.

[Juan Fuentes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historia de un perdedor cuyo alcoholismo le va metiendo en problemas. No está mal.

[Debra Golden · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a sad story with so many bad choices by characters and an unhappy 'ending.'

[John Kinhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noah Van Sciver is a great artist and storyteller and Saint Cole is a perfect demonstration of his early talents. A dark and twisted tale.

[Ian Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad, pained and grim but feeling utterly real throughout - there's an elusive humour to Van Sciver's view of the world that I am loving. And, "Your nine-fingered mom!" had me in stitches and is something I haven't stopped saying since I read it.

[Tony Vacation · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very engrossing and grungy existential yarn starring that deadbeat you used to buy weed from. You remember that guy? Scruffy. Crappy gages in his ear. Well, he still has the gages. And he managed to knock some girl up. Nowadays he busts ass trying to make ends meet as a waiter for a pizza joint while his wife and nine-fingered mother-in-law sit on their asses all day at the apartment whose rent he can barely afford to pay. He also kind of has a pretty bad drinking problem. And he's totally considering making a move on the 17 year old waitress who just started working with him. He's about one day away from some kind of volcanic breakdown or another. He's just living the American dream, and it's awful.

[Jason]

It was getting worse and worse and worse--I get stressed out reading books about people who are more or less decent who make progressively bad decisions in succession. And the then the ending happened, and I thought, okay, maybe this dude has a chance to get himself out of this mess. Maybe he can make it.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Ignatz Award-nominated book shows Noah Van Sciver at the top of his form with a realism that's both grim and at the same time humorous. You won't see the ending coming, but you'll think about it for a long time.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

No thanks.

[Reggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story of aimless midwestern youth that probably didn't need to be told. Or maybe it did. It was told, in this book, so here we are.

[Fx Smeets · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a story which starts low and goes down.

Joe is 28 years old. He has a girlfriend and a kid and a flat and a job and not even one day off. There is no space left for him in his flat after his girlfriend's mother moves in with them. There is no space left for him in his own life after he is forced to take in extra shifts to pay for rent. He has no money left. So he drinks from the restaurant's bar, every evening, every morning. He escapes in booze and in fantasy love. He ignores the opportunities to make things better. He grabs the opportunities to make things worse. In the end, he is miserably redeemed.

We would be grateful for the ray of hope if we could convince ourselves that it is a ray of hope, that he is going to built up on it, drag himself out of the ditch. But the ray of hope is poisoned anyway, rotten at core. Anything built on it is going to be built on a lie.

Saint Cole is the story of a man too immature to face is own life. Because he lacks the strength to clear it, Joe gets swallowed by his own rubbish. Van Sciver's trait, slow and hesitant, is perfectly suited for the job. This is not a book for rainy days though - and it is raining today.

[Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

In spite of Noah Van Sciver’s expressive art, this short graphic novel, in the end, felt unsatisfying and a little rushed. Following a week in the life of Joe, a young waiter at a pizza joint trying to make ends meet for his wife and child, Joe starts in a hole and endeavors to dig himself as deeply as he can. On the cusp of a promotion, things start going badly for Joe when his wife’s drug addled mother moves into their tiny, crumbling apartment, and his budding alcoholism quickly spirals out of control. While an all too evocative account of American poverty, Joe’s utter awfulness, his penchant for making the absolute worst decision, made it tough reading. Unlike van Sciver’s series Fante Bukowski, there was little humor to leaven the bleakness of life depicted. The ending seems abrupt with little resolution, I felt. With the build up of tension and the severity of Joe’s actions, the way things conclude feel like a bit of an anticlimax.

[Joseph Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guy feels trapped in the life of his making, starts drinking too much, and develops a problem. We see the inevitable downfall, how burdens of his life just keep getting bigger, even with little nuggets of delusional sanity thrown in. Despite him being kind of an ass, it's hard not to feel for him. This feels true to life. He knows he's going to mess up and then he does. It's painful to watch, and painful to share along side. There's not a happy ending, but an open one.

If you can't relate to the downwards spiral, you probably won't like this book. You'll find it sad and depressing, and kind of pointless.

Some of the art really set the mood, while some of it was just hard to see. You could feel the spiral pattern, downwards.

[Vittorio Rainone · Rating 4 out of 5]

La storia di una caduta nell'abisso che dall'abisso stesso è salvata. Disegni scabri, che ricordano tanto il nostrano Tota, che si stendono come incoerenti ragnatele su oggetti e volti, rendendoli alla perfezione nelle loro imperfezioni. Una vita distrutta che non vuole tornare a galla, anzi adora affondare. Un protagonista umanissimo, con i suoi lati positivi e i suoi pesi negativi, così come tutto quello che ha intorno. Un finale che ricorda tanto un fumetto diversissimo: Asteryos Polyp, ma risulta meno "improvviso" di quell'altro finale. In ogni caso: un libro piccolo ma davvero interessante.

[Chad Jordahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Van Sciver's work a lot. I liked this book a lot right up until the deus ex machina ending which left me feeling let down and a bit confused. It felt as if Van Sciver just ran out of time or enthusiasm or something. But then I remembered that he did foreshadow the huge sink hole with several references to big potholes in the parking lot, so apparently it was planned. But what's the point? The main character Joe didn't cause it, couldn't have foreseen it, and couldn't have done much about it if he had. Which is entirely unlike the rest of his problems, all of which he causes or exacerbates.

[Gavin Lobe · Rating 1 out of 5]

The entire content of this book I did not enjoy. From the main character sexually harassing a coworker, to throwing up at work countless times due to alcoholism, to not having enough money for rent because of the alcohol problem, to doing meth with his girlfriend's mom and then having sex with her, to then accidentally killing the girlfriend's mom... It seemed mundane and also vulgar and disturbing. Not for me! I don't know why I've read so many books by the same author ...

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry. I have no idea how this got on my shelves. Maybe I shouldn't rate it, because I'm not the target audience. But heck, if the book had value, would it not have slightly more universal appeal? I mean, wouldn't I care about the struggles of the characters at all? I don't, even though I read to the ambiguous ending and spent some extra time thinking about it. If there's something here that's not ugly & depressing, it's beyond my skill to see.