What do you think?
Rate this book
Gulag Casual
A new short story collection by Austin English, an innovative cartoonist and growing star in NY’s Chelsea gallery scene. "Austin English’s drawing is gelatinous, daubed, stroked, smeared, erased, redrawn, sculpted, twisted, cringes, flattens out as it squashes inward, maybe reminds one of a landscape and populace for Stravinsky folk songs, or a dream program for tragic Polish puppet plays, crowded, self-replicating and worth checking out." — Gary Panter Gulag Casual smashes faux-grotesque drawing into crude panels, narratives tease literary tropes all the while pushing the lexicon of comics further into the 21st century." — Esther Pearl Watson "Beautiful minimalist portraits." – The Comics Journal "Genius." – Giant Robot Magazine Gulag Casual , by acclaimed illustrator and cartoonist Austin English, presents some of the most mature and sustained work yet from a constantly challenging and essential artist. This new suite of short stories collects material from 2010–2015, showcasing the kind of imaginative imagery which firmly establishes English as one of the most innovative cartoonists in practice today. Austin English lives and works in New York as an artist, cartoonist, and publisher. His illustration work has appeared in the New York Times and has been exhibited in galleries all over the world, including Montreal, Stockholm, Croatia, and New York.
160 pages, Paperback
First published April 12, 2016
1 person is currently reading
66 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 28, 2017
“I believe making creative work is what leads to new visual ideas”—Austin English
“When mystery and ambiguity dominate the straightforward. When words cannot capture meaning. When one is caused to continually wonder what is going on inside this house”—The Comics Reporter
“It’s my belief that comics can sometimes be viewed as webs of images that carry some kind of emotional punch for standing on the page together”—Austin English
Gulag Casual is a wonderful and strange “experimental” comics collection from Austin English and published by the cutting edge publisher 2dCloud Press. You want to see the future of comics, or the edge that will drive it? Go to 2dCloud:
http://2dcloud.com
Gulag Casual is a whirling dervish of style and color, a collection of bizarre stories followed by a helpful note from the author. Characters seem to be configurations of post-Picasso bodies in a free sketching design that connotes movement and accessibility, though the strangeness might just be a little alienating for some, and that would be one point of the process, too. In other words, conventional, straightforward narrative doesn’t teach you anything new about narrative. This isn’t Lucy and Desi, this isn’t Father Knows Best, it is abstraction and artistic form highlighted as one dimension of the storytelling. Matisse is maybe closer than Picasso as a reference point, but those are centuries-old dudes, old signposts for a road left long ago, maybe.
These stories span 2010-2015, after English had been making comics in a more conventional way for several years; this is his “first stab at making art in comics.”
Here’s the kinda thing this is:
https://www.google.com/search?q=gulag...
“The New York Story” is one of mutual voyeurism familiar to someone living in any big city with facing buildings, then turns abruptly to an anecdote about a conflict with a friend, then a confrontation from men who had overheard that conversation about the conflict. Some of the physical arrangement of bodies feels like quick sketches of yoga poses, but there’s also the threat of violence. And the stories are overheard, reported, unreliable. Stories and violence.
The Disgusting Room is a more conventional story about a couple wanting to give up their child to people who can better care for her. More abstract approach, but the threat of violence continues. There’s a kind of visual counterpoint for the emotional chaos. When violence occurs, the narrative unravels. There’s a sense of suspense as in many narratives, but also a sense of resolution.
“My Friend Perry” is a reported school incident from friend to friend. As a narrative it kind of proceeds in what feels like a random fashion, capturing the danger of the story and the intimacy of friendship.
In the art there are aspects of the “primitive,” with a sense of child-like innocence, hand-lettered quickly, not without bright colors, fast-painted and sketched. As English himself says, people usually find his work “amateurish,” but he is working out of a pretty consistent vision.
I’ve just been reading Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren and George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, two compassionate and funny modernist portraits of poverty, of the down and out, the alienated. To say “modernist” implies that there is some attempt to convey the sense of reality with words, with images, with details. In English we see something different, the failure of mirrored representation, and in its place fragmentation. The attempt to capture alienation calls for alienating effects. There’s a deliberately imbalanced aesthetic, at times. But never boring! Kind of energizing, sometimes scary, sometimes amusing.
English says a central theme for him across these works is “aggressive forces asserting themselves in the most personal sanctums” and that feels right. It’s challenging art, not comfortable, in content or form.
“When mystery and ambiguity dominate the straightforward. When words cannot capture meaning. When one is caused to continually wonder what is going on inside this house”—The Comics Reporter
“It’s my belief that comics can sometimes be viewed as webs of images that carry some kind of emotional punch for standing on the page together”—Austin English
Gulag Casual is a wonderful and strange “experimental” comics collection from Austin English and published by the cutting edge publisher 2dCloud Press. You want to see the future of comics, or the edge that will drive it? Go to 2dCloud:
http://2dcloud.com
Gulag Casual is a whirling dervish of style and color, a collection of bizarre stories followed by a helpful note from the author. Characters seem to be configurations of post-Picasso bodies in a free sketching design that connotes movement and accessibility, though the strangeness might just be a little alienating for some, and that would be one point of the process, too. In other words, conventional, straightforward narrative doesn’t teach you anything new about narrative. This isn’t Lucy and Desi, this isn’t Father Knows Best, it is abstraction and artistic form highlighted as one dimension of the storytelling. Matisse is maybe closer than Picasso as a reference point, but those are centuries-old dudes, old signposts for a road left long ago, maybe.
These stories span 2010-2015, after English had been making comics in a more conventional way for several years; this is his “first stab at making art in comics.”
Here’s the kinda thing this is:
https://www.google.com/search?q=gulag...
“The New York Story” is one of mutual voyeurism familiar to someone living in any big city with facing buildings, then turns abruptly to an anecdote about a conflict with a friend, then a confrontation from men who had overheard that conversation about the conflict. Some of the physical arrangement of bodies feels like quick sketches of yoga poses, but there’s also the threat of violence. And the stories are overheard, reported, unreliable. Stories and violence.
The Disgusting Room is a more conventional story about a couple wanting to give up their child to people who can better care for her. More abstract approach, but the threat of violence continues. There’s a kind of visual counterpoint for the emotional chaos. When violence occurs, the narrative unravels. There’s a sense of suspense as in many narratives, but also a sense of resolution.
“My Friend Perry” is a reported school incident from friend to friend. As a narrative it kind of proceeds in what feels like a random fashion, capturing the danger of the story and the intimacy of friendship.
In the art there are aspects of the “primitive,” with a sense of child-like innocence, hand-lettered quickly, not without bright colors, fast-painted and sketched. As English himself says, people usually find his work “amateurish,” but he is working out of a pretty consistent vision.
I’ve just been reading Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren and George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, two compassionate and funny modernist portraits of poverty, of the down and out, the alienated. To say “modernist” implies that there is some attempt to convey the sense of reality with words, with images, with details. In English we see something different, the failure of mirrored representation, and in its place fragmentation. The attempt to capture alienation calls for alienating effects. There’s a deliberately imbalanced aesthetic, at times. But never boring! Kind of energizing, sometimes scary, sometimes amusing.
English says a central theme for him across these works is “aggressive forces asserting themselves in the most personal sanctums” and that feels right. It’s challenging art, not comfortable, in content or form.
April 24, 2021
first I hated it. it's impossible to read, to visually read. then I just let it wash over me. then my brain sort of skewed and it was like reading another language that I couldn't understand intellectually but somehow primally it conveyed a message to me. I doubted the meaning, but the written words in the panels strung the images together, barely. I don't know what to say about this but I'm trying to say something. once my brain shifted I had so many new ideas and feelings somehow.
maybe like me you will feel repelled and exhausted trying at first to read this book. my suggestion is to let it wash over you like an experience you've never had. is that too corny? I dunno.
very interesting stuff.
maybe like me you will feel repelled and exhausted trying at first to read this book. my suggestion is to let it wash over you like an experience you've never had. is that too corny? I dunno.
very interesting stuff.
Read
September 23, 2020I took this up too quickly. I was trying to distract myself from existing and wanted to take it up slowly, but my Abuela was watching the Weather Channel too long, and then the Breonna Taylor verdict interrupted the latest Days of Our Live episode (ACAB). One guy was supposed to go to the Congo in the epsiode. No one called out his white savior complex. I dunno if he did end up going.
October 5, 2022
ok I admit I did not really read it, it was more of a slim because as much as the abstract art is super cool I had no idea what was going on and that’s PROBABLY ON ME LIKE I SHOULD TRY HARDER TO UNDERSTAND BUT THE STORY WAS REALLY CONFUSING IM SORRY
July 1, 2016
Honestly, I probably wouldn't have read this if I didn't know Austin personally. That's not meant to be a knock on the book itself, but more of an indication of my personal tastes. I've never been a fan of abstract art or "art comics", although I do sometimes find interest in what the artists was attempting to achieve. In other words, I can appreciate the passion behind a piece of art even when it doesn't speak to me specifically.
The writing was strong in all of the stories, and the artwork improved greatly as time went on (the stories are presented in chronological order). Although I found the earlier stories in which there were multiple characters hard to follow because of English's amorphous drawing style (couldn't tell who was who), the later stories were more simplified and thus easier to understand and more enjoyable (to me).
I was grateful for the notes at the end of the book. It gave me a peek inside English's head and elucidated what his intentions with each story were. There's no doubt that he is impassioned with art & comics, and I hope he continues his trajectory.
Oh, and I LOVE the book's title.
The writing was strong in all of the stories, and the artwork improved greatly as time went on (the stories are presented in chronological order). Although I found the earlier stories in which there were multiple characters hard to follow because of English's amorphous drawing style (couldn't tell who was who), the later stories were more simplified and thus easier to understand and more enjoyable (to me).
I was grateful for the notes at the end of the book. It gave me a peek inside English's head and elucidated what his intentions with each story were. There's no doubt that he is impassioned with art & comics, and I hope he continues his trajectory.
Oh, and I LOVE the book's title.
May 13, 2019
I had this one for I while I try to read but it's just too hard, I accomplished to end some of the tales but at the end I felt like it wasn't worth it, the tales are very simple and the illustrations are just too hard to follow, I don't know not my cup of tea.
[update]
I think that I finished it sometime ago, but still the narration is not my cut of tea, cool art tho.
[update]
I think that I finished it sometime ago, but still the narration is not my cut of tea, cool art tho.
March 10, 2016
We reviewed this recently on The Comics Alternative: http://comicsalternative.com/episode-.... This is an interesting text, one that challenges the way we read and appreciate comics.
August 20, 2016
So weird so tender so good
October 16, 2016
I feel like I couldn't get a lot from this but it was still real wild in a way I appreciate. His work is always really wild and both abstract and story based and I appreciate that
January 13, 2024
Gulag Casual collects five short comics by Austin English, a cartoonist who revels in crafting some of the more experimental comics in recent times. English's compositions are dense and cluttered, favoring thick geometric lines over negative space and bold colors that cultivate contrasts that shouldn't seem like they work. On a cursory glance English's work may seem crude, but that really does a disservice to the amount of time I imagine he puts into designing each page. There is undeniable amounts of complexity steeped into each page, which only compounds the intricate and bizarre nature of each of the stories collected here.
"A New York Story" opens the collection and examines the uncomfortably claustrophobic feeling of living in a crowded city. A lot of the narrative is a gossipy and even voyeuristic insight into the thoughts and conversations of people in the city, where we learn probably way too much about the lives of individual strangers. English cultivates the design of the overpopulated city with the use of his dense art style handily, making this a great realization of how his distinct aesthetic can really work to serve the narrative. As one of English's more recent comics in this collection, you can definitely sense the budding maturity in his brand of abstraction and experimentation since the story feels suitably cohesive while still highly surreal.
"The Disgusting Room" follows a couple who feel incapable of caring for their daughter and deciding to find a more suitable caretaker. A straightforward narrative that in the hands of a more conventional artist would have resulted in something quite bland, but English's use of abstract figures here makes this an engaging but challenging affair.
"My Friend Perry" examines the personal space between friendships and how easily it can be violated. Though this story does have a bit of an odd structure to it, the story suitably captures the intimacy of friendship along with the fragility of relationships in the face of danger.
"Here I Am" follows a stranger who is welcomed into a home by a warm and caring family only to suddenly become a threat towards them. This story is undeniably abstract since there is an implication that the stranger may just be a metaphor for something else.
"Freddy's Dead" is about a pair of friends who get separated and must find their way back but deal with unpleasant strangers along the way. Like the previous stories, English revels in cultivating a sense of danger in a way that seems almost alien to us due to the oddness of the situations, but also strikes a nerve since it feels like a plausible situation we could find ourselves in.
This is an interesting sampling of English's work that provides great context towards what kind of artist he is. Though not every story connected with me and I would have liked a bit more variety in the artistic styles, I really enjoy just how visually distinct and out of the box he is as a cartoonist. There isn't anyone quite like Austin English in the world of comics today, and it's definitely exciting to see how much stronger of a storyteller he becomes with each passing project.
"A New York Story" opens the collection and examines the uncomfortably claustrophobic feeling of living in a crowded city. A lot of the narrative is a gossipy and even voyeuristic insight into the thoughts and conversations of people in the city, where we learn probably way too much about the lives of individual strangers. English cultivates the design of the overpopulated city with the use of his dense art style handily, making this a great realization of how his distinct aesthetic can really work to serve the narrative. As one of English's more recent comics in this collection, you can definitely sense the budding maturity in his brand of abstraction and experimentation since the story feels suitably cohesive while still highly surreal.
"The Disgusting Room" follows a couple who feel incapable of caring for their daughter and deciding to find a more suitable caretaker. A straightforward narrative that in the hands of a more conventional artist would have resulted in something quite bland, but English's use of abstract figures here makes this an engaging but challenging affair.
"My Friend Perry" examines the personal space between friendships and how easily it can be violated. Though this story does have a bit of an odd structure to it, the story suitably captures the intimacy of friendship along with the fragility of relationships in the face of danger.
"Here I Am" follows a stranger who is welcomed into a home by a warm and caring family only to suddenly become a threat towards them. This story is undeniably abstract since there is an implication that the stranger may just be a metaphor for something else.
"Freddy's Dead" is about a pair of friends who get separated and must find their way back but deal with unpleasant strangers along the way. Like the previous stories, English revels in cultivating a sense of danger in a way that seems almost alien to us due to the oddness of the situations, but also strikes a nerve since it feels like a plausible situation we could find ourselves in.
This is an interesting sampling of English's work that provides great context towards what kind of artist he is. Though not every story connected with me and I would have liked a bit more variety in the artistic styles, I really enjoy just how visually distinct and out of the box he is as a cartoonist. There isn't anyone quite like Austin English in the world of comics today, and it's definitely exciting to see how much stronger of a storyteller he becomes with each passing project.
October 2, 2018
The book consists of five stories drawn between 2010 and 2015. The drawing is so extravagant that it blows away any other quality that the stories have. And they do have other qualities--they are stories after all. The stories are fragmentary and somewhat dreamlike (not surreal, but disjointed like the narratives in dreams often are). But they are otherwise straightforward narratives for the most part.
The drawing however is very modernist and improvisational. If I had to make a comparison, I would say it shares elements of Wols and the COBRA artists (Karel Appel, Asger Jorn and Pierre Alechinsky)--improvisation, a certain childish quality, but also an energy that resembles post-war abstract painting in the USA. There aren't really any comics artists who are exactly similar, although Gary Panter and Anke Feuchtenberger are on the same trolley route.
But the difference between English and Panter and Feuchtenbergeris that there is no connection between his drawing and the narrative he's layered on top of the drawings. At least, none that is apparent to this reader. One can vaguely relate what is depicted in each panel to what is happening in the narrative (for instance, if two people are talking, you will observe two figures in the panel), but the connection is barely there.
The exception to this disconnect is the story "Freddy's Dead"--in it, the protagonists Freddy and Carmello are on the subway and a beggar comes on board, throws broken glass on the ground and rolls around in it. This is depicted in a disturbing full-page image. It doesn't feel as improvisational as most of the other images in the book.
Anyway, I would say this is a book to read for the pictures, not for the comics narratives. I like English's drawing a lot.
The drawing however is very modernist and improvisational. If I had to make a comparison, I would say it shares elements of Wols and the COBRA artists (Karel Appel, Asger Jorn and Pierre Alechinsky)--improvisation, a certain childish quality, but also an energy that resembles post-war abstract painting in the USA. There aren't really any comics artists who are exactly similar, although Gary Panter and Anke Feuchtenberger are on the same trolley route.
But the difference between English and Panter and Feuchtenbergeris that there is no connection between his drawing and the narrative he's layered on top of the drawings. At least, none that is apparent to this reader. One can vaguely relate what is depicted in each panel to what is happening in the narrative (for instance, if two people are talking, you will observe two figures in the panel), but the connection is barely there.
The exception to this disconnect is the story "Freddy's Dead"--in it, the protagonists Freddy and Carmello are on the subway and a beggar comes on board, throws broken glass on the ground and rolls around in it. This is depicted in a disturbing full-page image. It doesn't feel as improvisational as most of the other images in the book.
Anyway, I would say this is a book to read for the pictures, not for the comics narratives. I like English's drawing a lot.
May 24, 2025
This is a collection of five short comics, all of which are very unconventional, both visually and narratively. They look at first glance like they might've been drawn by a small child – and the afterword suggests may be the only way Austin English can draw – but there's clearly a lot of intention behind the density of the artwork, and especially the grotesque, distorted, shifting bodies of the characters, who are often barely recognizable as human. The images can be hard to parse, but they lend an intensity perfectly suited to the narratives, which are correspondingly meandering, surreal and expressionistic – sequences of strange events that sometimes feel like they're running on dream logic.
The stories all examine interpersonal relationships, and particularly the interaction between friendship and violence, and they do so in a heightened, vital way that leaves me feeling that they're saying something profoundly true and important about being human, even when I don't necessarily 100% understand what happens in them and why.
I'd say these comics aren't as amazing as English's most recent release, “Meskin & Umezo”, but my favourite here comes close (“The Disgusting Room”), and I greatly enjoyed them all. English's work absolutely isn't for everyone, but I’d recommend it to readers who want to be challenged, and to anyone who's read a Michael DeForge comic and thought “that was good, but I'd like it to be about 100 times weirder”.
The stories all examine interpersonal relationships, and particularly the interaction between friendship and violence, and they do so in a heightened, vital way that leaves me feeling that they're saying something profoundly true and important about being human, even when I don't necessarily 100% understand what happens in them and why.
I'd say these comics aren't as amazing as English's most recent release, “Meskin & Umezo”, but my favourite here comes close (“The Disgusting Room”), and I greatly enjoyed them all. English's work absolutely isn't for everyone, but I’d recommend it to readers who want to be challenged, and to anyone who's read a Michael DeForge comic and thought “that was good, but I'd like it to be about 100 times weirder”.
December 1, 2023
A bit uneven in my appreciation of this. But in general, I appreciated it. The biggest thing I felt I got from reading this was to do your art in your own way no matter what. I seem to be getting that message from multiple sources lately. So ok.
March 24, 2023
In the city, people are always on the move. Due to the high speed, people’s postures lose gravity and people become blobs. The city is so crowded that the city space becomes people or people become the city space. The urban space engulfs people (Disgusting Room). Urbanity eats us.
November 18, 2016
Peculiar yet human series of stories that makes the scrappy chaos of its drawing style a true asset to conveying the ambiguity of the material. Good stuff for anyone interested in exploring the aesthetic outposts that comics are capable of exploring.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews