Condo Heartbreak Disco

by Eric Kostiuk Williams

Towers of steel and glass are decimating Toronto’s neighbourhoods; replacing communities with condos. Can the city’s primary purveyors of socially motivated revenge and personal guidance, Komio and The Willendorf Braid, save the city from condo hell, or are they too late to save this Hogtown from the twisted CEO?

Eric Kostiuk Williams is a cartoonist and illustrator based in Toronto, ON. His debut autobiographical work Hungry Bottom Comics was nominated for the 2013 Doug Wright Spotlight Award, and each issue of the series was selected for The Best American Comics' Notable Books of 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, LGBT, Fiction, Comix, Comics Manga

52 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2017

Reviews

[Stewart Tame]

I'll confess that I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. There's a definite underground sensibility at work. There's also a very 1980's feel to it for some reason. Komio and the Willendorf Braid are apparently a couple living in Toronto. They also appear to be immortals, or at least have been around for a long time before finally settling in their current location. Komio seems to make a living by acting as a spirit of punishment. We see her hooking up with a man in a bar and then, once they're alone, putting him through all sorts of pain in the name of women he's previously wronged. But something is going on in their neighborhood. Condos are springing up overnight, priced so high that no one can afford to live there. And so they must face their greatest battle: gentrification.

Believe me, that's about as accurate a summary as I can muster. Trust me when I say that it doesn't really do this book justice. There's such an incredible amount of detail to the art. The layouts border on pure abstraction at times. And the ending ... it seems like a story that needs to be, hopefully will be, continued. I've never encountered Williams' work before, and it's definitely a shock immersion experience. Anything this fully-formed, yet utterly mad, deserves a look. Recommended! Definitely.

[Kirsten]

I kinda don't get it? Like, I get that it's anti-gentrification, and the art is really cool, but it was very confusing.

[Sasha Boersma]

Alternate reality perspective with a sci fi twist to explain gentrification, housing shortages, and over development.

Stunning art, interesting characters. Some shortcuts taken in the story - I would have liked to see more explanation of motives. Fun read.

[André Habet]

I love this comic and the way it wrangles with gentrification at several tiers. Wonderful to see a story about non-human entities observing us in all our flaws and beauty. No salvation to be found at the end, but there is the aspiration that we can all be better.

[Hailey Johnson]

The pictures in it were absolutely gorgeous!!! However the plot I was a little confused with just because I felt it was a little too short to be fully explained or delved upon, especially with the anti-gentrification themes.

[Derek Royal]

I enjoyed this book, but I feel I could have gotten more out of it had I been familiar with Williams's earlier Hungry Bottom Comics.

[Comics Alternative]

http://comicsalternative.com/episode-...

[Daniel]

It was interesting. So short, I wanted more

[Mateen Mahboubi]

As a Torontonian who wonders if his children will recognize the neighbourhood they grew up in as adults, I enjoyed this.

[Fiona]

Love, love, love this!

[Reid]

kill the condo developers :,(

[C]

Some blistering social commentary. 3.5.

[Jay Semeniuk]

i love local artists! such a good book about gentrification and capitalism!

[rose]

not at library

[Terrence]

I really appreciate the style of this graphic novel.

[Robert]

I blurbed for this book and highly recommend it. Also: my feature-length interview with Eric Kostiuk Williams is now live on The Comics Journal: http://bit.ly/2pNO1Kr