Meat Locker

mini kuš! #43

by Michael DeForge

Short strips about gyms, trainers and meatheads.

Format: A6, 28 pages, saddle stitch binding, full-color, English

Genres: Comics

28 pages, Saddle-stitched

First published September 28, 2016

About the author

Michael DeForge lives in Toronto, Ontario. His comics and illustrations have been featured in Jacobin, The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Believer, The Walrus and Maisonneuve Magazine. He worked as a designer on Adventure Time for six seasons. His published books include Very Casual, A Body Beneath, Ant Colony, First Year Healthy, Dressing, Big Kids, Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero and A Western World.

Reviews

[Mike Kleine · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s good enough. The colours look nice. Basically, it’s about body builders and fitness-obsessed individuals (all referred to as, “jocks”) and they are living in a world where they are not appreciated. It’s so bad (how much they are despised) that if you sweat, you have to pay a tax. Obviously, there isn’t too much here, by way of a story, but it reminded me a lot of Harrison Bergeron. Obviously, DeForge is providing commentary on censorship and the limit of restrictions, but also, I couldn’t help but feel like he could have done more with the story. The world-building is there, and the characters are interesting enough—just, nothing really happens. Something for the DeForge collector/die-hard fan, for sure. It passes the time, but only for a couple minutes. For everyone else, this is a skip.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

These little satirical riffs on working out and body building are cute (in a rather grotesque way) and funny, but DeForge's drawings are the real highlight here.

[Alara A · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved this, it was so silly. cute

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

DeForge is another artist I really need to get into. I feel like book isn't really representative of his main body of work, but it's fun. A series of satirical strips around work out culture/obsession. It's very funny, and his art is really cool (though more straightforward than anything else of his I've seen)

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael DeForge implements his distinctive brand of offbeat and wry observational humor to capture the essence of gym and fitness culture. The various strips in Meat Locker aren't really meant to be satirical since the setting is a hyper-stylized version of our reality, but there are moments where DeForge's commentary on contemporary cultural issues come through. The stories here are largely funny musings - though none are particularly memorable strips. Great for fans of DeForge, but the lack of a centralized narrative does make the already short zine feel a bit too light on substance.

[Luke Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gym commik