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Ditch Life
Two ditch dwelling degenerates and a dog are the protagonists of this dark comedy from acclaimed filmmaker and animator Amy Lockhart. Body horror, celebrity obsession, and wealth disparity collide in this satirical romp about an aspiring plastic surgeon to the stars who is forced to live in a shapeshifting, maggot-infested pizza box.
107 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 4, 2019
67 people want to read
About the author
Amy Lockhart
8 books6 followersAmy Lockhart is a filmmaker, animator and artist. Her animations have screened internationally, including the Whitney, NY, British Film Institute, N.Y. Anthology Film Archives, Carnegie Mellon, GLAS Animation Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Hiroshima International Animation Festival and The Ottawa International Animation Festival. Lockhart has received fellowship at the National Film Board of Canada and support from the Canada Council for the Arts. She has completed residencies at Calgary’s Quickdraw Animation Society, Struts Gallery, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her drawings, comics and paintings have been published by Fantagraphics (Ditch Life, 2019), Drawn & Quarterly (Dirty Dishes, 2009), and by Colour Code (Looking Inward), 2016.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 21, 2021
Ditch Life is a mainly hilariously absurd and sometimes insightful and smart and sometimes deliberately offensive graphic novel by Amy Lockhart, and I have right away become a fan of her work. This combines body horror with a critique of wealth disparity and celebrity obsession in a way that reminds me of early alt comix, but has a very contemporary edge, too. It's very entertaining and enlightening and provocative in various ways.
This book is a tale of two blobby-looking humanoids, Barb and Mitch, who live together in a ditch. Barb has very large breasts, which are utilized for humor throughout the book. Oh, but there are lots of huge breasts in this book, which are consistently played for laughs. Anyway, the story is kind of a like an absurdist Waiting for Godot, only it's in a ditch, not a desert wasteland, and with celebrity obsession.
Barb and Mitch are obviously poor, but they want to buy a boot house (I don't know what this actually is) to live in: “This will totally fill the unfillable void that resides between us.” So Barb sells one of her kidneys to get a down payment for the house. But the real estate owner tells them the boot houses are all sold! Sold!? Yes, sold! But she does have one potential place left: A pizza box house with three maggots in it they can live in. But the selling point? It has a “window” in the box which Barb suddenly realizes she needs to be happy and content. And the multiplying maggots become her adopted babies! Barb then becomes a high profile celebrity surgeon, paying for an online diploma. She does lobotomies, one on her mother, and also very popular “boob jobs,” (guy reviewer here quoting the esteemed author!).
One woman who gets a ridiculously massive breast enhancement becomes a social media star as a result (but it can't happen here! or has it already happened many times?), success Barb jealously insists as her plastic surgeon that she also deserves. So (comics level) abuse ensues between the two. And so massive breasts are a source of fascination and humor and body horror throughout. And there's also an amusing section on how women begin to make money AS furniture (that's right, women as chairs, or tables, or step stools, and so on; what a good way to make money, hey gals?!) (Weren't there restaurants awhile back that offered feasts to be eaten off the "table" of a woman's nake body?).
And maggots. Don't forget the maggots. Maybe you are eating dinner so you don't want me to tell you where some of these maggots live when they run away from home? Oh, you don't, but still kinda do? Well, I won't tell you but maybe the answer has to do with mom and the lobotomy, I'll just say that much (sorry).
So: Are you tired of trying to make sense of life? Try this! Lockhart knows nothing makes sense in this world, so why not just be absurd! Dark humor, indeed.
Near the end, as we approach what we hope will be the moral of the story:
Barb: At least we learned something, right?
Mitch: What?
Barb: I have no idea!
Exactly! 100 pages of fun Americana in the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas tradition for the Age We Live In, which I read on Hoopla.
This book is a tale of two blobby-looking humanoids, Barb and Mitch, who live together in a ditch. Barb has very large breasts, which are utilized for humor throughout the book. Oh, but there are lots of huge breasts in this book, which are consistently played for laughs. Anyway, the story is kind of a like an absurdist Waiting for Godot, only it's in a ditch, not a desert wasteland, and with celebrity obsession.
Barb and Mitch are obviously poor, but they want to buy a boot house (I don't know what this actually is) to live in: “This will totally fill the unfillable void that resides between us.” So Barb sells one of her kidneys to get a down payment for the house. But the real estate owner tells them the boot houses are all sold! Sold!? Yes, sold! But she does have one potential place left: A pizza box house with three maggots in it they can live in. But the selling point? It has a “window” in the box which Barb suddenly realizes she needs to be happy and content. And the multiplying maggots become her adopted babies! Barb then becomes a high profile celebrity surgeon, paying for an online diploma. She does lobotomies, one on her mother, and also very popular “boob jobs,” (guy reviewer here quoting the esteemed author!).
One woman who gets a ridiculously massive breast enhancement becomes a social media star as a result (but it can't happen here! or has it already happened many times?), success Barb jealously insists as her plastic surgeon that she also deserves. So (comics level) abuse ensues between the two. And so massive breasts are a source of fascination and humor and body horror throughout. And there's also an amusing section on how women begin to make money AS furniture (that's right, women as chairs, or tables, or step stools, and so on; what a good way to make money, hey gals?!) (Weren't there restaurants awhile back that offered feasts to be eaten off the "table" of a woman's nake body?).
And maggots. Don't forget the maggots. Maybe you are eating dinner so you don't want me to tell you where some of these maggots live when they run away from home? Oh, you don't, but still kinda do? Well, I won't tell you but maybe the answer has to do with mom and the lobotomy, I'll just say that much (sorry).
So: Are you tired of trying to make sense of life? Try this! Lockhart knows nothing makes sense in this world, so why not just be absurd! Dark humor, indeed.
Near the end, as we approach what we hope will be the moral of the story:
Barb: At least we learned something, right?
Mitch: What?
Barb: I have no idea!
Exactly! 100 pages of fun Americana in the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas tradition for the Age We Live In, which I read on Hoopla.
May 26, 2023
(from comment to Shaafs' review:)
"I HATED it- to the point that I would have given zero if this was bedetheque.com!
I am putting it up for sale once I get off of this because I don't want to see those maggots or that green no-nosed face on the cover til I pack this up to leave "The Bibliomecca". It's only the second time ever that a book will not even make it downstairs with all else that's read.
I just noticed that I couldn't even get into WHY I detested it so much so I rambled on about the result because there's just too much gag-reflex to expound upon- she tried her hardest to be as disgusting as possible, begging for the shock-value reaction, and succeeded exceedingly!
...
I just noticed the end of the description above:
"100 pages of fun Americana in the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas tradition for the Age We Live In"?
THAT'S how someone sees "Americana"- present day? Living in ditches parenting maggots? Feeding feces?
Whatever metaphors were being thrown in my face missed me entirely."
She's a TERRIBLE artist too. It's shockingly lazy undrafted school-notebook type of art with the worst coloring that I've ever seen! I would've preferred b&w stick figures. Seriously. Then I would've at least digested and understood her narrative better without the disgust-distraction.
Not that she cared about any sort of sensical plot! At all angles of the presentation, she breaks convention as a rule (hopefully- else she's even worse at this) for an effect that fails miserably because there must be some roots to every tree. Why was it chaptered as "epilogues"?
Then, why didn't the main character have areonips when her cousin had absurd (knotted) ones?
"I HATED it- to the point that I would have given zero if this was bedetheque.com!
I am putting it up for sale once I get off of this because I don't want to see those maggots or that green no-nosed face on the cover til I pack this up to leave "The Bibliomecca". It's only the second time ever that a book will not even make it downstairs with all else that's read.
I just noticed that I couldn't even get into WHY I detested it so much so I rambled on about the result because there's just too much gag-reflex to expound upon- she tried her hardest to be as disgusting as possible, begging for the shock-value reaction, and succeeded exceedingly!
...
I just noticed the end of the description above:
"100 pages of fun Americana in the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas tradition for the Age We Live In"?
THAT'S how someone sees "Americana"- present day? Living in ditches parenting maggots? Feeding feces?
Whatever metaphors were being thrown in my face missed me entirely."
She's a TERRIBLE artist too. It's shockingly lazy undrafted school-notebook type of art with the worst coloring that I've ever seen! I would've preferred b&w stick figures. Seriously. Then I would've at least digested and understood her narrative better without the disgust-distraction.
Not that she cared about any sort of sensical plot! At all angles of the presentation, she breaks convention as a rule (hopefully- else she's even worse at this) for an effect that fails miserably because there must be some roots to every tree. Why was it chaptered as "epilogues"?
Then, why didn't the main character have areonips when her cousin had absurd (knotted) ones?
November 14, 2020
best book ever ✨💌🎭 so much fun, an absolute favorite
February 11, 2022
Deranged.
December 16, 2021
I really enjoyed this book. It reminds me of the comic manifestation of a Ryan Trecartin universe, but with a bit more method to the madness. I love how we get to follow each characters motivational tangent. The layout of the characters and dialogue is expertly crafted to move the story along, but the author does not get bogged down in pointless details. It is obvious that this book was really fun to draw, making it really fun to read. Barb is a powerful protagonist who never backs down even when she’s constantly ridiculed by losers and perverts. Somehow, the sillier this book gets, the more poignant it’s social commentary becomes.
August 15, 2023
This is a tricky one. I enjoyed it. It's gross, it's wild, it's creative, and it's aggressively strange. I think the strangeness gets in the way of itself. When something I can grasp onto starts to develop it is quickly switched to the next odd scenario. I guess I wanted a bit less manic and a bit more development. But that's the charm of the book. It's a fever dream and makes you feel a certain kind of way. For me I felt a bit queasy with all the maggots. That's a good thing. I ain't felt anything in months.
August 4, 2021
There is so much going on in this comic.
September 20, 2021
Exceptionally funny.
March 22, 2022
WTF did I just read?
January 11, 2023
hrpa bizarnih pizdarija sa pretenzijom viktimizacije.crtež jednako loš kao i priča
November 5, 2023
This book is like marmite, you hate it or you love it. I don’t like marmite but i like this.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews