Night Bus

Walk & Night Bus #1-2+

by Zuo Ma, R. Orion Martin (Translator)

Journey through the countryside in this magical realist debut from an underground Chinese cartoonist

In Night Bus, a young woman wearing round glasses finds herself on an adventurous late night bus ride that constantly makes detours through increasingly fantastical landscapes. Meanwhile a young cartoonist returns home after art school and tries his hand at becoming a working artist while watching over his aging grandmother whose memory is deteriorating. Nostalgic leaps take us to an elementary school gymnasium that slowly morphs into a swamp and is raided by a giant catfish. Beetles, salamanders, and bug-eyed fish intrude upon the bus ride of the round-glasses woman as the night stretches on. Night Bus blends autobiography, horror, and fantasy into a vibrantly detailed surreal world that shows a distinct talent surveying his past.

Nature infringes upon the man-made world via gigantism and explosive abundance–the images in Night Bus are often unsettling, not aimed to horrify, but to upset the balance of modern life.

Zuo Ma is part of a burgeoning Chinese art comics scene that pushes emotion to the forefront of the story while playing with action and dreams.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fantasy, Fiction, Short Stories, China, Graphic Novels Comics

412 pages, Paperback

First published August 24, 2021

About the author

Zuo Ma was born in Zhijiang City in 1983. After graduating from the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology in 2005, he began his career as a cartoonist and freelance illustrator. His comics typically encompass horror, fantasy, and autobiography. Zuo Ma is considered one of the leaders in the nascent Chinese alternative comics scene.

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you’re going to do random ass, bullshit storytelling like this, you need to draw a helluva lot better than this fool.

Zuo Ma uses up a lot of ink drawing these semi-autobiographical short stories that are rife with dream logic, dream sequences, free association, and the sort of psychedelic storytelling I dislike immensely. He obviously has some anxiety about being an artist, Chinese urbanization, and the death of his grandmother who suffered from dementia, but did we need all the UFOs, insects, and fantasy sequences?

FYI: This is an omnibus edition (410 pages) of two short story collections by Zuo Ma (左马):
• Walk (Chinese title: 散步, first published: 2013, 220 pages)
• Night Bus (Chinese title: 夜间巴士, first published: 2018, 214 pages)

[Rabbit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Art⭐️⭐️ Story⭐️

“Nothing is as boring as other people’s dreams”-John Green

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Night Bus is a 400+-page anthology Zuo Ma, a cartoonist from mainland China, including the title story (a graphic novel-length work in itself), plus 10 stories, one of which in two versions.
Using “Night Bus” as representative of the issues and themes appearing in the other stories as well, Zuo illustrates and extolls rural and forest as abundant with fascinating mysteries embodied as insects, animals, and plants. By contrast, cities are sterile and suffocating, unable to spark wonder and joy in life.

A central image among these works is of the narrators’ grandmother, an elderly woman living in a rural outback in material poverty in an unkempt house in a village undergoing demolition and dislocation. She has dementia, her eyesight is failing, but she can provide her grandson with rich natural surroundings, which become the touchstone for the rest of his life. His reminiscence of her is not mere sentimentality but also a recognition of the creative, life-affirming force the natural world imbues people with. Thus, the stories also act to critique rampant industrialization and the lives it destroys.

I’m glad to see works from mainland China’s alternative cartoon scene translated for an English-speaking audience. The book’s translator, Orion Martin, has been translating and publishing comics from around China under his Paradise Systems imprint. That a larger (though still small, indie) press willing to introduce at least one of China’s cartoonists is a good sign.

Note: Although the Chinese Communist Party lays an overly heavy, paternalistic hand on everything, that does not mean that Chinese writers and artists are cranking out agit-prop, social realism, or other Mao-era slop. Writers and artists may not be told what to talk about, they are told what not to talk about. Cf. the OULIPO for more information on the possibilities of writing within constraints.

For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published as two separate volumes, one containing the book-length title piece and another the shorter stories, Night Bus is a surrealist, magic realist work that wears influences of Shigeru Mizuki and perhaps a touch of Hayao Miyazaki. The volume is bookended by two versions of the same story, opening with the earlier and closing with the revised, and that offers a good look at Zuo Ma's creative process. Night Bus itself is the strongest piece, combining realism with surrealism as the creator's grandmother slips deeper into dementia and eventually death in what is one of the best and most unique explorations of grief I've read.

If you know anyone who still doesn't believe that graphic novels are literature, this book would be high on my list of titles to change their mind.

[Tatiana Zhandarmova · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish i knew what on earth was going on throughout the entirety of this graphic novel. There was random creatures in it.. unexplained, but justified with the label of "magical realism". Each plot (if you can even call them that) had infinite loop holes and the characters were incredibly weak. They were hardly even introduced at the beginning - i was confused for the first hundred pages ??
Oh man i really wish i had enjoyed this novel because the description made it sound so interesting. But i really don't think the art can make up for it this time... dissapointing :(

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a nightmarish, fevered dreamscape. Semi-autobiographical in an, "I'm a young artist seeking success and inspiration and relief from my middle-class demons while wandering pensively through the countryside in an artistic way," kinda way, which is boring-ish, but holy buckets those bugs. Night Bus was pure dream logic and I was along for the ride. A few of the other stories tried to say something that didn't necessarily need to be said, but the art is fantastic.

[Leonard Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A massive hunk of a book, written over a period of several years by Chinese artists Zuo Ma and anchored by the title story. I really enjoyed this one; Ma's art is rough and sometimes crude (by his own admission), but he almost always uses the right image at the right time, and his sense of the grotesque carries him through the toughest passages. An incredible sense of light and darkness is what really elevates the art, well-chosen and perfectly executed to highlight the isolated, quiet nature of this collection of stories about life in rural, left-behind areas of modern China. Story-wise, it's a deft combination of naturalistic observational work with just enough sense of shifting biography, and a kind of dark magical realism that sometimes (as in "The Beetle and the Girl") transmogrifies from a psychological portrait to a kind of subterranean Lovecraftian horror. Lengthy but fast-moving, a real page-turner for something so heady -- I don't think this is for everyone, but it really hit me right in the heart of the curious moody vibe it creates.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part of me wants to give this a 3 star rating because I really enjoyed the art and I did appreciate how much of this was like a fantastical memoir for the author. But if I'm being totally honest with myself, I was so confused half the time while reading. I did not realize that the stories in here are completely separate and not related. Some are about about this author's life, the titular story is about his grandmother, but others are about completely made up characters. I know this now because at the END of the collection, the author explains each story and what his intent was. I seriously wish that had been a prologue to each, but it wasn't, so I was left just kind of scratching my head half the time.

[Blue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of Zuo Ma's graphic shorts is an absorbing journey through memory, land, and the surreal. The stories often seesaw between the almost-mundane, like village life, family ties, land development, environmental degradation, and the often horrifying surreal beyond reason, like a night bus that travels into the sky through time and place and an afternoon of fishing that attracts the attention of a mysterious girl from the water. Sprinkled throughout are Zuo Ma's own concerns for creating art and visiting the past to inform the present. Recommended for those who like dogs, insects, late-night public transportation and exams.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get the hang of this collection, but I ended up really really liking it, especially the main story, Night Bus. I'm generally interested in older women as central characters and/or protagonists, and the story's approach was pretty fascinating. I grew to appreciate the artwork as well.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trying to take this in gave me a headache--the art is busy, sometimes messy, and the text is printed too small. The stories break your mind as well, going from "reality" to "dream world" to remembrance with no segue or explanation.

[dilysisreading · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly felt like I was dreaming - nonsensical narratives with fantasy elements seamlessly transition into nostalgic memories of childhood that are tainted by present knowledge. Just an incredible anthology. I spent a lot of time just sitting with individual pages, in awe of the mastery and the emotional nature of the scenes. I loved both the main plot and the short stories, the sense of unreality weaved into mundane events was perfect to me.

[esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

me when i don't want to graduate but everyone else is graduating and becoming great big fish in a clashing sea, so i try to run away but my principal pushes me into the water with them and i transform into a goldfish in a tank whilst they swim around me. when we are brought to the real world and they are sold on ice no one will choose the goldfish.

[Rumi Bossche · Rating 3 out of 5]

Night Bus by Zuo Ma.

A debut graphic novel by a underground chinese cartoonist. A nice style in black and white and with very surreal fantastical stories about actual dreams. This is hard to rate as the stories are pretty vague, but the artwork was really something else. I liked this one.
7/10

[Lucas Lysne · Rating 5 out of 5]

at first, plodding through the first couple vignettes of this collection, this was not clicking. as much as i could tell there was a dreamlike quality to the narratives, i was overthinking it. once i let myself go, slipped into the flow of ink and image and the slurry of logic and narrativity that is coursing through, it became oh so obvious. i'm not sure i've ever had dream imagery and logic so well rendered before, considering it now. this quality seems to be one of the major issues people have with this collection, and understandably so. comics in their typical forms, are usually very strict with a sort of visual logic as a feature of the form, so understandably this break from the norm would cause issue and reaction. this expectation, perhaps paired with the sophmoric nature of some of the earlier pieces, is the stumbling block i missed when i began reading this. once i was done tripping over that, suddenly absent like a zen epiphany, my enjoyment of what was here increased immensely. i was always impressed by the effortless ink renderings of place and landscape, but once everything else fell into place, what an experience this was. taking the comic form to new places is always a win to me. and bookending this collection with 'walking alone' and 'a walk', the latter being a rework of the former, is an extremely profound editorial decision having gone through all of the walking in between.

[Soojung Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

NIGHT BUS is a collection of graphic novel vignettes (inspired by events in Zuo Ma's life) in the gothic genre exploring some modern day Chinese issues as well as the modern day social issues of Chinese young adults. I enjoyed some allusions scattered throughout, but I found small little observations that pleased me yet not enough for me to recommend this book as I find it has a niche audience that I'm not sure transverses cultures without necessary background knowledge to allow the appreciation of the themes that are addressed. Would this book benefit from footnotes? Sometimes I did wish some panels with Chinese text were translated. Oh well, it is what it is.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Night Bus is definitely a mixed bag for me. The art is really lovely (especially the two-page spreads), there were some interesting stories and themes throughout, and the vibes are pretty good. That said, this style of dreamlike storytelling isn't really my cup and a lot of the story is confusing and frustrating to follow, which is especially frustrating due to it being a touch on the long side. There's still more good than bad in my opinion, and I would recommend it for people who particularly enjoy dreamlike sequences in their storytelling.

[Kerfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the concept of "Night Bus" was interesting, getting inside his grandmother's mind as it decayed, but besides that, this is another well-reviewed book that failed to impress me.

We all are fascinated by our own dreams and days, but most of the time they aren't that interesting to anyone else. They need something more, some depth and insight.

And the art here is nothing special either.

[mio · Rating 4 out of 5]

in the author’s notes, zuo ma says something like “i am aware everything comes to an end. this is why i appreciate every walk.”

the collection itself relies more on visual storytelling than words, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy seamlessly. i loved the psychedelic effect of the illustrations, and the influences of folklore (iwana bouzu) interspersed with personal reflection.

simple but profound. very beautiful. had a good time with this

[marcia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Most of these stories lack structure and feel like they're being weird for weird's sake than actually doing anything interesting. In one of the comics, the main character talks about the comic she's making and it can be applied to Night Bus as a whole as well: "I'm making it up as I go along. There's no predetermined story arc." And yeah, it shows!

[b · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rural, uneasy, buggy, and cohesive in its art throughout. The re-drawing of one earlier story in a later story did something so interesting to my feelings. These feel like stories that are mud roiling in the creek water, and maybe that unsettled, turbulent feeling was confirmed by re-telling going on. I was really really impressed with this, and am glad I took my time with it.

[Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one wasn't quite for me. I think I wasn't quite prepared for the surrealness to the stories, and that's what put me off. I'll say that some of the stories were pretty spooky, and that the backgrounds were amazingly detailed. The titular story was pretty interesting, and I loved the random pop of beautiful colors to the illustrations in that section.

[kate j · Rating 3 out of 5]

stunning and trippy and dreamlike (to the point where i felt like i couldn’t understand anything that was happening; only at the end reading the notes did i realize that this confusion, the dark and watery dreaminess, was at least semi-intentional)

[Kobeest · Rating 4 out of 5]

good comics are always compelling reads for me. but i don't always 'get them'... this one comes close to being really good. it took me a while to get used to the abstract, fairly plotless narrative, but on my second reading, i was more aware of what was going on.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing, artwork and subject matter reminds me of Junji Ito, though not quite as gross or terrifying. An interesting read, I hadn't seen any underground Chinese comics till now.

[Boris Gregoric · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book definitely needed a serious editor who would have shaped it into something more coherent.
as life is quite short I join the team here and give up: page 224 (out of the mind-boggling 400 plus!)––let's save some paper and trees if we ever can...

for time is a very precious commodity!

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weird but dull.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zuo Ma is an amazing cartoonist. He draws in so many different ways and tries so many things with the medium while still having a distinct style all his own.

[Twan · Rating 1 out of 5]

As good as being on a night bus

[Amanda Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

dream and memory collide with family history and folk monsters set in a corner of rural china. the style varies a bit from tale to tale in this omnibus but overall it is literally dark--heavily inked and hatched, with nocturnal themes that venture into gothic/noir moments. the creaturely/monster type characters are wonderfully drawn, but i could not tell if they had any impact on the ongoing narrative. were they folktale spirits in the night or just a flicker of imagination, glimpses into the main character's unfinished novel or the grandmother's dementia embodied? i admit that sometimes i wished for more negative space. the moves between realism and surrealism often felt like slammed doors - jarring with little breathing room to feel out their purpose. some of the shorts in this collection seem more unmoored than others--this would have been "whatever" but since the characters/settings/tropes are shared between the collected tales, my brain wanted to integrate the outliers rather than shrug them off. a disjointed but compelling read!