Red Eye, Black Eye

by K. Thor Jensen

No job, no girlfriend, no home, no future. In 2001, cartoonist K. Thor Jensen had nothing. So he packed a bag and jumped onto a Greyhound bus, circling the United States on a 10,000-mile road trip. In this "joyously bleak handbook for the post-911 generation," Jensen tells his story and the stories of the people he meets on the way, in a tale that veers from the hilarious to the tragic. In over 300 pages of comics, you'll see flaming furniture, replica genitals, ghosts, fights and more of America than a graphic novel's ever dared to show.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Travel, Memoir, Graphic Novels Comics, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published February 14, 2007

Reviews

[Rusty · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was surprised at the start of this book that there seemed to be more focus on the author's friends' stories than his own point of view.

Unfortunately, that was quickly recitified and the author took center stage, showing what an obnoxious and annoying person he seems to be. I honestly found the main character so dislikable that I did not finish the entire book. I can't remember the last time I didn't bother finishing a book, no matter how bad it was.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for road books. On the Road, Travels With Charlie, hey even The Odyssey — I love 'em. But this one sucks. Maybe I'm missing something — is this Slacker Culture? To passively schlep through life? The most exciting part of a 60-day road trip is being pulled on a burning sofa for a few minutes? This dude meets all these people and has no insights about them or how they live. He learns nothing. Does he have any passion for life? Any ambition to make somebody's life better? Any interest in, oh I dunno, social justice or something? He's both a bore and a boor who mistreats people, kind of a sociopath who doesn't seem to even realize how he's hurting people.

I'm giving it two stars because one star is reserved for books I throw against the wall. This one, I made it to the finish hoping he'd redeem himself and realize what a self-centered asshole he was. He didn't.

[Redwan Orittro · Rating 3 out of 5]

No big life lesson from this book. I read it solely for entertainment and just like the author says about his journey, I really can't narrow down the best or worst part of this book.

[Shane Melim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rated red eye black eye by Jensen K. Thor a 3.5/5 stars. One reason its a 3.5/5 is because its a decent book but the book isn’t a fantastic book that would be 5 stars. In the book when Thor was traveling he would stay at each state for one day which made the story go by fast very fast. When Thor said in the book he doesn’t know have anything left in NYC and he hoped that this trip he goes on would change his thoughts about leaving but the trip made him want to leave anymore. Which then made me imagine if I went on that type of trip like he did I wonder if I would also want to leave and go somewhere else. After that I thought that it made me want to read more but then the book got a little boring. I think that I would read another type of book like this from the same author.

[Printable Tire]

No Job. No Girlfriend. No Home.

Once again, I am a sucker for a book I can relate to. This was an enjoyable graphic novel (moreso graphic travel journal) relating the author's journey around the country via bus after he's tossed out of his apartment on October 1st (Hey! Just like me!). Not much goes on; all cities and places basically meld together (as the simple claustrophobic, square six-panel pages can't help but demonstrate), and most of our hero's time is spent loafing or goofing off with various old friends and strangers he meets on the way. Sometimes he directly expresses to these new friends or old ones that he is dissatisfied with his journey; more often than not they give him sound though contradictory advice on what he should get out of it. There are places where I laughed out loud (some of the situations are very funny) and I enjoyed the tediousness, unpretentiousness and honesty of the hero. Some times he and his companions could also be annoying (their various spoofing of gangsta culture is both outdated and not very funny to me to begin with, but it's also a pretty accurate depiction of how the author and his friend's class behave), but nobody's perfect. I liked the stories various people told to the hero, it reminded me of all the stories in Generation X by Coupland.

The book also made me want to ditch by shit and go on a road trip...

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I see that this book has gotten horrible reviews for being too egotistical or arrogant, and i did get that vibe throughout the book - but not in a negative sense. k. thor is just a scumbag trying to find his place in the world and often ends up looking like an ass...but one you can identify with. it's a 'coming of age' story without any profound findings - which i think is pretty innovative. i liked it.

[Aneesa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this book was terrible. The uneventful story of a guy who takes greyhound around the country for two months, staying with people he only knows from the internet, and recounting random stories they tell him in the form of comics. But the protagonist seems to be an asshole and proud of it.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm 34 years old. I think I'm too old for this "finding myself while getting wasted and sleeping on couches" kinda story now. I can't figure out whether Thor knows he's a bit of an asshole or not... I just found everyone to be super annoying, although I'm sure I was also annoying in my early twenties. I did really like the breaks in Thor's main narrative with the stories he asked others to tell him.

[Joe Ro · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had great potential, I really like how you get different perspectives and stories from different peoples lives. But the main character seems to be just kind of just a really bad person who threatens to rape two girls and one point, uses the hobo in an offensive way and says it a lot and also uses very racist terms. His demeanor and actions just turned me off completely for the rest of the book.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this story of a self-proclaimed hobo's journey couch-hopping across the United States via Greyhound, though sometimes the tone was a little difficult to read. I suppose I found myself wanting a few more details or moments of introspection rather than a catalog of events, but that's about my only complaint.

[Tabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Losing his job, his girlfriend, his housing...after a series of disasters, Thor decides to go on a two month long Greyhound bus fueled trip. Mostly meandering, mostly levels of body odor and things staying the same, no matter where you've wandered. "Not everything can have deep inner meaning and change your entire life. Some things just are what they are."

[Christopher Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very basic art, not particularly compelling or engaging. The panel formatting never changes, leaving the scope and style severed hamstrung. The stories are on the edge of being clever but most of them are unfulfilling and far too short. Worst of all, the main character is incredibly misogynistic and crude; I wouldn't want him on my couch.

[T.J. Gillespie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kerouac & Canterbury Tales in this comic collection of couch-surfing anecdotes.

I think I liked this more than most people.

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped reading it when he told two girls he wanted to hate f*** them. Don't waste your time.

[Jazz Windsong · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is everything wrong with privileged white male society.

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 1 out of 5]

On this reread, I remember my first reaction: I want to like this much more than I do. It's an interesting idea: Thor, down on his luck in NYC, buys a Greyhound Ameripass and travels the country, hanging out on friends' and strangers' couches. He is a self admitted internet hobo. There's also a lot of nice vignettes consisting of one to two page stories from the people he stays with. But Thor the character isn't that appealing to me: there's some anger and white boy use of African American language that distances me, and his conflicts (especially one about a rent deposit never being made) don't draw me into the book. Removing from my collection.

[Batmark · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://morethansuperhumans.blogspot.c...

In the final months of 2001, Jensen lost his job, his girlfriend, his New York City apartment, and his grandmother. Then, he watched the World Trade Center towers fall. Shortly after that, Jensen put his belongings into storage, bought a Greyhound Ameripass (which allows the holder to ride as many buses as he or she wants for a certain period of time), and began traveling the country. Over the next two months he visited 18 cities, staying with friends or people he met on the Internet. In each city he allows his hosts to show him around, and asks them to tell him a story, which he then translates into comic book form. Along the way he heckles an inept accordion player, gets tossed out of a bar, visits the Mall of America, helps out a stray dog, dances crazy for money, gets pelted with nickels, and rides a burning sofa tied to a truck. It is a story filled with memorable characters, memorable events, and even a couple of good laughs.

This book has its charms, but I couldn't help but feel the same disappointment the author himself felt that, as he put it, "In all the [travel] books, you travel and have these grand epiphanies about your life and your place in the world . . . but none seem to be forthcoming" from his journey. Though the life of a drifter has been romanticized in books from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to On the Road, Jensen's journey--though full of interesting bits and pieces--is not particularly life-changing.

But Jensen's story is a story of real life, not fiction, and so the mundane aspects of his journey should be expected I suppose. Besides, as one person he meets late in the book puts it, "Take what you've lived through and learn from it, turn it into something useful." The something useful that Jensen turned his journey into, of course, is this book. Based on enthusiastic reviews from Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal I'd been hoping for more. But that has nothing to do with what Jensen has created. If you're interested in what a real journey across America would be like (without having to spend 60 days on a Greyhound bus yourself), then this might be the book for you.

['ro Maina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another review copy I got from friend. This graphic novel tells the story of the author/cartoonist as he travels around the country (10,000 miles in 60 days on a Greyhound bus) meeting people and relating the stories they share with him.

It starts with him getting fired, dumped and evicted (basically) which is more than enough reason to hop on a bus and just go. I expected a thought-provoking, soul-searching journey as the artist met others and "found" himself. I did NOT get what I expected.

This book was SO BORING.

Really. It was.

I kept reading it assuming that SOMEwhere along the line something cool/interesting/funny would happen.

It didn't.

Really. It didn't.

It was banal and wearisome. I suppose a lot of life is like that; people get bogged down in the minutiae of the daily tedium...

I always thought that part of the joy of reading was to escape that in some way. This books takes you RIGHT BACK INTO IT and leaves you there.

Such a shame...*sigh*

Another book to avoid unless you have NOTHING to do. In which case I would highly advocate napping.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book - a guy with nothing going for him takes to the road and cobbles together places to stay with old friends and acquaintances met online. The story is pretty uneventful, which I think also said something about the narrator's experience. Even when you turn your back on everything familiar and strike out on your own, well, sometimes life is still boring.

I expected to like the narrator, but after a few pages you realize he's not particularly likeable. I can like unlikeable characters if there's some other redeeming quality, like humor or motivation, but I didn't see any of that in the character of K. Thor Jensen.

I did like the format and the repetition: Thor's on a bus, Thor arrives somewhere, Thor finds his host for that city, the host tells a story, Thor gets back on the bus. I found it interesting that in a book so clearly about one person and his experiences, that there was ample time given over repeatedly to telling the stories of others that Thor encountered on the road.

[Eric Piotrowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

I''ve never had much sympathy for the bemused unconsciously-existentialist bummin' around who-cares lifestyle. Given all of the vast opportunities most of us have, and all the urgent problems in the world, how can an able-bodied individual with skills (artistic, intellectual, social) dedicate their time to exploring how pointless everything is?

So when K. Thor Jensen decides to get a bus pass and travel around the country, it's not because ours is a beautiful landscape, or because he wants to showcase the fascinating array of personalities he meets (although he sorta does, almost as if by accident, or with severe reluctance). It's because the epic tale of his former landlord bouncing his deposit check is so important that it is the only recurring theme aside from how boring it is to travel by bus.

The art style is fun, and there are some amusing moments along the way. Unfortunately, these are painfully negated by the incident where he threatens to rape a pair of women because they won't give up their booth in a restaurant. I'm not making this up. Vomit.

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the beginning of this autobiographical travel comic, the author gets dumped by his girlfriend, loses his job, gets kicked out of his apartment. And his grandmother dies. AND
9-11 happens (he lives in Brooklyn). So with nothing to lose, he buys a Greyhound Ameripass, which allows his to travel anywhere in the US via the dirty dog. This comic is his story. And stories from other people along the way.

He travels city to city, couch surfing and often staying with folks he's only met on the internet. Yet, it's not one of those "traveling and meeting new people is so fun and enlightening tales." Sleeping on the bus isn't very fun and often our hero smells bad. Also a lot of the "fun" he and his friends have is rather juvenile (getting drunk a lot and stunts involving flaming couches come to mind).

But all in all, it was an entertaining read and a story of the trials and tribulations of the modern day hobo.

[Luna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was going to rate this a three, but I thought, why? It was average. It was even a bit okay. But it definitely isn't a three.

Normally when I read a book, I can find a lot of things to tag it with. Stupid little tags, but tags nonetheless. But this book is nothing more than a simple 'comics' and 'read'. Why? Because nothing happens. Nothing. Thor gets on a bus, travels around, and comes home.

Nothing. Happens.

How can nothing happen? I don't know. But nothing does happen, and then a little bit more nothing. People tell stories. He never gets his deposit back. People tell more stories. Still no deposit. And then he goes home.

I enjoyed his friends' stories more than his own. I wanted to know what the deal with the pen-in-ass/fist-in-face story, but unfortunately, this was not to be.

I guess if I was a fan of Jensen's, I might have enjoyed it more. But since nothing happened, I can only think this comic is worth nothing of my time.

[Sarra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Must agree with a couple of other reviewers - this guy comes across as, well, a dick. He screams at a Disneyland employee that he "oughtta beat [her] to death with an oar." He repeatedly heckles a musician, screaming at him to "wrap it the f**k up" and calling him "fatty" and "you fat f**k".
The worst, though, is this, spoken to a couple of young women who don't give up their table in a pizza joint for the author and his pals: "Excuse me again, ladies. Sorry to bother you again but I was wondering if you'd mind too terribly if my friends and I pulled a train on you? Pull a train. That'd be where me and my friends take you to an abandoned watertower and take turns hate-f**king you unconscious." I was beyond offended and well into shocked, nauseated, and appalled. It's never okay to terrorize, sexually menace, and threaten women.

[O. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a hard time getting into this book, so I didn't finish it. I had a couple of issues right from the beginning. The first one was the lack of page numbers. For a book with so much activity and very similar panels, it was difficult for me to keep track and ensure I wasn't skipping pages (hey, pages stick together sometimes!). I felt that the author told too many stories. I lost interest quickly in the characters stories since there was little cohesion and connection between the characters, their stories and the main character. I realize this is road trip book, and although I really want to connect to road trip stories, I can't seem to do it. This book was no exception. For me, this book just doesn't hold up to some of the other great comics out there these days. There are many other autobiographical stories that reel readers in. This book didn't do it for me.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book details an On The Road-esque journey made by a floundering, funny, wandering hipster. It's drawn so that anyone could get into this exploratory tale. The figures are somewhat simple but detailed enough to know that character is distinct. Basically, Jensen goes, by bus, across the country. He couch surfs and documents the stories of those he meets. The stories range from hilarious to sad, with a few grotesque happenings thrown in. This book serves those who like comics and those who like short stories with a centrally themed character. Enjoyable.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An autobiographical road story; in quick succession, Jensen loses his job, gets dumped, and then Sept. 11 happens. He buys a 2-month Greyhound pass and hits the road, visiting mostly people he's met from the Internet. Through all the cities he visits, all the drama in his personal life, the perseverance of Jensen's spirit and uniqueness of each person shines through in an iconic cartooning style that's easy to relate to.

[Michele · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is about a guy who gets fired, moves out of his apartment and his grandma dies. Quarterlife crisis. So he buys a bus pass that will let him travel anywhere in the country for an extended period of time and finds people across the country to stay with via the internet. Then he goes and stays with them. It usually entails getting shitfaced with them and a story from them. Sounds interesting but it was actually pretty bland for my liking.

[Michelle Hoogterp · Rating 1 out of 5]

Juvenile. The character wants to get into fights, cause trouble, and says really misogynistic things to women when they make him angry--he's not telling them off for being rude, instead he's insulting their gender, suggesting rape, and acting like a complete loser.

There are potential good storylines in here, but I'm not going to continue reading something based on reality where the author is the one talking about his own pathetic actions towards women.

[Alli · Rating 2 out of 5]

not very stimulating. sorry, thor, but you don't come off as a particularly nice person, especially in the 1st half of the book ("fatty" doesn't endear me). i do empathize with the "i thought this was supposed to be an epiphanic experience" feeling, though, and i like the way it ends.
a disappointing book for a journey overall.

[Frank McGirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too shabby. A guy writes about his two months on a bus pass around America. He met up with people he just met on the internet.

Nothing really crazy in here, but a nice little account of the trip, which doesn't try to make up for the fact that there were no huge adventures.