Alienation

by Inés Estrada

Drawn in hazy gray pencil and printed in blue pantone ink, this book is about Elizabeth, an exotic dancer in cyberspace, and Carlos, who was just fired from the last human-staffed oil rig, attempting to keep their romance alive. When they realize that their bodies are full of artificial organs and they live almost entirely online, they begin to question what being human actually means. Do our ancestral, or even animal, instincts eventually kick in, or are we transcending the limits of our bodies? Inés Estrada’s new graphic novel introduces us to a powerfully exquisite and chilling near future that doesn’t seem too far-fetched, where virtual reality affects our diets, sex lives, and nightly dreams.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Horror, Dystopia

229 pages, ebook

First published April 10, 2019

About the author

Inés Estrada is a cartoonist and sort of a nomad. She is the editor of the comics section of Vice Mexico and she also manages Gatosaurio, a webshop where you can find her stickers and comics. She has inhaled enormous amounts of car smog biking through her home town of Mexico City, which has surely damaged her brain into seeing the psychedelic colors and shapes you can find in her work.

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well! Here’s something rather different! Though it possesses some familiar dystopian/sci-fi dimensions and is drawn in a kind of alt/punk comix style, in gray pencil and hazy blue ink, this book feels pretty original and in the moment. The story focuses on Elizabeth, a virtual exotic dancer and Carlos, just fired from the last oil rig on Earth. Their bodies are filled with artificial organs and they live almost entirely online. In the non-cyber world they live in balmy Alaska in the near future when fossil fuels are just about gone, the climate is wrecked, almost all wildlife are finally gone, and the corporate world has completely engulfed the political landscape.

In other words, soon. Now? So, facing disaster, Carlos and Elizabeth are both terrified and bored, just wanting to get back online when their internet connection is severed. So there are elements of dark satire and horror in it anyone might appreciate.

This is a strange, uneven, ambitious project I can’t say I love, but it’s one of a growing number of comics about environmental catastrophe, a necessary subject, with a streak of dark humor and anger I appreciate. One “uneven” aspect of it is that it alternates some finely detailed drawings with goofy, fantasy/cartoony panels, weird sexual scenes with unicorns and whales and polar bears. I think it is probably a 3 star comic for me in terms of “liking” it, but for sure invention and pizzazz and political commitment I’ll say 4 stars and good for Estrada for not being boring.

[Amy Layton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably my new favorite book.  Ever.  Filled with beautiful, weird, enchanting illustrations depicting various online virtual realities, Estrada tells the tale of two people trying to keep their romance alive.  Elizabeth, an Inuit online exotic dancer, hates the real world, preferring to spend time online with her AI friends until she realizes that somebody's hacked into all of her information.  Carlos, her boyfriend and recently unemployed engineer, prefers reality, questioning what it means to live in a world so embedded with technology, brands, and logos.  Where does reality end and virtual reality begin?

And that's only one of the questions that Estrada tackles in this absolutely AMAZING graphic novel.  What happens when corporations own everything?  Do they own us, too?  Can traditions be maintained in virtual reality?  How human are we if everything we are is dependent on virtual reality and the internet?  With today's quick-advancing technology, are we losing our humanity?  What does it even mean to be human?  And are we really ourselves if somebody's hacked into all of our spaces?  If everybody is constantly watching us?  Who are we if not NPCs in other people's lives?  

Everything about this book is just so.  Fucking.  Good.  There's even a little section where you can "choose your own adventure" alongside Elizabeth by choosing where she wants to go online--does she watch porn?  Read Wikipedia?  Something else?  AND THAT ONLY FURTHERS THE QUESTION OF WHETHER WE ARE WHO WE ARE BECAUSE WE JUST CONTROLLED THE CHARACTER WHO'S CONCERNED ABOUT BEING CONTROLLED.  Ines Estrada is a goddamn genius.  

And to think I found this book by happenstance.  I can't wait to see one of my close friends--I'm basically going to shove this book into her hands because the art style, the ethical, moral questions, the pondering of what it means to be human...it's so up her alley.  

Really though, I've never seen a book that so intelligently and precisely predicts a future in which late-stage capitalism and robotics are so advanced, projects the concerns of a generation about how closely linked we are with technology and viewing corporations as not only friends but the arbiters of all meaning-making and information.  

Read this book.  Read this book.  It is easily the best thing I've read all year, if not in a very, very long time.

Review cross-listed here!

[Diego Munoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one caught me by surprise. I Went in blind and it pulled me straight in. I’m not a fan of sci-fi in general, nor of dystopian futures, but this story has a way of painting a bleak future that doesn’t seem too far away from where the world is heading to now. As a result, I found it very engaging, and a great read.

The art work is brilliant, she has lots of different styles to match the different threads in the story. I was just really impressed by the concepts, like the characters meeting on line and discussing things that people used to do, like fishing, or a time when bees existed.

This could well be turned into a movie in the future. I loved it.

[Jesús · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume collects the full six-issue run of Inés Estrada’s totally rad comic Alienation. Set 50 years in the future—when everyone works and lives online—two young people of color live precarious lives in precarious times. Their only means of resistance and escape is by way of the same technology that also pays and feeds them: the internet. Estrada’s book is politically vibrant, visually psychedelic, and imaginatively stunning.

Few other recent comics have felt so true-to-life while also feeling so otherworldly. What I mistook early on for clunky political satire grew into something much sharper and stranger. Try to imagine the pop-existentialism of Georges Perec’s novel, Things, blended with the visual style of underground comix and the socially conscious sci-fi filmmaking of the ‘60s and ‘70s. It’s all in there and all smartly brought together.

It’s a book that attempts to redefine the experience of cultural and political alienation for our present day by way of our imagined future. The book’s two protagonists are the inheritors of colonial violence and displacement. As a consequence, both feel disconnected from their home cultures (Mexican and Inuit, respectively). But they also feel disconnected from one another. Not only do they prefer online sex to bodily sex, but they can literally share the same room and live in the same apartment and be in two completely different (virtual) spaces. They also have no relationship to the outside world—including its presumed environmental decimation and all the other people still inhabiting it—since they do all of their working and living online and, therefore, there’s no reason for them to leave their apartment. And so on.

But ultimately, like the best works of punk, it’s a book that also reminded me that *indignation* is how we begin to fight back against oppression in all its forms.

[Shazia · Rating 4 out of 5]

i can't even put into words how much i enjoyed this comic. art, concept, storyline, all amazing. i wouldn't even be surprised if this is how the world is going to be in 50ish years.

[Robert Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering the growing monopolistic powers of the relatively small number of corporations that own almost all human data, the dystopian world described here does not seem so far off. It is told in Inés Estrada's typically grungy drawing style, but feels more complex and evolved than her previous books. This is not a criticism of her earlier work--just a statement that this is a real step forward.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was kind of into the premise of this, but it was too much for me.

I liked that both leads were non-white and that this explored a future where VR is so involved, but it was both super on-the-nose and way out there. It's pretty basic to have companies like Amazon and Walmart be running the future, so that was more predictable.

On the other hand, I didn't like the AI-human storyline. I felt like it was really lacking in depth and didn't fully develop. That's the same with a lot of parts of this book - it feels like something heavy, but it doesn't actually carry that weight. It's trying to hold a big message, but it's hollow inside.

[Rachael K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in 2054, I thought that the way she wrote the future was a little predictable. I liked that she explored exploitation, race, and capitalism, but I didn’t feel like the plot had a lot of depth. I loved her art and how extremely detailed some of the spreads were. The art is for sure 5/5! I love how she adapts her style, especially for the VR sequences. The scenes in their empty apartment made me feel a little claustrophobic, especially their white walls and I thought she drew that space really well. A really weird book to have finished during self-isolation when we’re adapting to more virtual ways of communication and seeing corporations make record profits from exploiting labor.

[That one psychopath · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm very disturbed guys but in a good way??

This is about basically the future and I can see it happening and that's what scares me. But I'm not so sure about the first alien human hybrid, I honestly don't know what I just read. All I know is that my eyes hurt and what was this.

But it was kind of great. Really good? I don't know

Somebody please help me

- From your illiterate child, that somehow knows how to read I blame being the first AI human.

[Kyu Lee]

gonna write a review later but whoo finished my Goodreads challenge!!! 🥳

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A graphic novel about human life in a tech-dependent not-so-distant future. Eliza, an Inuit sex worker living in Alaska with her partner, spends the majority of her life, from eating to work to leisure, in the multiverse virtual reality sponsored by corporations. Themes include: the tension of VR vs reality, climate change, ethics and technology, consent, and the boundaries between NPCs and artificial intelligence.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thoughts on this aren't super complex tbh - it's a really cool format for looking at what future life might be like and I enjoyed it a lot. Often speculative/sci fi stuff postulates that we'll live in the Arctic without acknowledging the cultures who already live there, so I appreciated this aspect a lot.

[P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

many of the items I own are plastered with stickers from gatosaurio.com but I had yet to read a book by Estrada. It has all the humor, pathos, and weirdness I expected and want from a story about humanity's possible future when we all live in rooms hooked up to VR.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a creepy, powerful, dystopian sci-fi (also R-rated) graphic novel. It will certainly stick with you, and likely cause you to question parts of your life. I think Inés Estrada did an amazing job taking what environmental issues, socio-political issues, and technologies exist and taking it far enough to be quite dystopian, but similar enough to present day to really mess with you. It's not for the faint of heart.

[bethaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for school!
i really enjoyed this. got a little confused in some points but i think that was the point?
the art though, oh my god. i zoomed in on so many pages just looking for tiny details. it was such a treat to look at.

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

So fucking cool 👽

[Agustín Ávila C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joya! Léanlo todxs! Alienation nos lleva a repensar los sentires, los sueños, pesadillas y la virtualidad, sin dejar detrás el cuerpo y la periferia de un mundo cada vez más interconectado.
Ya viene la segunda edición!!

[Violetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wild, surreal- meshes the virtual with actual and artificial with real. Psychedelic and unsettling.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Live in the Pod, eat the bug!!!

This book’s cover is just gorgeous. To be honest I picked it up because the drawing of the girl reminded me of myself. +I’m always thinking about alienation. I figured the book would be either a meditation on loneliness/separation or a pun about aliens, both of which I'm interested in.

The book is about a couple, Eliza and Carlos, who live in the future (the 2050s I believe). By this point, the megacorporations of today (apple, amazon, mcdonalds, walmart, etc) have completely taken over all aspects of life. Most people have GoogleGlands placed in their brains allowing them to enter an immersive VR space of the internet without needing any hardware. Every character lives somewhere in the arctic circle, the implication being it’s the only inhabitable place. They live in an apartment that is completely empty and they wear plain pajama/jumpsuit garb. You might think they are prisoners at first glance. But they aren’t (well they are— Prisoners of SOCIETY!) Eliza is a sex worker and gains income from a VR OnlyFans/Twitch streaming situation. Carlos works at an oil rig, but oil is in its death throes as an industry.

There was a sort of plot about an AI forcibly impregnating Eliza with the first human-AI hybrid that then escapes into the world in the end, but I didn’t care about the plot very much. My favorite part was the middle section which is a choose-your-own-adventure situation except you’re surfing the web.

Eliza is Iñupiat and Carlos is Mexican. I really liked seeing indigenous characters in a futuristic story. There was much discussion about the fact that indigenous people have been living in a post-apocalyptic future ever since colonization. Eliza views the internet & its baggage as a net positive, because her community can stay in touch. But her grandfather begs to differ. Carlos’s abuela feels similarly negative toward the new tech. She laments a beach she knew as a child, and how the simulation doesn’t hit the same. At one point Carlo’s abuela tries to educate her grandson by showing him some memes and he and his cousin laugh it off. It’s funny to think about us all in the 2050s trying to show educational memes to our grandchildren.

Carlos and Eliza are lucky that they have a tangible line to the past. They have access to living memories, through their grandparents, of life before the internet and GoogleGland and whatever else is happening in this world. After the granparent’s generation, which I suppose is my generation, people will no longer have true access to a time where life wasn’t like this. They can prob still access simulacra of course, but all tethers to the Real versions of these things will be totally gone. Ok I haven’t read Baudrillard so forgive me if I’m misusing terms, but things will go from simulation to complete simulacra with the original forgotten.

Does the birth of the fucked up AI singularity creature signify the next step in human evolution? Otherwise, with no one having physical sex and undoubtedly not wanting to endure the physicality of pregnancy and birth, humanity would start petering out. (Of course here you can point again to the convo between grandpa and Eliza and note that the apocalypse has already happened to indigenous people before and people have managed to survive through the generations, and will likely survive through this as well). Maybe at this point I should’ve paid more attention to the ending, but I already returned the book smh. You’d think I would care about the pregnancy & singularity & Immaculate Conception aspect more due to my Evangelion obsession, but I am currently preoccupied with thoughts of Embodiment due to that Emrata book. It’s crazy how what you read/watch/what’s going on in your life impacts how you read something bc if I had read this 4 years ago I’m sure I would be going on and on about “Cthonic Birth” or some shit. Anyway.

There were a bunch of similarities demographically to this one instagram influencer who is also Alaska Native and has a Mexican husband and her last name is the same as Eliza’s and I think she may also have an onlyfans? I also convinced myself Carlos had the same last name as her husband but I truly can’t remember and that’s probably not true. Anyway the author is also texan and so is the influencer lol I almost got possessed to message the influencer about the book then I was like ok parasocial relationship out of control I’m basically living in the pod already for even having this train of thought and knowing so much information about a stranger on the internet

There was one point where we see Eliza’s recent google searches, and one of them is “read Suehiro Maruo comics”. There’s a graphic horror scene in one of the online worlds that was an homage to that genre of work. I recently read “the strange tale of Panorama Island” by Suehiro Maruo, which itself is based on a short story that was made by a guy who was obsessed with Edgar Allen Poe. What a long train of connection. Anyway, the Panorama Island book was about a man who was completely obsessed with creating an island that was a simulacrum of paradise. None of it was real, he didn’t care about building an actual paradise, he wanted the illusion of it. He was also inhabiting an identity that was not his own. The original story was written 97 years ago, but here we see it almost exactly replicated in this book. Eliza and her peers live in a simulacrum of paradise that is ultimately empty. They can be people they are not while in the Metaverse.

But I live in a hologrammm with youuuuuuuuuuuuuu

I am convinced that Metaverse will be a flop, but I am also of the generation that still remembers Ye Olde Ways, like the grandparents in this book. Eliza’s life is utterly devoid of sensual experience. She and Carlos never have physical sex, they never taste physical food, (They drink Soylent from the tap, I’m a Soylent Drinker myself, it's one of my worst traits, we have a long history) they never go dancing. Eliza does all of this in the Metaverse— she engages in sex while being in a furry/animal simulator and at one point they fuck as intertwined snails! she eats a smorgasbord of virtual food, she goes to a rave that is set in the 90S. I guess she can see and hear in the Metaverse, but she can’t smell, feel, taste, or touch. I am ALWAYS thinking about physicality and the absence of sensory stimulation. The loss of physical experience as we get sucked further into our screens worries me. We almost always favor the mind over the body but at what cost!

Eliza is so alienated from her own body . She has to pay McDonalds to find out her McBody stats. Eliza is frustrated about this, exclaiming “Sucks having to pay for my body stats, it’s my body, I should have access to that for free!” (131). I guess in some ways we are also a paywall away from information about our own bodies too. Eliza can’t feel sexual pleasure for herself, this is getting into a tricky convo about the ethics of sex work virtual and otherwise, and I don’t really want to do that, but she is still unable to directly access physical sexual pleasure even though she lives with her partner. They haven’t had physical sex in over a year. When the internet goes out, they can barely talk to each other and are immediately bored. Eliza’s ultimate lack of control over her own body happens when she has the AI demon pregnancy and is not able to abort it. I am trying to write a review for My Body by Emily Ratajkowski which I finished last week, but every other thing I read like this graphic novel makes me think of more things I need to add to it. Eliza and Emily both struggle with dissociation from their body even though they both use their body (more importantly, the IMAGE of their body) as their primary source of income.

Eliza has a friend, Kaarina, who appears to have extreme health issues in the physical world. In the Metaverse she can thrive. I guess that posits a question about what it is like to not have to exist outside of a physical body for those who experience suffering and constant pain in their physical body. iDK I went through a long phase where I felt it would be easier to simply not have a body, I can understand that line of thinking especially if your body gives you troubles more than joy.

Eliza talks about how people used to stare at campfires and now they stare at screens so you don’t have to bother imagining anything. I myself can’t be bored for a single moment, I am never ever not listening to a podcast or audiobook or reading or scrolling or watching something if I’m not doing a specific activity. Sometimes when I am doing a solitary task at work like shelving I am like wow this is truly my only block of time all day to wander around in my own head. Idk if my imagination has suffered tho I’m convinced I still got enough of that as a kid. Sometimes I feel resentful that my time and mind have been taken from me by big tech and the internet, which feels like something I didn’t consent to and wouldn’t choose if I were given the option, but it’s like that Tyler The Creator quote about cyberbullying, I am here and I won’t log out even tho it’s in my power to do so! (Kinda, they are making themselves more and more indispensable every year that goes by)

It’s also telling that the virtual places they can go for entertainment are either outlandish fantasy or nostalgic for bygone eras, like partying in the 70s at a music festival or the 90s at a virtual rave. There is a fragment of an article in the choose-your-own-adventure section talking about the rise of sequels instead of new movies coming out. Nostalgia and the inability to create anything new. Stagnant culture no imagination :(.

As usual I’m getting away from the book. oK. This book was written in 2016, so before we had the MetaVerse (though obviously analogues like second life and Club Penguin have been around for forever) but still before the live in the pod eat the bug lifestyle was as clear. Though you can count the metrics by which we were already deeply alienated from ourselves and each other. I absolutely enjoyed reading this, but it was kinda *too* on the nose throughout. And I was never very invested in the overall plot. I mostly enjoyed the portions where they are just surfing the web and talking to each other.

[Esmé · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was actually so awesome. I picked this up at the public livrary with no expectations, just thinking it had a coll cover with a creepy maximalist art style, but it was like perfect. This is my type of sci-fi, no explanations needed, and based on shit that is very much going down today.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Psychedelic, captivating, and unpredictable. Loved the art style, pacing, and world building. The creative references to the current climate crisis were thoughtful and well done.

[happiestgirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Awesomely fantastic illustrations and visuals. Neat concept too. Although this got a bit odd sometimes, overall i'd say pretty Okay

[michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

breathtaking illustrative work wow. love their art style and their choice to keep it in black and white. the path the story took was interesting and brought up some interesting questions about personhood and our relationship to technology. i think i would actually buy this book (on this minimalism vibe with possessions recently) because the art is great.

[Patricia Vidal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hello, hello Sushi Pizza and wild animal sex experiences. Excuse me while I try to illegally update my Googlegland -made in 2023 China- and get lost in a world of virtual baby seals petting sessions and Jimmy Hendrix concerts. In a planet wrecked by nuclear waste -and where biotechnology is only for the rich-, Eliza and Charly, an intercultural Inuit-Mexican couple, can hardly make ends meet. Eliza's work from home is a sort of kinky only fans for white men that pay her to scowl them. In the endless boredom of her after hours, she escapes to VR and fucks all kind of awkward beings. However, things get weirder when an AI hack impregnates Eliza. You see, it turns out that in 2054 AI beings want to take over the world and, well, sadly for Eliza, abortive nanobots are not legal in her area... Is this baby just a glitch? Why on Earth do dead bowhead whales appear in her dreams/online world? Colonisation of Inuit culture is not a thing from the past, but a repeated trauma (Danowski's end of the world(s), anyone?). Marked as fun & refreshing reading in this overwhelming jungle of cli-fi. Note to self: check Ben Passmore's Daygloayhole and James the Stanton's Morsel.

[André Habet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this up from Women and Children First in Chicago today, meaning to save it for a later date, but started in on it on a long train ride and just kept going. It is an incredible piece of dystopian fiction. Estrada does some bonkers layouts, especially with regard to representing the melding between reality and simulated reality to unsettle the reader in a manner that mirrors the characters' experiences. Estrada's projection of a future ravaged by global warming and mass extinction is wonderful in how banal and resigned the characters are about it even as they're aware that it's all occurred mostly due to the machinations of generations of violence enacted under settler-colonial white supremacist ideology. I am terrified a lot of the times about the future, but there was definitely something cathartic at seeing one worst-case scenario represented with such humor and complexity.

[Peter Landau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inés Estrada draws up a world in ALIENATION that takes the present and carries it to a logical conclusion. The earth is devastated, people are cocooned in virtual realities and corporations have completed their take over of culture, government and ever aspect of our lives. That leaves the couple at the center of this story alienated, as in the title, disillusioned but stalled. But Estrada’s detailed art makes it an endlessly fascinating nightmare.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A convincingly terrifying vision of a future in which humans have pretty much destroyed the earth and everyone spends most of their time online in virtual environments, made possible by a Googlegland implanted deep in their brains. I love Estrada's densely drawn, vividly realized worlds and her dark humor.

[Sonic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent future avenues explored virtually.

[Mark Robison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trippy graphic novel set in a not-too-far-off future where rent is paid to Walmart and Google owns property in virtual reality. It basically takes current reality and turns the knobs to 11 -- did you like Tupac performing as a hologram and seeming to interact with Snoop Dogg at Coachella? Well, now you can have dead artists perform in your living room but you don't need VR goggles; you can instead have the technology embedded in your brain, like Google Glasses with no glasses. (Performers in the book include Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Thunders.)

Although this is explored in only a few panels, our heroine earns money by performing sex acts where she can select costumes and settings like in an online role-playing game except that others can watch her as if she's in their own living rooms. And I use "living rooms" loosely. She lives with a boyfriend in a small, windowless apartment that's empty except for a mattress. Food is experienced by pill, and all scenery, art, and interactions with friends happen virtually, like FaceTime except the person seems to be with you and you can create settings so it appears you’re on a mountain watching a beautiful sunset — and you have to pay for access to settings, with more elaborate ones being more expensive.

So I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I liked the comment made by our heroine that people used to think being shut in a tiny room endlessly would be considered torture while now people voluntarily do it. Beyond that comment and the implied concern about the potential all-powerful influence of Google/Walmart, I didn't get a feel for much of a worldview or philosophy backing everything up. Still, this was always interesting. And the art was cool — it has a two-dimensional quality that flattens some objects in a way that's reminiscent of much past and current aboriginal art. Definitely worth checking out if you like off-beat graphic novels.

Bechdel test: B

Overall grade: B+

[DOOM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just wow. This book is insane. Comics like this are why I love the medium so much. It’s so raw. You can tell there was an immense amount of emotion and love poured into the creation of this book.

If I had to put this in a genre, I would say it’s science fiction, horror, and dystopian. It poses questions like what would it be like if reality and virtual reality/ the internet are indistinguishable from each other and your dreams. In this world people don’t really go outside much at all. Nature is basically dead. They experience everything through virtual reality. Their food is all artificial. To me this is horrifying in itself because it’s a reality that doesn’t seem too far away from where we are headed.

I really love the art. Sometimes it’s very simple and sometimes it’s very elaborate. It’s always pleasing to look out. There are so many cool little animals and creatures Ines draws. The work is very psychedelic at times as well.

I really love the dialogue and writing as well. Sometimes it’s so deep. Elisabeth has some very strange thoughts but I can relate very much so. Being a human is weird and that comes with a lot of weird thoughts. I tend to question everything like Elisabeth does.

Finally, I have to say how much I love the afterword. It takes a lot of strength and courage to talk about mental health and just struggles in general. Not only that but to publish it publicly in your own work is just so brave and inspiring.