Nod Away Vol. 2

Nod Away #2

by Joshua W. Cotter

Après le premier volume publié en 2015, Joshua Cotter livre le deuxième épisode de la série Déplacement, qui se déroule dans un futur proche où internet, rebaptisé «le flux», fonctionne par télépathie avec pour serveur central une petite fille.

Situé environ 40 ans avant les événements décrits dans le premier volume, Déplacement vol. 2 présente les personnages d'Aveline Moiré, une jeune française psychologiquement instable immigrée aux États-Unis et Walter Walker, un jeune graphiste fraîchement séparé qui travaille à l'accueil d'un centre culturel. Les deux jeunes adultes vont tomber amoureux et, au terme d'une relation ponctuée par les violentes crises d'Aveline, ils seront à l'origine de la création de l'internet télépathique du Professeur Earnest.

Série de science-fiction très ambitieuse, Déplacement navigue entre le cyberpunk de William Gibson et la SF psychédélique de K. Dick, avec une petite pincée de Lovecraft. Joshua Cotter continue son récit au long cours mêlant aventures et réflexions existentielles dans ce deuxième volume d'une série qui en comptera sept.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction

367 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 7, 2021

About the author

Joshua W. Cotter lives in rural Northwest Missouri with his wife, children, cats, and an acute sense of impending mortality. They keep him making comics.

Reviews

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this volume much more than the first. The storytelling here felt more focused, as if Cotter was taking himself more serious as a writer.

The connections between this book and volume 1 creep up on you, all the while telling a compelling story of its own.

[Jonathan Hawpe · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the epic, ongoing Nod Away series, Josh Cotter is entering that rare area of comics artists/storytellers with an almost completely unique feel and approach to their subjects. You can trace the visual style from R. Crumb and Moebius, or compare to something contemporary and similarly dense and spectacular like Anders Nilsen's work, and one can certainly draw comparison to dark/surreal scifi and body horror in fiction (Jeff Vandermeer's Area X trilogy), film (the David Cronenberg oeuvre), and comics (Ezra Claytan Daniels's Upgrade Soul), but Cotter's creation is very much his own. His mix of mundane grittiness, subtle humor, and flawed, human characters with almost Philip K. Dickian philosophical fantastic elements is really special, and I can't wait to see how he continues to surprise, deepen and expand the mind-bending Nod Away.

[Jason Arnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Josh Cotter's creating something truly epic that encompasses a lot of aspects of cartooning, comics, storytelling, and genre. This second volume continues to build out the world he set up in volume one in a slow burn that is heartbreaking and breathtaking in its depth. It ramps up to an ending that seems a foregone conclusion, yet is exciting and fresh and oh-so-satisfying. Recommended. Can't wait for the next volume.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the second volume we go back in time and on to planet earth. We follow a lonely illustrator, Walter Walker, living in Chicago. Turns out he’s the artist who created the characters for the itchy&scratchy esque show that everyone will get addicted to in the future. He is only paid 200 bucks for the design but later in the book he gets a settlement for a large sum. He takes an interest in a mysterious girl who works at the cafe across from his office. Her name is Aveline and she’s french (I can’t remember where she’s actually from but it is a francophone area). She’s giving Manic Pixie Dream Girl. They eventually start seeing one another, but she drops off the face of the earth.

Walk moves on and moves to his family home in the country, seemingly after the death of a parent. He’s in a property dispute with an angry neighbor. He starts seeing a single mom and is moving on with life, but one day he gets an email with Aveline saying she’s in a bad way and needs somewhere to go. Aveline comes to stay with him in the country but she’s clearly been through some things and is almost catatonically depressed. Her mental illness gets worse and worse and Walt takes care of her lovingly. There are some heartbreaking scenes where he tries to prevent her from hurting herself. She disappears again and Walt thinks she is with Mink, the guy he’s embroiled in a property dispute with. When he finds her again, she’s even more catatonic and it’s implied she went through some nefarious shit at the hands of Mink.

She deteriorates and Walt continues trying to take care of her, but eventually she has a very serious suicide attempt. He takes her to the hospital. A mysterious doctor (a young Dr. Earnest) says that Aveline would be a good candidate for an experimental new residential treatment facility in Kansas City. Walker, who is uninsured as is Aveline, is reluctant but accepts the offer. Meanwhile, Mink dies of a heart attack. Dr. Earnest calls Walter to inform him that Aveline is pregnant. He says they’ll take excellent care of her and even have and OBGYN on staff who will take care of the birth. Walt goes to visit Aveline and Dr. Earnest shows him his machine, the Empathizer, which allows you to feel what other people are feeling. He’s also invented a way to extract people’s consciousness. Walt decides to take the machine for a spin and emerges feeling much less depressed than usual.
Aveline comes home to spend the rest of her pregnancy with Walt. The plan is she’ll stay with him and get regular check ups at the facility until the baby is ready. They settle into domesticity, but Aveline is… different. She is fluent in English, she’s constantly reading and talking about quantum physics. She says she’s having twins named Ava and Eva.. the girls powering the innernet in the previous story. Walter calls Dr. Earnest for an explanation. He is alarmed and wants her to come in for observation. Walter gets upset with him and refuses. Walt plans to ask Aveline to marry him, but she senses that something is up and gets very upset. She actually flies off the handle and tries to stab him and also herself. Walt calls his friendly neighbor Doc asking if he can come do a C-Section because she’s bleeding out.

After another interlude of the hippie wandering the planet, we fast forward in time. Walt is now in his 40s or 50s, and it seems to be now concurrent with the previous volume. There’s talk of the Angus terror attacks. The same thing happens as in the end of the first volume– everyone who has the innernet implant shuts off and their eyes start bleeding. Planes fall out of the sky. Walter and his friends break into Dr. Earnest’s facility because he’s worried about Eva. She lives there part time I guess? But then he figures out that Eva’s mind has been separated from her body and the Eva he interacts with is not the same Eva he’s always known. Walt sees the remaining fragments of Eva, a brain and spinal column, and then has a cacophony of images and memories. It ends with a picture of a notebook that is drawn in a childlike fashion. A drawing of an ouroboros, a woman with stars around her head and a C section scar chained by one wrist to a cloud above and to the wrist of a figure below on the ouroboros. It says “Despiciendo Suspicio, Sucipciendo Descpicio” Latin for “Looking up, I look down.”

This volume is much less Sci Fi than the other ones, it doesn’t deviate from our world until the last section when Aveline goes to the treatment center. It’s much more focused on the relationship between Walker and Aveline. It was a good depiction of loving someone who is really struggling, and the desperation that the other partner feels. It’s shady of Dr. Earnest to exploit Walt’s desperation and love and lack of health insurance to get what he wants. Is Aveline special in some way or did they just need a body to use? I’m also unclear on what happened to her, did she actually die or did they manage to save her? Or uplaod her brain? Perhaps we will find out in future volumes. I was not very impressed by the first volume because the sci fi elements seemed so been-there done-that, but this one expanded the world much more and it had a more compelling central storyline. The drawings are very dense and overwhelming, and there were even more squiggles than the first one. But here the squiggles seem more connected to the action in the panels, like the lines perfectly align with someone's shoulder or hair. Maybe that was also happening in the first one but I didn’t notice. I’m still lost on what’s happening on the other planet and don’t really know who that is. I am looking forward to reading the next installments

[Peter Hollo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. Weaves into and around the first volume in a deeply satisfying way. It's quite moving, quite grotesque, creepy and very, very smart. The storytelling through comics is masterful, but what's most impressive is how audacious it is - this is volume 2 of 7, and Cotter is quite satisfied to let the story develop over those volumes at the pace it needs to. A lot is unveiled in this volume - far more than I expected in fact - but a lot is still utterly mysterious.
Can't wait to see what comes next.

[Titus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved the first volume of “Nod Away” when I read it a few months ago, but this second volume has taken the series to another level.

The first volume is very much science fiction, mostly set on a futuristic space station, but this volume largely consists of an extended flashback to earth in the early 2000s. In this more mundane setting, Cotter delivers a very grounded, human story, chiefly about a relationship between two people suffering from mental illness, albeit with increasing sci-fi elements as the narrative progresses. I wouldn't exactly say this volume works as a standalone – it ekes out nuggets of explanation for some of the first volume’s mysteries, and it seeds a lot to be explored in future volumes – but its core story is as substantial and satisfying as any self-contained graphic novel I've read, and it’s frankly just brilliant in every way, so I'm confident calling it a great achievement, regardless of whether Cotter ever manages to publish another volume.

In my review of the first volume, I criticized the dialogue for sometimes sounding a bit goofy in its attempts to give characters unique voices, but in this volume that problem is completely gone. A major character is French, but her speech doesn't feel overly stereotypical or otherwise grate on me. Indeed, I honestly have no criticisms of this volume at all.

“Nod Away” is an ambitious, uncompromising comic. It's a work that tramples all over the idea of a dichotomy between “genre fiction” and “literary fiction”, or between “genre comics” and “alternative comics”. It combines high-concept science fiction not just with hard-hitting human drama, but also with formal experimentation, meticulously intricate artwork, mature and sophisticated storytelling, and a bold, unique artistic vision. If Cotter sustains this high over his planned seven volumes, this will be a landmark masterpiece, but even if he doesn't, he's already made about 600 pages of absolutely astounding comics.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every review I've read said this second book was even better than the first one. I can only agree with that. It keeps the masterful balance of abstract, psychedelic and slice of life, but turns it up to eleven. It's very interesting how Cotter devoted the majority of his books to what would probably be mentioned in expository dialogue by most other authors. The books starts where the previous one ended, in a way. It opens on a plane crash, and quickly move on to this part's protagonist. A boring white dude trying to hook up with the chick working at the cafe he goes to, his role in the overall story kind of unclear at first. Again, it's hard to say anything about the story without quickly delving into spoiler territory.. One thing I'll say is that that plane crash was on my mind for the entire duration of that story, building tension. Until I kind of forgot about it and it finally came into play haha. And similarly to the first book, the "main" intrigue of the series only moved forward in the very last quarter. The rest is an intricate drama that serves as background work to said "main" plot, but is almost more interesting. Cotter writes very tight dialogue, that reminds me of Aaron Sorkins in ways. It's quippy, and natural, in a very artificial way, if that makes any sense ? In any case, he definitely reels you in. Hopefully he doesn't keep us waiting too long for the sequel(s)

[S Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Improves upon the (admittedly very good) first volume in the series, with much more character development and some satisfying conclusions to arcs begun in the previous book. Despite the high-concept science fiction elements, a large swathe of the book is more down to earth, focussing on the relationship of two rather damaged characters living in rural America, and this helps to focus the story and up the stakes during the surprisingly action-oriented conclusion.

Certainly one of the most interesting and intelligent comic series I've read in a long time; looking forward to what comes in the next volume. Highly recommended.

[Daniel Mossop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, this and the first Volume are like nothing else you will find in the graphics novel Medium. Had me hooked cannot wait for the rest of the series.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed the first volume, but this is light years better, especially in terms of pacing. I can’t wait to see where this is headed next.

[Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm liking where this is going, although reading this and the previous volume made me deeply anxious.

[Jack Mills]

waiting for 3

[Dair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing art and a complete shift from the setting of volume one. Kept me intrigued and the end has me excited for volume three.

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books ever. The way Cotter uses images and dialogue together is true graphic noble storytelling. The art is just stunning. I lingered on so many pages. It’s real sci fi and beautiful art. Eagerly awaiting the next book!!