In the days after September 11th, with the ruins of his job, relationship, and city crumbling around him, cartoonist and roustabout K. Thor Jensen (24 Hour Comics, Top Shelf, and many more) packed a backpack, bought a bus pass and took to the open road. His 60-day, 10,000-mile journey is chronicled in this ragtag romance.
From riding the back of a burning couch in Birmingham, Alabama to aiding stray dogs in Butte, Montana, building a giant papier-mache vagina in Columbus, Ohio to smuggling drugs across the border in El Paso, Texas, Jensen searches for the last remnants of a meaningful life as he rides the Greyhound bus. Stopping over in eighteen cities, he interacts with a diverse cast of supporting characters, and they each recount a story of their own to him, cobbling together a modern Canterbury Tales for the slacker generation. Red Eye, Black Eye is a fractured portrait of life in 21st century America, as the protagonist and his compatriots drink, fight, stumble and fall their way through their travels. It's also riotously funny, charmingly crude and beautifully drawn.
"…one of the first important graphic novels of 2007." — Publishers Weekly
"What's black and red and genius all over? This book!" — Perez Hilton
"A joyously bleak handbook for the post-9/11 generation." — Rodney Anonymous (The Dead Milkmen)
K. Thor Jensen's comics have been published in dozens of books and magazines. His work has been translated into several languages, adapted for the stage, and shot into space. Red Eye, Black Eye is his first graphic novel. He lives in Queens, New York with his wife and their dog and cat.
304 page black and white paperback with color covers
Alternative Comics, 2007
