Staff Picks (September): The Can Opener’s Daughter GN

Absurdist fiction is hard. To do it well, to have it not only hold meaning but to also hold your attention is harder yet. To pair those words with illustrations that enhance the subversive nature of the story without breaking the veil that separates immersion in the world and the awareness that you are a reader reading that story is near impossible. Yet Rob Davis manages just this in The Can Opener's Daughter, his follow up to his Eisner-nominated The Motherless Oven. Rich with echoes of Franz Kafka and Haruki Murakami, Rob Davis tells the tale of Vera (whose father is a can opener) as she comes of age and out from under the oppressive shadow of her mother, the omnipotent and megalomaniacal Weather Clock.  He creates a world at once surreal yet oddly familiar where the strange and the deadly seem commonplace.

You may recognize Rob’s work on Judge Dredd: Lawman of the Future and Doctor Who Magazine but where he has really found his calling is in the more literary milieu. His Don Quixote adaptation managed to be both epic and intimate at the same time and resulted in a 2014 Eisner nomination.

—Jim Fallone

Publisher: Selfmadehero
Item Code: SEP161880
Release Date:  11/16/16
SRP: $19.95