Taking an experimental approach — visually, conceptually, thematically — to the well-trod ground that is memoir is no easy task, but weaving that experimentation into the metaphorical “DNA” of the work itself ups the ante considerably, and requires both sure-footed artistic skill as well as a fair amount of confidence in one’s vision form the get-go. As evidence for this assertion, I give you Paula Lawrie’s recently-self-published ‘zine My Geometric Family, a collection of single-page illustrations with accompanying text that bring to life formative experiences from the artist’s youth in the late 1940s and early 1950s with the added wrinkle of presenting everyone’s heads as a hodge-podge of various geometric (you saw that coming) shapes, thereby imbuing the proceedings with a pretty heavy layer of surrealism that both belies and accentuates their prosaic origins. Don’t ask me how that contradiction works itself out on the page, but it does, and the results are often quite — if quietly — breathtaking.

It also gives this unassuming black-and-white number a seriouly unique character that in no way detracts from the tone of any of the scenes presented, be they tragic, comic, tragicomic, or even fairly mundane. Quite the reverse, in fact — Lawrie’s careful consideration is obvious, but her choices are no less bold for that fact, and more often than not the shapes she selects both reflect and magnify the essential “truth” of the events she’s relating. This requires a deft touch, no doubt, but more than that it requires one rooted in a firm commitment to the concept itself — which only sounds like a given, but is actually something of a daunting proposal given how absolutely arbitrary this whole thing could come across as being if one were to veer even ever-so-slightly off course.

That’s never a concern here, however, as Lawrie’s gorgeously detailed graphite drawings (although it appears that the cover, at the very least, features some inks — and with a “wash” effect applied to them, at that) are technically skilled enough (to say the least) to hold their own even minus the interesting and highly interpretive lens she applies to them and subsequently relates them through. Perhaps the most surprising thing this approach creates? A sense of timelessness — maybe even of events occurring outside, or at the very least apart from time — despite a firm chronological “setting” being established from the outset.

That’s a borderline-revelatory quality in a work that could easily appear “dated” otherwise, but the period fashions and social norms are in no way lessened by Lawrie’s foray into inherently futurist art styles. This seems counter-intuitive, I’m sure, maybe even downright oxymoronic (as opposed to the simply “moronic” that my critics would no doubt accuse me of frequently trading in) — but seeing is believing, and just a couple of pages into this book is all it takes to make a firm believer out of just about anyone. Yes, even the most jaded or cynical “art comics” reader who thinks — or at least assumes — they’ve already seen it all.

And that’s a crucial point to stress, perhaps even the crucial point to stress — in point of fact, you haven’t seen or experienced a work like this before, and it exists in a self-created category entirely unto itself. What you can fairly count on from the book, then, is something that’s challenging, intriguing, enriching, and above all innovative. That’s a lengthy list of superlatives, to be sure, but every one of them is absolutely and unquestionably earned.

Look, expecting the unexpected is one thing, but Lawrie goes well above and beyond that, and what you can expect here is a juxtaposition of the familiar and the alien in a way you haven’t even conceived of before. More volumes in this series are planned, and I’m looking very much forward to them already.

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My Geometric Family is available from Austin English’s Domino Books distro for $7.00 at http://dominobooks.org/mygeofam.html

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