Freeway – Mark Kalesniko

In his first new graphic novel since 2001’s acclaimed Mail Order Bride, Kalesniko delivers an ambitious 416-page tour de force chronicling a single day – a few hours, even – in the life of his recurring dog-headed alter ego, Alex Kalienka. Stuck in a horrendous traffic jam on his way to his increasingly miserable job as an animator at «Mickey Walt» Studios, a burnt-out and depressed Alex alternately rages, reminisces, fantasizes and hallucinates. There are flashbacks to his earliest days as a starry-eyed young animator snagging his dream job, through the increasingly depressing political battles and creative compromises, with a love affair gone badly wrong along the way, alternating with scenes of an increasingly agitated present-day Alex, who imagines a series of increasingly violent deaths for himself. Then again, are they in fact fantasies, or prescient flashes? Is a threatening car tailing Alex just a paranoid fantasy or a genuine threat? Readers will have to wait until the very end of this hugely ambitious graphic novel to find out. Moreover, woven into this narrative fabric is a series of imagined moments from two generations ago, a Golden Age of animation, when an earlier Alex made his way into a much different Mickey Walt Studio as imagined by the increasingly despondent present-day Alex., skipping seamlessly along the present and several different pasts, reality and fantasy, Freeway is another step forward for a major cartooning talent.