Local Man #7: As Truth Drowns

This issue is a trip-tastic doozy, its pages moving the story forward through the lens of a slow-burn drug trip that plays with the conventions of comic book lettering and paneling. After nearly being drowned by a river, Jack finds himself in the company of the exact people he was looking for: The House of Hearts’ hippie population. Unbeknownst to him, he’s drugged up and sent spiraling towards the truth at the heart of Mackenzie Cheng’s death, a heart that may decimate everything Inga holds dear.

Local Man #7 is the first issue in the series that I feel incredibly distraught over. On one hand, its creative genius in utilizing the comic book format for the expression of an influenced mental state is fresh and renewing. However, on another, that same creativity seen throughout the issue overextends the plot, creating a book that’s filled with great writing but has just enough bloat to feel somewhat gimmicky in its approach.

Regardless, fans who have been keeping up with the series will be happy as it does continue everything going on thematically and literally with the idea of deceit and secrets quite well. It draws some of those themes into a more personal, reflective level as we see both Jack and Inga lying to themselves throughout the story, and the pressure to succeed bringing about a need to craft falsified beliefs about ourselves and others.

That being said, the overall story finds itself caught up in the team’s expert use of breaking visual convention to represent these themes through Jack’s current psychedelic trip state. The art and coloring for this is immaculate as text bubbles and panel borders find themselves the victim of Jack’s confused state. It’s a contemporary use of meta-textual writing that doesn’t seek to comment on the medium itself but instead uses the malleable nature of said medium to express a character’s state of being in new and creative ways. While it does drag the overall story flow down, disengaging me from the plot at hand, I can’t help but still find that it has its merit, elevating what would have otherwise been just another second chapter into a standout issue from the series.