The comic opens with this line: “It is very seldom that mere ordinary women like myself get to meet a man as extraordinary as John.” The first two-page spread of the comic is all black with white text declaring this feeling of ordinariness. John, Dear is likely the most tightly crafted and emotionally striking comic I have read all year-so striking that I had to step away from it immediately after reading to work through the knots in my stomach, and the unsettling empathy it created within me. The cleanly drawn brick walls and the painstakingly shaded, lifelike hand on the cover allude to the way Lannes will use depth in the comic’s guts, recreating the feeling of being hollowed out. Her line work feels scientific and precise. In terms of construction and artistry, it should be Lannes uses holes and a physical body’s literal descent into emptiness as a metaphor for the emotional and psychological descent experienced in an abusive relationship.
John, Dear by Laura Lannes is not an easy comic to read. No harm comes to man from outside alone: dumbness is the objective spirit.Content warning: This comic depicts an abusive relationship and abuse is discussed in the review. The magic infusing all great and trivial political slogans is repeated privately, in the apparently most neutral objects: the rigor mortis of society is spreading at last to the cell of intimacy that thought itself secure. They form a zone of paranoiac infection, and all the power of reason is needed to break their spell. Words, figures, dates hatched and uttered, take on a life of their own, bringing woe on anyone who goes near them. It can be observed again and again that something once expressed, however absurd, fortuitous or wrong it may be, because it has been once said, so tyrannizes the sayer as his property that he can never have done with it. But as a pure means of power, disenchanted words acquire a magical sway over their users.
The emotions, which in conversation worthy of human beings were engaged ln the subject discussed, are now harnessed to an obstinate insistence on being right, regardless of the relevance of what is said. Speakers seek t0 pile up points: there is no conversation that is not titrated like a poison by an opportunity to compete. Speaking takes on a malevolent set of gestures that bode no good. Spontaneity and objectivity in discussing matters are disappearing even in the most intimate circle, just as in politics debate has long since been supplanted by the assertion of power.
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