Shit Is Real

by Aisha Franz

After an unexpected breakup, a young woman named Selma experiences a series of reveries and emotional setbacks. Struggling to relate to her friends and accomplish even the simplest tasks like using a modern laundromat, she sinks deeper into depression. After witnessing another couple break-up and chancing upon the jilted male of the couple, Anders, at his pet store job, Selma realises that her mysterious neighbor is the woman of that same couple. Her growing despair distances her from from her eager and sympathetic friend. One day, as the mysterious glamorous neighbor is leaving for a business trip, Selma discovers the woman has dropped her key card to her apartment. Selma initially resists but eventually she presses the key to her neighbors lock and enters. Aisha Franz is a master of portraying feminine loneliness and confusion while keeping her characters tough and real. Her artwork shifts from sparseness to detailed futurist with ease. Her characters fidget and twirl as they zip through a world both foreign and familiar. Base human desires and functions alternate with dreamlike symbolism to create a tension-filled tale of the nightmare that is modern life.

• ISBN13: 9781770463158
• Publish Date: 20 March 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 28 January 2022
• Publish Country: CA
• Imprint: Drawn and Quarterly
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Joséphine]

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

Initial thoughts: This is the weirdest graphic novel I've ever read. Set some time in the future, it was hard to discern what was reality and what was part of Selma's imagination. Was her ex-boyfriend some sort of alien with a reptile head or was that how she saw him after he threw her out of their apartment? In terms of feeling lonely and cut off from friends, peering in from the outside, not knowing what comes next, this book was relatable, though.

The artwork fit the psychedelic vibe of the book. I found the world building blended the familiar and strange pretty well, considering technological advances, our increasing health consciousness, and general ambivalence towards our surroundings. Still, I wish there had been more to the plot, rather than just dreamlike sequences in response to Selma's loss of identity after her break-up.