Gloriana

October 15, 2012
Huizenga's comics, most featuring Everyman Glenn Ganges, elevate the everyday into the rarefied. Ganges is wont to dip into reveries or break into elaborate monologues about mundane tasks like unpacking groceries, analogous to Huizenga's ability to spin intricate sagas out of quotidian moments, with his simple, cartoony line drawings evolving into fabulously labyrinthine panels. The standout here is a sequence in which Ganges tells his wife about watching a sunset from his carrel at the library. As he retells the event, each successive version becomes more chaotic and kinetic, culminating in a totally abstract fold-out centerpiece. In another story, Ganges' attempt to allay his neighbors' fear of a blood-red moon that they believe portends the end of the world grows into a goofily intricate account of optical science. While Huizenga's more recent work is even more impressive, these early stories, originally self-published in minicomics a decade ago, constitute a prime example of what the comics medium can achieve that other forms of storytelling cannot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)