Page 45 Review by Stephen
MOTHBALLS by Sole Otero. Page 45 Comicbook Of The Month September 2024.
Which came first: the fucked-up family or the fuck-up within? Nature/nurture, you know they're gonna hurt yer - I seem to be channelling Phil Larkin.
Fresh and thrilling, is the best comics I've read all year and on every level. Visually, imaginatively, thematically, empathically, personally, historically and socio-politically, this hit all my sweet spots.
MOTHBALLS repeatedly broke what's left of my heart. And it did break rather than burst into flames for I'm mindful that hindsight is a privileged position from which to judge and be appalled. It's better by far to understand; specifically the cause-and-effect, slap-me-down inheritance of what passes for nurture within some families and their orbiting acquaintances.
"Do I somehow owe my life to that piece of shit?"
She means Mussolini. I'm thinking of my father. Either way, I suspect the sentiment is so prevalent that it's part of the human condition.
Channelled by her granddaughter Rocio, this is an intimate, detailed portrait of a complex woman who - like her nearest if not dearest - came into the world under far from ideal circumstances before being bashed brutally through it; and of her family, estranged from each other after repatriating their congenital disgruntlement from Italy to Argentina.
This isn't non-fiction but then nor is non-fiction: it's all seen through dusty, crusty, cracked, prismatic glasses of refracting bias. Otero's conflation and representation of the way things were for so many rings as true as WORMS, PERSEPOLIS, THE BEST WE COULD DO.
It's all so psychologically astute: "Your friends knew as little about him as you did. But they eyed you with mingled curiosity and envy. And you revelled in that envy".
Visually it's thrilling, as Rocio looms large in the empty house, is infested with its fleas and memories, her grandma's presence kaleidoscopic on black. Cheeks, flushed with magenta, do much of the talking, there is an EXCEPTIONALLY clever, repeated use of the family threshold being crossed and the reactions of those who remain; a brilliant concluding sequence; plus the final potato was very, very funny. And poignant.
