My Wandering Warrior Existence

nathandouglasdavis Apr 7, 2022

5

The social anxiety and instabilities are still strong within this autobiographical comic essay (the fourth such series from this author). It can be hard to tell how much of this is an accurate reflection of what happened and how much of it is narrative flourishes to make it more entertaining for readers (like, I'm pretty sure some of these emoting panels are exaggerations at the very least). Very little actual action happens in this particular series. It mostly consists of the author mulling things over, contemplating why fe's different from other people, and philosophizing. The most off-the-wall instance of armchair psychology is probably when the author suggests that everybody is naturally attracted to women and that people who are attracted to men grow into that attraction (ch. 5). Though I suppose that this idea of mothers being the initial object of sexual interest is essentially just the Oedipus Complex (...not that the Oedipus Complex is actually empirically supported or all that trustworthy of a theory). Fe also creates a whole framework of hurdles that have to be overcome (with several of those hurdles being either irrelevant, in all honesty, or kinda redundant), only to then discard that entire framework in the very next chapter.  And speaking of flailing between half-baked ideas, the author claims to have friends, but then literally a few pages later says this: "I think the mysterious hurdle's true nature is faith in other people...which I don't have. I've rejected that faith." If you don't have faith in your friends, then I would argue that your friendships are pretty shallow (and perhaps shouldn't even be considered friendships at all...). I mean, the author clearly does have some mental hurdles that fe has to overcome, but I don't think it's as simple as just saying that fe lacks faith in others (since fe presumably has faith in feir friends and family, at least to a certain degree). Anyway, not really important. These types of inconsistencies are only to be expected in the essay format, which can often rely on stream-of-consciousness writing. The artwork is sketchy, but also pretty nice. Pink coloring. Large eyes. Pieces of hair sticking out.