It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth: This Book Is for Someone, Somewhere.

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The reason for it has to do with the fact that most of those talks end up with some shitty phrase of „support“ such as „think positive“, „you can do it“, „there is nothing wrong with you“ from those you think of as friends. But the whole book is a memorable read full of hard-hitting passages and a style I can't help but love to bits. This is the sort of book I'm going to have to read over and over, and take another look at every once in a while to help digest it. There’s the deepest profundity to the flippancy with which Thorogood often dismisses her struggles and worth here.

For instance, she knows we have to in some sense "like" her if it is a memoir even one about such an intimate subject. I love it when an artist can also tell his/her own story and wow can this young talent draw and tell a good story. The art is fantastic, pivoting between styles and alternating between bright colors to black and white ink frames in a way that feels akin to the ups and downs of moods when struggling with depression.She begins to realize her earlier work The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott is very much about creating a narrative of who she is becoming who she wants to be, while this book about writing this very book is more a look at who she is afraid she is becoming. I've read a lot of comics (and other) memoirs lately about depression, but none quite as lively and inventive as this. At times she doubts her own anxiety, characterising it as a performance and equating it with self-indulgence. This tells a few months in the life of Thorogood after her breakout hit with 2020's The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott (a comic now bumped up to the top of my 'to-read' list).

The artwork is a messy jumble of styles; very little colour, and Goodnight Punpun-style simplistic heads on detailed bodies; full page spreads of crap and detailed panels interspersed with narration. Zoe Thorogood’s It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth has affected me, I think it is marvelous, and now I am passing it along through this review that might affect you. Način na koji se naracije, likovi, stilovi, tokovi misli i radnje odvijaju i smenjuju je kao da je istresla moj mozak na papir. This is where It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth is at its most triumphant as a piece of comics craft. The art was beautifully drawn and so creative, from the multiple versions of herself across time to the depiction of her depression as a creature that follows her.I understand how debilitating mental illnesses can be but I think wallowing in it to the extent of inviting others to wallow with you is problematic. Adverse child experiences around the self and creation socialized me in a way that will likely last for the rest of my life. There is a frenetic energy that roars forward through this highly metafictional memoir experiment that would feel twee or already well-trodden in lesser hands but becomes this incredible work that feels just as messy and lovely as real life should be. Replete with visual metaphor It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth employs photo inserts, bursts of colour to emphasise mood changes, collage, some incredibly clever lettering choices to supplement theme and tone, and occasional step-backs into plot and art breakdowns. It jumped back and forth between the 6 month period and other parts of her life yet mostly lacked a personal level.