What happens when utopia meets dystopia? Mattie Lubchansky's electric graphic novel, Simplicity, explores this question and others in bright, digitally created, cartoon-style art rife with NSFW scenes. Lubchansky (Boys Weekend), associate editor for the comics site the Nib, uses humor, horror, and themes of sexuality to tell the story of Lucius Pasternak, an anthropologist in 2081 who's sent from the Administrative and Security territories of New York on a fieldwork assignment to the exurb zone--picture a journey from a fortified New York City filled with surveillance and ads to the rural Catskills region. It's a vision of the future that's bleak, but not preposterous.
Lucius arrives at Simplicity, a commune in operation since the late 1970s, to gather interviews and firsthand experience, ostensibly for a museum funded by Dennis Van Wervel, a despicable mayor also known as "the worm," who has his hands in many projects. At first, Lucius is treated as an outsider. No one will sit for an interview, though he is allowed to witness the sexual exploits of what the community calls the "Mutual Rite," an evening free-for-all in which commune members release tension. However, as Lucius puts in sweat equity, the community opens up to him, and strange dreams become mingled with waking hours. Before long, violence strikes Simplicity, the commune devolves into chaos, and Lucius embarks on a journey to find what's attacking the place he now feels loyal to. In this post-societal breakdown tale, Lubchansky's imagination and expressive powers are at their finest. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator