ComicsTrip

Cartoonist Chip Zdarsky is back with the fourth installment of his strip, ComicsTrip, for the Canadian newspapper The National Post.

ComicsTrip follows the unraveling life of Wendell. Beginning in the final moments of his mother's funeral, Wendell experiences bizarre visions of a cartoony version of life replete with obsessive caricatures of co-workers, illogical encounters, and bizarre inflections . Zdarsky describes it as a condition "where everything he sees becomes translated into the visual language of cartoons and comic books." In the initial four installments, Wendell is still trying to come to terms with his condition, and experiencing the nuances that such a condition would bring.

While still in the infant stages of this ongoing series, Zdarsky has made the moments profiled both airy and contemplative. He works to bring such an absurd condition into some real world consequences, without losing the inanity that it would bring a person. Zdarsky's excellent illustrative abilities are on full-display, and his ability to render the mundane and the fantastic side-by-side is the crux of why this comic works so well.

I had the opportunity to interview Zdarsky just prior to the launch of ComicsTrip, which you can check out at Newsarama.com.