Spiral and Other Stories
Cartoonist: Aidan Koch
Publisher: New York Review Books
Publication Date: April 2024
Aidan Koch’s comics tend to wrestle with the relationship between the natural world and our socially driven desire for individualism. A space where we feel safe, comfortable and at home can at the same time be something that takes away from our connection to others, closing us off from our environment and confusing insolation with personal intimacy. Koch’s work utilizes mechanical pencils, eraser smudges and handwritten lettering to give each page a feeling of relatability that invites you into the complexities of her world. Negative space, geometric shapes and the texture of the colors all contribute to how each page slowly builds up into an intricate narrative.
Spiral and Other Stories is a collection of 4 short stories, with the majority of the book taken up by the titular “Spiral.” Each of these stories are thematically connected, playing with the concepts of human individualism and connections with nature. At its center, the book operates by showing us how shared social practice, whether through art or myth, breaks down the separations of built social structures, and even narrative structures, to unite around a mood or feeling of connectedness.
“Spiral” is broken up into 10 chapters, depicted as hours appearing on the face of a clock. The story alternates between odd numbered chapters about a person who decided to move away to a farm to pursue their art, and even numbered chapters that follow two rivers flowing into each other. Koch’s use of shape here highlights the tension at play between finding yourself and the unity of nature and community. On each page the geometrical outlines of the buildings and spaces that serve to separate us are juxtaposed with fluid, round shapes and colors in nature.
The color usage gives each natural feature a specific texture that then contributes to the larger mood of the piece. While the paneling might break up the image, or the line work creates literal separations between people, there is still a fluidity preserved page after page. The contrasts in color and linework create an impression of longing, calling out to the reader to break these divides on the page.
The story being told of the rivers colliding helps illuminate this central idea by showing us how connection can be made in the absence of socially constructed boundaries. In Chapter 2 of “Spiral” Koch writes:
“They are joyous in their movement.
They are playful among the rocks and branches.
Carrying them along rather than slowing down.”
The rivers are presented to us not simply as forces of nature, but as anthropomorphic representations of what the human struggle of the story is. In our characters, there’s a tension between the solitary desire to understand one’s self, and the joys, needs and expectations of community. Even in attempting to leave one person, the opportunity for connection always remains. Rather than fight that, the rivers show us to lean into it, to carry everything with us forward rather than preserve separation.
The second story, “A New Year,” continues to draw these intimate connections between human identity and nature by focusing on the centrality of myth. We learn the story of a village that sees all nature as alive. Everyone and everything helps the larger community of plants, animals, insects and people. As a reflection of this unity, a special tree in the center of the village houses the souls of those who die and is decorated each year.
The myth of the tree helps demonstrate how Koch is attempting to approach the connection between humanity and nature as also a relationship to labor and ceremony. Everyone works together, everyone lives together, everyone celebrates together. This gives the village an aura, a spirit to this current place and time. It’s not so much the central tree that ends up mattering, but the ways in which the village unites into a practice of cooperation and protection that sustains them.
“The Forest” takes these ideas that we’ve discussed so far and gives Koch a space to express the various instincts of her artistic style. The images of the forest are more detailed than what we’ve seen so far but the strength here continues to be in how the images of nature are anthropomorphic, alluding to larger structures and practices of daily life. Nature, and for that matter life itself, is not built on separation. Here we see rich contrasts within Koch’s own style, allowing the reader room to extrapolate a mood and foster a connection with the trees in a similar thematic aim to the previous two stories. We go from reading about the human lessons of rivers, to the relationship of myth and nature, to ultimately a variety of forest and river exteriors that allow us to bring the essence of the story into the images.
Finally, “Man Made Lake” closes this collection by returning to a more straightforward narrative about a person talking with their therapist. Koch employs mixed media and paints here, contrasting the negative space created by panels with the cool, fluid blues and dense tree branches.
The choice to depict the world of buildings and cars in their most basic units of shape, a world filled with lines and emptiness, helps draw out the missing interior life of the characters. You see the world more alive in the fish and water than we do the people who live closed off by walls and buildings. This final story feels almost like a calling out to humanity and nature, art almost in the John Dewey sense of highlighting a lack in your surroundings.
Spiral and Other Stories is a masterful collection of moody, thoughtful comics that use the form to its fullest potential. Every page densely embodies the ideas of the overall pieces, and Koch’s gentle and inquisitive approach to the questions of humanity and nature are worthy of heavy consideration. It’s the kind of comic that makes you want to drive out to the river and just stare at the world for a few hours.
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