Freeway

By Mark Kalesniko

In his first new graphic novel since 2001's acclaimed Mail Order Bride, Mark Kalesniko delivers a 416-page tour de force chronicling a single day--a few hours, even--in the life of his recurring dog-headed alter ego, Alex Kalienka.

Stuck in a horrendous traffic jam on his way to his increasingly miserable job as an animator at Babbitt Jones Studios, a burnt-out and depressed Alex alternately rages, reminisces, fantasizes and hallucinates. Thus flashbacks to his earliest days as a starry-eyed young animator snagging his dream job, through the increasingly depressing political battles and creative compromises, with a love affair gone badly wrong along the way, alternate with scenes of an increasingly agitated present-day Alex, who imagines a series of increasingly violent deaths for himself.

Then again, are they in fact fantasies, or prescient flashes? Is a threatening car tailing Alex just a paranoid fantasy or a genuine threat? Readers will have to wait until the very end of this hugely ambitious graphic novel to find out.

Moreover, woven into this narrative fabric is a series of imagined moments from two generations ago, a Golden Age of animation, when an earlier Alex made his entry into a much different Babbitt Jones Studio--as imagined by the increasingly despondent present-day Alex.

Loaded with fascinating insider information on two different generations of animators, skipping seamlessly among present and several different pasts, reality and fantasy, Freeway is another step forward for a major cartooning talent.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1606993569
• ISBN13: 9781606993569
• Release Date: March 2011
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.1" x 9.9"
• Age Range: 16 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 11 and higher