Ant colony

I don't know how to rate this, so I won't. This is essentially the graphic novel equivalent of scream-sobbing into a pillow and then maybe hitting your head against the wall and breaking your own arm and sobbing some more. It's... certainly evocative? Definitely art. I... am genuinely not sure whether I am glad to have read this or deeply regretful of it.

Either way, don't read this when you are in a fragile place. Like, not even if you're sort-of kind-of close to a fragile place. This guy basically printed out his existential despair and bound it into a book. It's honestly impressive how effecting it is. Some of it is outright genius. Some of it is a very specific kind of relatable. Almost all of it is extremely upsetting. Kind of like Happy Tree Friends or Don't Hug Me I'm Scared type of upsetting, but mixed with an anti-war novel, For Adults^TM, and making a Existential/Philosophical Point^TM, and therefore somehow even worse. Or better, I suppose, depending on your perspective, since that was clearly the goal. The author accomplished his goal, for sure, no doubts about that.

Honestly, I'm surprised I'm not more depressed right now, having just read this. I don't know why I'm not because I should be. I think maybe the... wtf-ness of it kind of defused the grimdark horror of it? Maybe? I dunno. This entire "review" is just a hot take, though, having just finished the book.

-------------------------------------- the rest of this is basically just a rant, fair warning ----------------

Anyways... I do have some specific criticisms. The ants in this book are metaphors for humans, and I get the impression the author doesn't actually care about/isn't interested in ants beyond that. Sometimes this manifests in the form of sudden absurdity - turns out the Queen Ant has bones? BONES? In an ant?? - but it's front-and-center in the book's portrayal of sex and gender.

All the worker ants are male, in this. These male worker ants look, more or less, like ants, with the appropriate number of legs, and segmented bodies, and antennae.

The Queen is drawn as a giant, anthropomorphic monstrosity (with, apparently, an endoskeleton) whose genitalia and gigantic boobs are always the focus.

The "infertile females" - who, in this book, are relegated to childcare, kitchen-duty, and sex, and who are exclusively referred to as "infertile females" and never named (though to be fair I don't think any of the main characters are named either) - are straight up just drawn as human. They have 4 legs. They have flowing hair. They have boobs. Their bodies are not segmented or antlike in the least; they smooth, tall, human shapes. These are supposed to be ants!

It's a classic problem in the art of fantasy video games: the male version of a fantasy race looks appropriately alien or monstrous, and the female version looks like a human with some facepaint. Or the men are allowed to look all kinds of different ways, and the women are defined primarily by tiny handful of "this is a female" shorthand markers like being pink and having a bow in their hair (this happens a lot especially when there is a female character who is "female version of [male character here] instead of being her own actually original character). Thus, female characters are often reduced to their gender, as if that is the only thing that matters about them.

Fortunately the video game industry does seem to be moving away from this - it used to be a lot more common than it is now. Unless I just don't play the games where this is still a problem anymore.

But yeah. It's jarring as hell to see this sort of issue in the art of a book that is taking itself extremely seriously. Although, I suppose it does fit in with the art of the many white male artists who get labeled "auteurs" (a label NEVER given to anyone but white men, so far as I know) because they make surreal art that also always just so happens to be deeply and ceaselessly sexist.

Anyway yeah fuck that. This book blatantly disregards anything that is cool about real ants, and simultaneously reduces all female characters to sex objects (in art and in story).

Also it flubs its handling of its two gay characters real bad, in my opinion. And not even in a creative way - the presentation is novel, but it's the same old, same old shitty tropes underneath that. And sure... everyone in this book is miserable or mad or evil, so maybe in this context others might not be as bothered by this subplot as I am, but I'm tired. So I stand by this opinion no matter what the author's sexuality may be (I have no idea).

...

So now it sounds like I just hate this book, I guess? And I kind of do. But. Buuuuuut. I dunno. There are things I liked about it too. It was maybe worth it just for earthworm kid's storyline.