Downtown Local (Cometbus #53)

Cometbus 53! Maddalena Poletta and Aaron trade writing duties in this issue, and their writing styles compliment each other quite nicely. You can always count on Cometbus to provide a good subcultural fable. Where punks are the protagonists, and hippies often the fools. The villainous roles are filled by time, and death, and the whole thing will be related to books somehow. Even as Aaron implores the reader to focus on more than the ending, to pay attention to the process itself, he provides us with storybook reliability, and comforting resolution every time. The issue features Bent Stories, wherein motorcycles are ridden, and hats lost forever. It also includes the fascinating story of John Holmstrom, student under Will Eisner, and perhaps, the inventor of punk as we know it. In the NYC Scene Report, we learn what punk shirts are being worn around town, and Hole In The Wall is about an underground "apartment" in a subway tunnel. Maddalena tells a series of stories about cancer that will break your heart, one in the form of letters. And Nate Powell did the cover. Yes!