THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2024! 10 YEARS OF THE BF SIX TO WATCH! Every year at Broken Frontier as part of our Thought Bubble coverage we like to pick out one comic and one book as our prime picks for the festival. This year for that first spotlight the honours have gone to two publications that we couldn’t dsecide between. The first we covered yesterday (Peony Gent’s Autobiography Has Become a Stone in My Shoe). The second spot undoubtedly goes to 2021 Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ creator Merida Fajardo, an artist who we have been ceaselessly telling you over the last four years is one of the most boundary-pushing emerging voices in the form. Her work constantly and consistently shows the most intimate understanding of everything that is unique to comics storytelling and her Thought Bubble debut There’s a Party in My Body (and You’re All Invited) is no exception.
If you are already familiar with the oft-mononymously credited Mereida’s practice then you will be well aware of how she constantly toys with physical format to thematically reflect her narratives. It’s a clever and always acutely insightful approach which in this case is also backed up by a cross-media supplement – an accompanying soundtrack to be played while reading to bring an extra audio stimulus to events on the page.
There’s a Party in My Body (and You’re All Invited) is more a visual experience than a narrative. Two partygoers join a biological rave within a human body and we observe them as they get into the spirit in the various different venues they journey through within this flesh and organs-based arena. There’s the Heart Stage, the smoking area within the lungs, the Liver’s Ruin Bar, the Stomach Acid House and so on; each celebratory space mirroring its bodily function. All on the way to a wonderfully scatological finale…
As I said this is not a comic about story, it’s one about simply immersing yourself in the weirdness and irreverence of the page. And when I say the page I mean it. While I reviewed There’s a Party in My Body (and You’re All Invited) from a PDF advance copy the printed version opens out as one long concertina image, allowing us to read downwards in one fell swoop, entering the party via the mouth and exiting it at the bottom of the page via the… well… exit. On the way Mereida takes us on a fluidly illustrated trip, body parts doubling up as panels and a sense of the dizzyingly organic permeating every sequence. The party flyer at the very end of the comic proves an especially neat touch.
Much of Mereida’s work to date has been a steady stream of short-form comics, although she was deservedly shortlisted for the First Graphic Novel Competition last year for Zayani Zam. She remains one of the most exciting UK talents not to have an announced publishing deal, however. Publishers at Thought Bubble should be queueing up at her table to check out her work.
Mereida Fajardo (W/A) • Self-published, £8.00
Visit Mereida’s website and online store here.
Review by Andy Oliver
Mereida Fajardo will be at Table in the Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2024 runs from November 11th-17th with the convention weekend taking place on the 16th-17th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2024 coverage so far in one place here.
Art by Rocío Arreola Mendoza
