Careful you don’t fall off the edge of your seat when reading Noah Van Sciver’s Constant Companion! Contained within are short, scratchy diary strips of everyday mundanity and quiet sketches of ordinary people and objects. I feel tense all over again just recalling the comic where Noah had a nap, woke up and did some drawing!
I do like my slice-of-life comics and Constant Companion serves up just that to nom on. Some of the diary strips are amusing – the annoying baby boomer who talks to Noah at a con and juggling his surprisingly immense workload – some are instantly forgettable – travel problems and a whole bunch that I have actually forgotten! – with many being middle-of the-road stuff about Noah trying to get some and mostly failing!
I admire Noah’s honesty, not just because it’s brave to make yourself so vulnerable but there’s a healthy lack of ego to many of the strips. If you’re a Noah fan like me you’ll appreciate some of the behind-the-scenes stuff from books like Saint Cole, Fante Bukowski and the Johnny Appleseed book he illustrated, and I recognised some of his girlfriend’s sketches which were reused in One Dirty Tree.
I’m not a huge fan of sketchbooks though and this one would be a bust if not for the comics included. Like most of Noah Van Sciver’s books, Constant Companion will only appeal to fans of his, and even then this is more of a b-sides collection than one of his better efforts.
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