This week, Fantagraphics and comiXology are thankful to release Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars for your digital reading devices. This collection of graphic short stories, noir-ish narratives that are united by their exploration of the great American mythological drama by way of the desperate and haunted characters that populate its pages. Lane’s characters exist on the margins of society—alienated, floating in the void between hope and despair, confused but introspective. Some of them are experiencing the aftermath of an existential car crash—those surreal moments after a car accident, when time slows down and you’re trying to determine what just happened and how badly you’re hurt. Others have gone off the deep end, or were never anywhere but the deep end. Some are ridiculous, others dignified in their efforts to struggle to make sense of, and cope with, the absurdities, outrages, ghosts, and poisons in their lives.
You'll be thankful for your crowded family American holiday dinners or for the empty streets as you enjoy the week alone. Either way, this 160 pages of execllent comics from Tim Lane are available to read on the bus, train, plane or car for a mere $16.99 at comiXology.
“[Tim Lane] makes illustrations in that Brill Cream-soaked, hard-boiled, noir style with heavy hatching circa R. Crumb.” – Juxtapoz
"It’s vaudevillian and it’s Old Hollywood. It’s rock n’ roll and beat poetry. It’s introspective and depressing and quite often funny, and depicts a world that exists on the fringes of society where the American Dream meets the cold, harsh reality of life as viewed through a grimy windshield." – Chad Derdowski, Mania
“Tim Lane’s stories resonate with a dramatic intensity and emotional life that’s genuinely rare in comics today. Heartache, hope, loss and redemption — all in their naked glory on every page. And his drawing is phenomenal!” – Glenn Head