Radiator Comics

Description

Kenan Rubenstein’s minicomic, Falling for Beginners collects two new short comics, “In Case of Accident, Wear Sensible Pants,” and “Stone’s Throw.”

In the first comic, Kenan’s fiancée, Cate Hall tells us all about the time in college when she broke her tailbone in a bike accident, only to fall on it again while it was healing. Though Cate’s injuries are the subject of the story, the comic revolves around perception of the situation. We witness most events twice, the bike accident is seen through the eyes of a tumbling Cate, and through the eyes of Leah, the woman in the car. Her second fall is witnessed by a small child who can’t understand why Cate is cursing up a storm. If only he knew.

Even getting dressed in the hospital is seen from different perspectives: for Cate it’s a painful struggle, but the nurse doesn’t understand why she has to wear such skinny jeans -as if Cate knew she’d break her tailbone, and planned out her wardrobe poorly. This comic is drawn in subtle ink-washes that evoke the unending frozen winters of the Midwest in which the story takes place.

The second comic, drawn in stark black and white to great effect, is a short poem that captures the simultaneous significance and insignificance of existential crises. Two friends sit on a dock, ruminating on the potentiality of a million different realities, as the one they sit in continues to slip by.