In the days after September 11th, with the ruins of his job, relationship, and city crumbling around him, cartoonist and roustabout K. Thor Jensen packed a backpack, bought a bus pass and took to the open road. His 60-day, 10,000-mile journey is chronicled in this ragtag romance. Red Eye, Black Eye is a fractured portrait of 21st century American life.

Jensen, a New Yorker, went through a lot in the span of a few short days: the turmoil of 9/11, losing his apartment, getting dumped by his girlfriend, and getting fired from his job. Instead of falling into a depression, he saw an opportunity. Dubbing himself a professional hobo, he bought an Ameripass and journeyed from New York City to Seattle and back, making stops in just about every major city along the way. He used the Internet to find people to stay with, and he retells the stories of the Gen X slackers who hosted him. Jensen shies away from idealizing anything or anyone, but gives odd anecdotes about those he met. Jensen went through plenty of adventures of his own as he discovered the local color of each city.  Jensen finds "the common man" of today—an America of decent enough Gen-X and Gen-Y slackers. This graphic novel is mostly their little oddball stories—a woman whose co-worker wears her aborted fetus as a necklace; a childhood quest for Bigfoot that turns up a bum; a sloppy roommate from hell. Jensen's own quest is mostly a litany of uncomfortable bus rides and the constant need for a shower. His journey is portrayed as surprisingly mundane except for a surreal stop in a Southern town whose residents amuse themselves by pulling flaming sofas behind trucks. Jensen resists all attempts at sentimentality; similarly, the rough, blocky art makes no pretense at beauty for its own sake, but gets across these sympathetic, quirky tales with brisk efficiency.

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Alternative Comics

"The realities of my situation are catching up to me a little," says the author's character mid-way through the book. "No money, no home, no job, no future... In all the books, you travel and you have these grand epiphanies about your life and your place in the world... but none seem to be forthcoming."

Shortly after 9/11, Thor Jensen's prospects in New York dried up. What does he do? He buys a Greyhound Ameripass (the one which allows a passenger unlimited travel for x number of days) and travels from sea to shining sea (and back again) with a few bucks in his bank account and whatever he could cram into a backpack.

And, similarly to Kerouac's On The Road (written shortly after World War II), Red Eye, Black Eye is a veritable celebration of the underbelly of America from one who has been there. There are no "grand epiphanies" along the way, either. No, this is a real-life travelogue situation, with no solid plans or manufactured excitement along the way. It truly is a book about a guy on a Greyhound Bus for two months.

Yet, anyone who has traveled across this country by bus can tell you - it just ain't as simple as it sounds. There are thousands of people riding the buses each day, and travelers will have to interact with some of them in some manner whether they want to or not. And, at each stop-over point, there are peculiarities unique to the location and the "culture" as well. Mr. Jensen hits as much of this as he's able.

But this isn't just a book about the adventures of Thor Jensen - not by a long shot! Though told from his perspective, Mr. Jensen grants his creative talents to retelling some of the everyday stories recanted to him by folks who are putting him up for the night - folks he doesn't really know all that well and are therefore fascinating in their own right. We hear twisted dating stories, freaky co-workers, random bizarre encounters with the lunatic fringe, and several other memorable tales from the people along the way. In this sense, Red Eye, Black Eye could even be considered a modern man's version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. ...Almost.

While there's plenty of mild "debauchery" and "melodrama" to go around in Red Eye (Thor purchases Percocet across the Mexican border in one sequence, and calls his landlady to coerce the money she owes him in others), Mr. Jensen relates the experiences of others in a more cohesive manner. The reader understands that the particular story being retold is the author's version thereof. No need to worry, though. Mr. Jensen's story-telling abilities are top notch, and he manages to bestow a plethora of different people's lives without making any of them feel shoe-horned into place, or sapping the individuality out of them. And instead of fluid language and poetry, we are graced with Mr. Jensen's particular style of art.

This sort of traveling experience - the life of a hobo - is clearly not for everybody. Mr. Jensen captures it, making the moment real so that others may live it vicariously for a time. There truly is no stronger reason to pick up Red Eye than that!

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