Folly
The Consequences of Indiscretion
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Lovers of art comics will know Hans Rickheit from his smashing graphic novel The Squirrel Machine (2008), but Rickheit has, for over a decade, been producing his own self-published comics -- reaching into the deepest cupboards of the back-mind and culling these strange artifacts. He has been a basement- dweller, gallery troll, and a purveyor of forbidden notions. Originally distributed into the world as Xeroxed pamphlets, these "underground comix" reflect the true nature of its nomenclature: Here are the archeological findings of the subterranean ruins of the psyche. Finally, these scattered elements have been compiled into a compact, lushly illustrated bedside reader. Give your cerebellum a tug and become a spelunker of the subconscious as we trespass among the scorched archaic wastelands of the offspring of apes and fools. Here we find the profane, beautiful progeny of prurient ideals. Immerse yourself in the nocturnal meanderings of unnamed protagonists. Ponder the uncomfortable sexuality of the twins, Cochlea & Eustachia. Recoil at the doings of a dwarfish malefactor in Hail Jeffrey, or simply stare at the pretty pictures. Suffice to say that readers of The Squirrel Machine will not be disappointed. The author instructs you not misuse this tome. Poke it gently with a long stick, if you must. Careful, it might ruin the carpet. Placate it with a belly-rub or sweet pastry before it attacks the children. Don't worry, your tongue won't stick. If it fits, don't shove it in too quickly. Keep it as your own cherished object; a shameful, guarded secret. The filter for reality's blinding glare. Detritus of the Under-Brain. The Unspeakable Thing You Always Knew. FOLLY: The Consequences Of Indiscretion. By one of the most inscrutable and discomforting cartoonists alive.
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Reviews
"Applying draftsmanship resembling Rick Geary's in the Treasury of Victorian Murder series to a plot often as confounding as the dream transcriptions of Rick Veitch's Rare Bit Fiends, Rickheit tells the late nineteenth-century story of brothers Edmund and William Torpor, aging recluses in the denouement framing a long central flashback to their boyhood and adolescence.... Very dreamlike, rather Hieronymus Boschian, only wryly Freudian--a disquieting, disgusting, entrancing reading experience."
"Rickheit's artwork is stunning, from the beautifully disgusting instruments to the ornate architecture. It's like steampunk crossed with the animal-appropriating art of Damien Hirst or Ebony Andrews, with complicated machines adorned with the heads and torsos of unfortunate livestock."
"Between the heavy cross hatching and almost wood-carved appearance of Rickheit's art and his fixation on the degraded physical form, Folly often looks like a Jan Svankmajer film or Tool video adapted by Geof Darrow or Jim Woodring.... Folly is a gorgeous but uncomfortable collection best enjoyed a few pages at a time."
"[Folly] is a deranged cabinet of curiosities, full of biomechanical tanks, writhing organic matter, amorphous monsters birthing adorable kittens... and pseudo-Victorian apocalyptic landscapes. It would all be too oppressive if Rickheit's sense of humor weren't so addictive....dry humor undercuts the richly drawn horror of Folly... The result is a narrative mosaic that pairs sumptuous, horrific imagery against a strange but lighthearted sense of humor."
"Folly... serve[s] as a good introduction to Rickheit's beautifully ugly visions, of a world where cute girls and humanoid stuffed animals commit atrocities against oozing flesh. ...Rickheit excels in making nightmares lucid.... The single-mindedness of Rickheit's approach -- and the level of detail he applies to it -- is impressively horrifying."
"This is a world of pure imagination, of subconscious desires let loose with an acutely detailed drawing style. And ultimately, it's a perfect work for those who refuse to float away from their bodies but are ready to let their heads go wherever one can find the new."
"I mean this in the nicest possible way but self-confessed obscurist Hans Rickheit is clearly not all there in the head.... Definitely the type of read to make you wary of opening doors. . . as Hans frequently surprises his characters, and us readers, by taking you somewhere you'd never expect, nor probably want to go to."
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