Bottle Caps and Bread Crumbs

Bottle Caps and Bread Crumbs by Travis Head
8.5" x 11"
32 pages saddle stitched comic

My review from Comics Blogger #12:
The title suggests a collection of scattered works put together to fill out enough pages for a comic book, but the consistency of tone (even as Head plays around with varying styles) allows these autobio comics to coalesce into something of a piece. There’s snippets and moments largely revolving around high school, later art school, and post grad life. Romantic relationships, family, varying locales and alcoholism make up the bulk of the subject matter.

The standout story in the collection is about the author getting the shit kicked out of him in a high school bathroom and the scattered, fragmented aftermath of that traumatic event. This is where the real high of the mostly muted tone in the comic lies. The stylized violence of the encounter is riveting and raw. Head’s approach to comics is heavily graphic design inspired without feeling antiseptic. He cycles through soft graphite rendering, an affected flat cartoony look, and stylish high contrast black and white. The disparate approaches (some more successful than others) all work, though, and combined with the span of time that stories occur over help create a well rounded picture.