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OGNER STUMP'S ONE THOUSAND SORROWS
($9.00 + $2.00 post. from Wonderella Printed / 1204 Neilson St. / Berkeley, CA / 94706 USA or
www.wonderella.com)
First of all, I must complain in the strongest possible terms that, while the cover proclaims "One Thousand Sorrows", this book contains only a mere
25. I feel cheated to the tune of 975 sorrows, which is quite a number, my friends.
Ah, well, truth to tell, the 25 sorrows are packed with all of the dreamlike melancholy I could take in one sitting. But seriously, folks.
Andrew Goldfarb's Ogner Stump lives in a world where reality seems to have gone horribly awry yet many of his sorrows are based on life as we know it. Some of the obstacles he faces: a businessman, disease, unemployment, employment, the written word and the mysteries of life. I assure you, however, that our Mr. Stump faces these obstacles in ways that you or I never have. These sorrows, which range from a single panel to eight pages, are often surreal and unwavering in their oddness. Frankly, if you're not familiar with Goldfarb's work I'm not quite sure how to explain it. The reading experience is something akin to much of Jim Woodring's work, only slightly (
slightly) more straightforward. And the artwork itself might be described as a cross between Aleksandar Zograf and Richard Sala with, perhaps, a dash of Edward Gorey – if you can imagine such a thing.
I should note that Ogner Stump's sorrows only fill a little over half of this book's 150 pages. The remainder is comprised of miscellaneous short pieces and "Mumbletoes", which appears to be an unpublished children's book. I enjoyed the second half of the book at least as much as – if not more than – the first.
The production on this volume is good – glossy paper stock, several color pages and nicely-designed. If you normally buy books at
Amazon, you can find this one there, too.
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