Books

A A A Comments By Ed Park Tuesday, Jul 19 2005

John Porcellino's Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man is the comics equivalent of Nabokov's Butterflies—an idiosyncratic collection of every Porcellino story dealing even tangentially with the titular insects (culled from the 15-year run of his delicate, autobiographical King-Cat zine), rounded out by three superb new offerings.

Bugging out: Porcellino remembers.

Details

Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man
By John Porcellino
La Mano, 110 pp., $12

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John Porcellino

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Call it this summer's buzz book. In his twenties, Porcellino worked mosquito abatement—tramping through marshes, ladling out larvicidal Bti (his boss claims that it "would be totally harmless for a human to eat"). He also drove a spraying truck for long shifts, at a maximum speed of 12 miles per hour. Life in the slow lane perfectly describes this artist's m.o.—in a typical King-Cat story, patient observation shades into epiphany or hallucination. In the hypnotic "Chemical Plant/Another World," our hero drives his spray truck into a bizarre, hermetic machine-city, through "weird streets with names like 'Technology' ?"; a jungle of pipes and steam surrounds him as reality slips away.

Porcellino often provides dates of occurrence and composition, and the gap is beguiling; in its modest way, this Diary becomes a meditation on memory and creation. (See the hilarious, untitled series of blank panels, sparked by a pencil from a Holiday Inn and written while drunk.) Another pleasure is watching his style and sensibility evolve, from early Panter-esque scratchings and an aggro persona to a perfectly controlled minimalist line and eventual empathy for all living things. This final sentiment might seem corny if "The Owl" weren't so haunting—the bird glides above his truck "like a ghost," weirdly beautiful. Only later does he realize it's dying from the poison, and he puts his career to rest.

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