Last week we announced two new books coming from Fieldmouse Press; FRENCH GIRL from Jesse Lee Kercheval, and HOT HOUSE from John Hankiewicz. I’m delighted to share an excerpt of HOT HOUSE with you today, and I’d invite you to check out our preorder campaign to help make the book. We need to raise $7500 to make these two books, and we’re well on our way, but the sooner we raise the money, the sooner we can get everything to print.

A little about John Hankiewicz for folks who haven’t read much of his work; John came up with many of the same influences as Dan Clowes and Los Bros Hernandez and is about 15 years their junior. He’s a cartoonist who came up in alternative comics with a group of stunningly talented cartoonists, including Anders Nilsen, Kevin Huizenga, Dylan Williams, and Paul Hornschemeier. Debuting in the late 90s, early 00s, John’s work has avoided the commercial appeal of other folks in his generation because of its idiosyncratic nature. He’s one of the true progenitors of comics-as-poetry. John’s work doesn’t easily fit into a box, but it does make readers think, and I love this comic because John turns that predilection for enigma and nonlinear storytelling up to 11 in HOT HOUSE. It’s a book that rewards repeated reads, and we hope that it will find a home amongst your collection this fall.

An unnamed man and woman live in a house together but rarely interact. Each of them attends to mundane tasks such as laundry and sweeping. Then time, space, and reality all warp around them in unexpected ways as they confront past selves, suffocating dust storms, and an environment that’s as claustrophobic as it is familiar.

This is Hot House, by John Hankiewicz, one of the innovators of comics-as-poetry. With his brilliant minicomics series Tepid, his brilliant collection Asthma, and his first full-length story Education, Hankiewicz has established himself as a fearlessly bold master of enigmatic but deeply emotional symbology, a poetic language predicated on visual rhythms, and a master illustrator and cartoonist.  Hot House represents the latest in a series of cutting-edge, challenging, and deeply rewarding poetic narratives.