Writer / Penciller / Letterer: Joe Stone / A5 / 28 pages / B&W
9th November 2023 (Released 14th November 2023)
Review by Paul Dunne
The Pitch: A deeply personal autobiographical story about suffering through a mental health crisis, and a tribute to the cat who helped me regain my balance.
Autobiographical comics are strange. You're peeking behind the curtain into someone's life – with their consent of course – and privy to their thoughts and more importantly their feelings. Understandably, you're going to see things that may affect you in ways you're not prepared for. Such was the case with Joe Stone's Five Months On Earth, which makes its debut at this year's Thought Bubble Comics Festival. Joe has always been an interesting creator, choosing the self-published route and maintaining a strong sense of artistic freedom in his work. He has dipped into his own life before with 'Stutter', his 2018 book. He's not afraid to talk about the things that get to him. And with works like 'Neurotic Fiction' and 'Like Tweet Match Repeat', he's proven he can tackle the things that get to you, too.
With Five Months... he once more dips into his own life and experience. And it's a brave, heart-rending book, which discusses big emotions even whilst being a small-scale work. It shows how even the smallest changes in your life can make a difference. In that respect, it's an inspirational piece of art. Joe begins in 2018, when he tells us, quite simply, that he wasn't feeling himself. From there, we're in Joe's life as he goes through depression and makes the decision to get professional help, first with courses of CBT, then with anti-depressants. Joe charts this journey honestly and in a matter-of-fact style. It's this style that carries the book through, regardless of the emotional content of Joe's life. He tells you what happened to him. You have to decide your level of emotional involvement.
For me, that involvement was total. I suffer from depression myself, so felt empathy with Joe. As part of his route back to a place of well-being, Joe eventually decides to get a kitten. And here, the book opens up as Joe finds his life, and the life of people around him, improving as he focuses on the new arrival that he charmingly dubs 'Earthling'. And from there... I can't reveal any more. At 28 pages, giving away the book's final stages would be a crime against comics.
Joe's style is sparse, almost unfinished. He sketches himself almost in a partial way, perhaps as a comment on the fact that we are all works in progress, never complete. I'd be interested to see if this style changes in the next few years. He expresses the feelings he's going through artistically, seemingly effortlessly. But when you get to writing, you can see that of course, there is effort. There is truth. There is bravery. But Joe tells his story in a way that involves you without manipulation. There's no plot mechanics at work. These are facts and you decide how you feel about them. This was a book that spoke to me in a way other comics couldn't. By the end, I felt devastated and renewed. I feel a little guilty that Joe had to go through the things he did so I could feel the things this book made me feel. But I bet I’m not going to be the only one this connects with. And I hope he knows that it meant something to me. Thank you, Joe.
Joe will have copies of Five Months on Earth available at Thought Bubble this weekend. If you can't make it, you can pre-order the book here in either print or digital formats. You can also purchase earlier works Stutter, Like Tweet Match Repeat, and Neurotic Fiction from his website.
