DiSCONNECT. By Magnus Merklin. Black Panel Press. 160 pp. 2025. $11.99 – $29.99.
This is what a fresh and heart-felt comic looks like. Magnus Merklin achieves a very fluid and spontaneous style that keeps this story of loss and perseverance moving at a steady pace. This is a story about two friends who find a way to rebuild after losing the leader of their band, DiSCONNECT. The two guys find an unfinished song by their departed friend and the two decide to work together to complete it.
Page from DiSCONNECT.
One of the great, perhaps the greatest, traits of a successful work of comics is to make it look smooth and easy and that is precisely what is happening here. Merklin is having fun and so is the reader. The pace is easygoing, in keeping with these cool bohemian characters. You always make time for a smoke and some beer, right? And so the style of the comic, if it’s going to be something authentic and engaging, is going to make time for that smoke and some beer.
Of course, these two guys are still in mourning and working their way out of it. Merklin finds a way for these two musicians to be true to themselves, with emapthy and a mix of the gritty and whimsical.
“You still listen to music, right?”
It can all begin with a little nudge to make something positive out of a tragedy. If these guys are going to find their way back, they’re going to need to put their heads together. One friend dares the other to help him. Once the other friend accepts the challenge, then it’s his turn to keep his friend, who dared him in the first place, to remain upbeat and motivated.
Youth has the resilience to bounce back but it can always use some wise support along the way. Merklin gets that. He taps into the heart and soul of the often tough world of musicians, a world full of promises, one step forward and then one step back, and ultimately delivers a story full of energy, love and hope. Nicely done.
