☀️ REEL POLITIK | comics review 💬

When you’re a young artist, with more ideals than money, your day job a prime indicator (barista, bookseller, movie usher), you know what you’re in for: your life is full of like-minded souls; and, heck, maybe you’ll get caught up in some clumsy attempts at overthrowing capitalism. That’s the vibe to Reel Politik, the hilarious comic strip by Nathan Gelgud, about a ragtag group of employees hanging on by their fingernails at a local indie movie theater. You can catch up with the latest post on Gelgud’s Instagram and you can enjoy a new collection published by Drawn & Quarterly.

Gelgud’s comics about movies, and the arts in general, appear in The New York Times, The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. This new book of his Reel Politik comic strip gives you a handy and fun way to jump right into it all. You’re getting a special view of the whole moviegoer scene from someone who’s tracked it from various vantage points: projectionist, video store clerk, movie critic and, of course, as a cartoonist.

When you’re young, just starting out, you’ve got a whole plethora of defense mechanisms. The go-to shield for all manner of artists, from poseurs to die-hard bohemians, is to take on the role of an expert. Sometimes this works out really well, especially if you’ve actually read the book or viewed the movie you’re pontificating about–or maybe you’ve at least listened to a podcast on the subject at hand? Ah, standards have plummeted under the guise of being mired in privilege. Anyway, Gelgud provides delicious portraits of various cinema/activist purists among his characters such as Sandra, who believes a pure cinema experience includes going to a movie theater without knowing what film you’re about to view. This is not just a quirky philosophy for her but something she imposes upon her innocent customers.

A really good comic strip takes on a life of its own and is open to various interpretations. Gelgud, in the tradition of great cartoonists, is a keen social observer, ready to poke fun at the culture-at-large and its critics. A case in point is well into the narrative, once the movie employees have taken over and freed cinema of its capitalist shackles. Sandra is rejoicing over how cinema is now free and For The People. No one is enslaved to the strictures of the past–the hierarchy imposed by the Criterion Collection. Someone points out a man who has been put in a cage. Sandra shrugs and admits some people are less equal than others. The man in the cage is serving time for having scratched a copy of a beloved classic film! We’ve been brainwashed by a consumer culture but we’ve also been brainwashed by a slogan-heavy activist class.

Well, the politics in Reel Politik never gets too heavy. If you can’t take a joke, then maybe you’re part of the problem, no? Overall, this is a comic strip full of whimsical humor, biting satire and guided by a true love for a couple of often misunderstood art forms: cinema and comics!