Apr 2025
Slaughterhouse 9-5!
by Deniz Camp, Eric Zawadski, Jordie Bellaire, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
32 pages
Jesús arrived in the United States by swimming across the border, when he was young, with his parents. He grew up and eventually followed in his father’s footsteps and worked in a slaughterhouse because without the proper documentation he couldn’t get any other job.
He is very good at his job but he seems to sleepwalk through his days. He gets married. He and his wife have a daughter. His supervisor sends him to see the staff psychologist. She asks him lots of questions but in the end she thinks it is safe to send him back to work.
This story is told in a very choppy manner, and to be fair the previous story also felt choppy. Jesús’ story seems very real. There are portions that connect it to the Crisis but on the whole it feels as though it could have been told without the context of the Crisis. The context of the crisis heightens the intensity of some of the scenes.
Some of the dialogue is in Spanish. I was able to understand stand some but not all of it.
There is one character who also appeared in the first issue. He's a short man who is carrying a sign. I see him, at least for now, as the Pariah of this series. He hasn't played a big part in either of the first two stories but he was there. I expect to see him in the next story.
The fact that the main character seems to be frequently traumatized made it harder at times to understand where the story was going or what it was about.
I want to like this installment more than I do. One way to look at it is that Jesús has experienced some serious trauma in his life. The Crisis has just added to the trauma he continues to experience. It's a much more intense and much more chaotic story than the one in the previous issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment