Crashpad #[nn]

Gary Panter's Crashpad: The Unfurling Lotus arrives from Fantagraphics in 2021 as a vivid plunge into the artist's singular underground sensibility, rendered entirely in a striking orange-and-gold palette. The cover scene is densely alive: a group of anthropomorphic cat-like figures lounge in a lived-in interior, gathered around a spool table with a candle, while a colossal disembodied eyeball — trailing tentacle-like strands — dominates the star-filled window behind them, a disco ball hanging to one side and a vintage television glowing on the other. Panter's scratchy, assured linework makes the whole tableau feel simultaneously cozy and cosmically unhinged, and at $39.99 this is a substantial, beautifully produced package from one of alternative comics' most distinctive voices.