A review by zillanovikov
The Pink and the Blue by I. Merey

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Merey's books lodge themselves in my heart, take up residence somewhere near the left auricle, leave me breathless and internally bleeding. His books are raw and visceral and they hurt like memory.

The characters in The Pink and the Blue are drawn in their truest sense, sometimes so transparent that you can see the city through their outlines, sometimes melting off the page, sometimes with limbs scattered around the bedroom. It's body horror, but the horror is that it reflects a reality that we fail to observe when we look at a person in meatspace and think they are whole, think they are okay. As always, art is truer than life, because art is not bound by physics or convention.

I got this book in physical form because I needed to touch it. It's hard to explain why. It's digital art, and there's a note that the colours are brighter in the pdf version. But I need to touch the pages, to run my fingertips over the smooth paper of textured pixels and images of cut outs. I needed the book to be as real in my hands as it is in my heart.