The End of the World
Year: 2013
Author: Don Hertzfeldt
Length: 224 pages
I was first introduced to the works of Don Hertzfeldt via his Oscar-nominated short film, Rejected. The bizarre humor immediately struck a chord with me but the simplistic animation style (with a 4th-wall-breaking ending) made this short a classic that I still quote to this day. Since then, I have still mostly kept up with the little animation projects Hertzfeldt has done over the years. As a graphic novel, The End of the World seems like a logical step for the animator, and it works, but only in a few spots.
Despite Rejected being mostly silly, his other works (which retain his signature stick-figure style) are silly but with a profound message that seems out-of-place coming from someone who animated a character screaming of the woes brought on by a bleeding anus. The End of the World has a lot of one-off jokes that don’t quite land, but the longer narrative bits have some poignancy to them. What’s truly interesting is that the best bits from this book eventually found their way into his second Oscar-nominated short, World of Tomorrow.
If you’re a fan of Hertzfeldt’s work, then by all means pick up this book to support the artist. Considering that World of Tomorrow is available on his YouTube channel, you’d probably be better off just watching that short than flipping through the pages of this book. Not that reading this book will take you that long, but that the animated version is more in line with Hertzfeldt’s other works. Then again, if you don’t understand Hertzfeldt’s type of humor, there’s no way that you’ll likely enjoy World of Tomorrow or this book.
At times both silly and profound, I give The End of the World 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
