A review by ponycanyon
Skyscrapers of the Midwest by Joshua W. Cotter

3.0

Cotter's Skyscrapers is not without its charms; it's a nice stew of cute, sad, and surreal, with robot hobos, robot kitten angels, and all protagonists rendered in a stylized, Fritzlike cat-people manner. Cotter's style is scratchy and moody in a way that casts a funky, nostalgic melancholy over his stories of the epic tragedy that is childhood. Unfortunately, however, this often tips over into unchecked miserablism ultimately feels showy and unearned; in spite of its chunky girth, the entire book feels like one sadistic "remember when adolescence made you want to die?" setpiece after another. Like Chris Ware, Cotter often incorporates fake advertisements, other comics, and letters pages, but as Cotter isn't even a tiny fraction of the draftsman and designer that Ware is, leading these elements to play most often like cheap and hollow gags. On the other hand, one of my favorite things about Skyscrapers is that there's not a redundant inch in the entire book, and even single lines in the "letters page" or fine print of advertisements will be referenced and recalled later on.