We’ve all been there — the end of the road. The last stop on the train ride. The bottom of the barrel. How we pick ourselves up again and move forward — that’s up to each of us, I guess. If we even manage to do it at all.

For some folks, however, there’s no way out. What once looked like rock bottom becomes their new reality. Changing things is either impossible, or no longer an attractive option. I humbly submit that, based on the characters whose existences he delineates in his recently-published Domino Books collection The Social Discipline Reader, that cartoonist Ian Sundahl knows these people, and their circumstances, very well indeed.

Which isn’t to say that Sundahl’s work wallows in, or in any way even exploits, the misery or hardships or unfortunate situations of others. Quite the contrary, in fact : he not only respects the motel…