And so the first (arguably) “major” release of 2019 in the “alternative” comics world is upon us — never mind that Charles Forsman and Max de Radigues’ Hobo Mom is actually about five years old and is just now being released in an English-language version, publisher Fantagraphics Books is understandably, given the pedigree of its creators (Forsman’s notable critical and commercial successes including The End Of The Fucking World and I Am Not Okay With This, while de Radigues, who hails from Belgium, is probably best known on this side of the pond for Bastard), giving it the “For Your Consideration” full-court press, but hold on just a second : its physical dimensions alone clearly mark this as something of an “also-ran” project, seeing as it clocks in at a mere 62 pages, and a significant chunk of those are wordless.

How much storytelling is really going on…