Pier Dola’s debut graphic novel From Granada To Cordoba (Fantagraphics Underground, 2021) is just such a work, it’s true, but it’s also something more than “merely” that : it’s a book so visceral, so unforgiving, so unrelenting that even descriptions or synopses of it aren’t for the faint of heart. It’s an absolute fucking gut-punch of a comic, in other words, and even though it’s also hysterically funny, the humor in no way alleviates the psychological pressure that literally bears down on you from first page to last.

The publisher’s back cover blurb promises “near-psychotic episodes, including what may be the most horrifyingly surreal Freudian nightmare ever penned by a cartoonist,” and damn if that’s not a case of absolute truth in advertising, but Dola’s incisive wit, inventive page layouts, admirable skills as an artist (in particular as a caricaturist — be on the lookout for a doctor who’s a dead ringer for Eddie Murphy among other celebrity-doppleganger “cameos”), and blithe, almost nonchalant approach to grappling with the existential abyss make taking this journey, well, if not exactly pleasurable, at least perversely enjoyable. Just be aware that the best place to store your gag reflex while reading this is probably in a strong box with an impenetrable lock, because if it even sneaks its way back into you, then you’re screwed.

This isn’t just confrontational material, then, it’s downright combustible — but that doesn’t preclude it from being both scathingly honest and, in its own way, absolutely accurate. As to what it’s it’s right about, well, that depends on your point of view, but if you take “life’s a bitch and then you die” not as an end-all/be-all cliche but as a starting point to understanding the full scope of reality’s unbending arc, then you’re ready for where Dola is out to take you. According to his bio he’s led the sort of life that would lend itself rather well to explorations of the sort he’s engaging in here, too — born in Poland, his father was purportedly a globe-trotting oil tanker worker who’d bring his son comics from South America, comics which indelibly stained/informed his outlook as he grew to adulthood and made his way through the seedy underbelly of Italy, living as a squatter until he got married and had a kid. Currently, he’s 56 years old, is employed as a dishwasher, and this is his first-ever published work — but how much of this is true, how much is pure bullshit, and how much falls somewhere in between I really couldn’t say. I almost find myself hoping it’s an entirely fraudulent piece of self-created legend, but what I want doesn’t really matter. Nor, for that matter, does the veracity of Dola’s backstory itself. What matters is that it makes for a fitting postscript to a book that sure seems like it could be the product of the imagination of someone whose existence has been a decidedly tumultuous one.

I say that because, really, tumult and turmoil is the order of business here, and the sheer amount of nonsense Dola’s protagonist has to contend with flies directly in the face of his “all of this was a bore, all of it was for nothing, so I might as well get my rocks off on my way out” attitude — or does it? Consider, perhaps, that Dola could actually be advancing an argument that life is an obstacle course that dares you to keep your sanity intact — a phantasmagorical whirlwind of misadventure, psychodrama, unknowable terror, and stifled, stilted attempts at achieving something forever out of reach. That it’s not so much a pointless slog, but a prolonged cosmic conspiracy to prevent you, personally, from realizing any sort of genuine satisfaction. If so, then that’s something well beyond garden-variety misanthropy, and probably more akin to the farthest fringes of nihilistic philosophy. I mean, it’s one thing to posit that life is meaningless and other people suck, quite another to posit that both life itself and the other people leading it are out to cut your nuts off at every turn.

Now, taking things a step further, if we accept — even just momentarily, or for the sake of argument — that this worldview is accurate, then the next logical (and decidedly uncomfortable) question is : what is death? Dola’s answer would appear to be that it is not just the end of life, not just “the peace of the grave,” but that it is actually life’s one and only act of mercy. I mean, I don’t want to give away too much about the final few pages here, but they are both absolutely beautiful and a succinct, non-lyrical appraisal of nature’s endless cycle of creation and destruction. It’s an entirely fitting capstone to a journey equal parts harrowing and hilarious in that it’s oddly melancholic while also being entirely unromantic in its realism, but shit — we’re so far beyond quaint concepts like good and evil, right and wrong at this point that the only way to judge it is in terms of its efficacy alone, and in that respect, it’s not only a fitting conclusion, it’s the only one there could possibly be.

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From Granada To Cordoba is available for $40.00 directly from Fantagraphics at https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/from-granada-to-cordoba?_pos=1&_psq=from&_ss=e&_v=1.0

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