4 out of 5

By boiling their respective (though I’d have to say similar) styles down to a bare minimum, Charles Forsman and Max de Radiguès deliver an affecting contemplation on childhood, parenting, and the expectations on both sides of that equation, all within a nearly perfectly paced 60ish pages.

Forsman and Radiguès already have some visual ties between their works.  Forsman, in his more violent stuff, can favor a flatter and rough line, but in his works more similar in tone to Hobo Mom (those without a real action component), he leans toward a more cartoonish, almost Sunday newspaper look; Radiguès, in Bastard, draws exactly like a blend of European comics and American indies; whatever the level of their collaborations within the pages of Hobo Mom, the combo is seamless, and could be passed as a work belonging wholly to either artist.  The mash-up has also seemed to encourage good habits and downplay indulgences: there’s a very purposeful narrative drive to the story and the majority of the chosen visuals, and it’s bereft of any ‘explanations,’ whether through dialogue or flashback, which allows us (to the tale’s betterment) to apply our own thoughts and feelings to the book.

Which does focus on what it says: single father Tom and daughter, Sissy, who are visited by a rail hopping stranger – Tasha – whom we know to be Sissy’s mom.  The girl is kept in the dark, though, seeing Tasha as a friend, and an unknowingly needed female confidant, while Tom looks on and tries not to see this as a reunification…

Forsman has a tendency to include a lot of downbeats in his panels, and while that’s at play here, the story’s relatively short length makes those moments very much worth it, milking the silence for all the words left unsaid.  A continued use of a single, juxtaposing inset panel on splash pages is employed for tone, comparing internal thought to a visual, and there’s a brilliant 1-2 scene of Tasha, Tom, and Sissy acting as an ideal family, and then a page later, the same pose as a ‘normal’ family.  And none of this is overdone: each page feels like a considered moment in what we’re witnessing of this relationship cycle; father, daughter and mother are all very clearly human, and it’s likely we can spot aspects of our personalities in each…

Something else that’s present in both artists’ works is a frankness with sexuality, and that occurs in three moments in Hobo Mom – one imagined; one consensual, one not.  While this stuff has generally fit the mood of those other works, it didn’t quite sit right here.  The imagined sequence made sense, but I think that’s one part that would’ve needed a bit more room to explore effectively; the consensual scene felt abrupt, and though I can think of reasons for its inclusion, I still can’t say it added anything to the involved characters.  The non-consensual scene really sticks out.  It’s during Tasha’s time on the train, and is likely there to compare rail life to home life, but, as with the aforementioned scene, I’m not sure I can say it really added anything, and if my supposed intention is accurate, there were, again, better ways to achieve that.

These are blips, for sure, and just as brief in execution as the rest of the story.  They absolutely do not get in the way of the story’s main thrust and impact, which will linger after you flip past the final page.