What begins as the simple story of a New York City subway encounter slowly unravels into something much more complex - and troubling. Like much of Matt Madden's work in recent years, Drawn Onward is built around one of the many formal storytelling structures outlined in his 2005 book, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style.
Here the theme is palindrome, borrowed from the works of Bach, in which forward and backward readings present different takes on the same story. Told alternating clean and rough-lined pages, Madden encourages the reader to experience the book both ways, further clouding the sense of madness bestowed upon a narrator of questionable reliability.
The 32-page book is available through Retrofit Comics as a standalone purchase or as part of the publisher's 2015 comic subscription service. Check out an exclusive five-page preview of Drawn Onward below.
