Extremities (Writers & Readers Documentary Comic) - Tapa dura

Frequently Koja's people are betrayed by their own imaginations -- artists controlled by their muses, women dominated by their fantasy lovers, ordinary Joes bewitched by subversive inner voices and inexplicably endowed with unwanted powers. In "Disquieting Muse, " an art therapist is unwillingly drawn to a blank young woman's sexually explicit drawings. His well-ordered life becomes disrupted by these vibrant, disturbing pictures until they metastisize and consume him. "Angels in Love" starts out with straightforward jealousy and curiosity about the sexual adventures of the girl next door before careening into the lethal sadism of a fallen deity. "Bird Superior" describes a plane crash survivor who quite literally takes flight, and in "The Neglected Garden" a woman determined not to leave her lover takes root in the backyard, only to amass all the strength of Mother Earth in wreaking havoc upon him.

Koja's world is a haunting pathological terrain. the stories are layered, nuanced paintings of peculiarity that crescendo in devastatingimages. Koja is our Edgar Allan Poe for the 21st century.