By Zack Quaintance — I don’t keep a ranking or anything, but Heaven No Hell by Michael DeForge may be the comic or graphic novel that has made me laugh aloud the most this year. And that’s not an easy thing to do, especially not when also operating with Heaven No Hell’s high level of wit, poignancy, and depiction of how it feels to just live right now on this planet as a human today.

This isn’t a book trafficking in cheap fourth-wall breaks of instantly-dated pop culture references. No, this is a smart and moving work. It’s all in here — an excess of heart and thoughtfulness — between a rare sense of humor that made me laugh as much (if not more) than any work I’ve encountered of late in comics or any other medium.

In short, I really enjoyed DeForge’s new book Heaven No Hell quite a bit, and I’ll get into more of the specifics of why further down. First, the basics on this one: Heaven No Hell is a 228-page hardcover collection of short form DeForge cartooning.

The pieces that make up the book vary in length, subject matter, and even format (one story features pages with two panels each while another has some pages with two-dozen plus). In some story, the characters are recognizable humanoids, while in others they have more malleable forms, closer in nature to those in DeForge’s last book, Familiar Face (although body shape is never the entire point as much in this book as it was in the work that proceeded). Also as with Familiar Face, this book is published by Drawn and Quarterly.

It is perhaps also a viable coffee table book, one that the right type of guest can flip through ideally — hopping in and out of the short stories — and have a quick chuckle. It’s not going to gel with everyone, but that’s totally fine. I know if I had it in my house, people who picked it up and appreciated it would pass some kind of vague litmus test, thereby elevating them on some scale of friendship I haven’t worked out because that’s crazy. But I digress…

As for the specifics of why I liked this book so much, it starts at the conceptual level. Most of the shorts in Heaven No Hell spring from a deceptively-simple yet-entirely madcap premise, many of which are also just laid right out in the pieces’ first lines. It’s stuff like: “I’m hurtling through space in a life pod with the guy of my dreams…but I’m too afraid to tell him how I feel!” Or, “I was a substitute teacher for the FBI…”

I loved this throughout the book for a couple reasons, the first of which is that DeForge’s relentlessly-interested cartooning style gels with such absurdities, while at the same time also benefiting from the reader not having to do their own detective work to figure out what the stories are about. With the premises (as madcap as they may by) laid out so clearly, the reader can get lost in the singular style of cartooning interlaced with witty dialogue and clever turns of phrase.

And that’s the second quality I enjoyed so much in this book. DeForge is obviously a top-tier experimental cartoonist, twisting his figures in unique ways that often emphasize the deeper points his stories are making. In this book, he also launches a set of witticisms (some of which are totally irreverent, while others force you to laugh to relieve the pressure of living in an oppressive surveillance state) so impressive you’ll want to start quoting them, perhaps off-handedly referring to balloons from now on as air hogs, my man. It’s delightful, truly.

Strangely, this is the second excellent collection of short cartooning pieces I’ve read this year…second this month, actually, with the other being Nate Powell’s incredible Save It For Later: Promises, Parenthood, and the Urgency of Protest. They are, of course, radically different books, perhaps united by how much the creators clearly care, care about the world around them as well as about the general wellbeing of others within the human experience. I bring this up because as with Save It For Later, I found myself searching for a consistent throughline in Heaven No Hell.

And while it certainly is not as clear cut as Save It For Later — which is centered around working for change in the face of major challenges grown from the Trump Presidency and the movements that fueled/enabled it — I think the uniting facet of Heave No Hell is…that’s right, the humor. It’s there in every piece in this book, and it is perhaps what makes the experience when taken as a whole work so well. There’s a shared sensibility of laughter as medicine, of seeing the silliness in the life moments that hurt most or require the most thought. When paired with DeForge’s thoughtful storytelling, unique cartooning, and heartfelt ideas, the humor in this book elevates Heaven No Hell among the best graphic novels of the year, easily.

Heaven No Hell by Michael DeForge

Heaven No Hell by Michael DeForge
Writer/Artist: Michael DeForge
Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
Heaven No Hell collects DeForge's best work yet. While his style and approach have evolved, he has never wavered from taut character studies and incisive social commentary with a focus on humor. He has deeply probed subjects like identity, gentrification, fame, and sexual desire. His ability to dig into a subject and break it down with beautiful drawings and sharp writing makes him one of the finest short story writers of the past decade, in comics or beyond.
Release Date: April 14, 2021
Price: $21.95
Buy It Here: Heaven No Hell

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.