I swear I've read the same comics page fifty times by now: The middle-aged alternative comics memoirist draws himself naked or in his underpants, with a series of caption boxes explaining the various problems with his body that have developed over the last few years, (literally) warts and all. The most recent version of this reverse-narcissism to be published is in Joe Ollmann's Mid-Life, on page 10. He takes great paints to point out the "turkey wattles" on his neck, varicose veins, and chronic constipation that plagues him. (I think Crumb might have been the first modern comics artist to do this, but to my mind the best example remains Ivan Brunetti's.) I admit, I almost gave up on the book right there. It didn't exactly inspire trust.

I'm glad I stuck with it, though. The thing that pulled me through that first awful sequence of Mid-Life was Ollmann's art, which is expressive, gorgeously composed, and tight. He sticks to the nine-panel grid with an arduousness that would make Watchmen-era Dave Gibbons blush, and that neurotic boxiness is what inspired trust in me.

Mid-Life does read like something very familiar: Of course Ollmann gets caught up in the possibility of a relationship with a younger woman (her name is Sherry Smalls), and of course things get remarkably creepy. But the best part of Mid-Life is that Ollmann tries his best to tell a fair accounting of Smalls's perspective. Her story unfolds at the same pace as Ollmann's in alternating chapters. I suppose it's kind of sad that I'm applauding a cartoonist for treating a woman like a real human being with motivations and desires of her own, but when he explores Smalls's life—poor, overworked, her friends fucking up all around her—Mid-Life feels like something entirely new.