Press Enter to Continue

by Ana Galvañ

Overview

In her English language debut, Galvan utilizes swaths of electric and flourescent colors to create a series of short comics stories that intertwine and explore the dehumanizing effects of contemporary society.

Galvan's characters navigate a candy-colored world of geometric energy. Departments of inhumane resources dehumanize the people it is purported to protect; information is determinedly mined like the gold of the 21st century that it is; induced suicidal thoughts are a tool to manage overpopulation. Like Black Mirror, Galvan's near future is less paranoid dystopia than it is a logical extension of things to come, where the malice of large corporations manifests in small, everyday ways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683962168
Publisher:	Fantagraphics Books
Publication date:	09/03/2019
Edition description:	1
Pages:	100
Sales rank:	659,974
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

The Spanish artist Ana Galvañ left advertising to pursue comics and illustration full time. Her work has appeared in publications such Spanish Fever, Nobrow, and many more venues. Additionally, she runs the website www.tiktokcomics.com, on which she has published various short comics.

Editorial Reviews

06/03/2019

Spanish cartoonist Galvañ makes her English-language debut with this darkly funny collection of five untitled short tales, each concerning the deleterious effects of technology on the individual and society. Throughout each piece, Galvañ sustains a provocative ambiguity, goading readers into questioning what is real and what is fabrication. The first story features a virtual reality that might possibly be merged with the real world; while another, set in a circus, stars a creepy “Human Doll” performer who may or may not be human—and perhaps dangerous. In the funniest take, a woman endures a job interview with a manager seemingly determined to make her question her own perceptions. She fights back—or does she? In the final entry, a woman may be the victim of a terrorist organization that plants images in individuals’ minds to “make them go crazy and commit suicide.” Galvañ’s deadpan, anthropological presentation—along with her hapless, geometric characters and Day-Glo color palette—shapes the stories into a unified, organic whole suffused with both paranoia and charm. This artistic import comic, like a season of Black Mirror, will unnerve as it puzzles its readers, leaving them wary of the world around them after reading. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Dynamic and otherworldly, Press Enter confounds the boundaries of both comics and visual art to show a world where technology distorts both time and space."

Shelf Awareness

"Galvañ's work is a welcome expansion of the familiar but still-rich genre of hi-tech futures on the fritz."

PopMatters

11/01/2019

Strange geometric designs floating through oddly angled panels saturated with fluorescent color fill every page of this collection of five surreal short stories by Spanish creator Galvañ (The Contents of Desire). In the first piece, a woman in a pink dress splits into three people as she walks across a room. One woman stops to watch television. Suddenly, the two other women are attacked by a tiger. The next story opens with a trapeze artist at the circus: he becomes obsessed with a woman named Scandal the Human Doll and flashes to a disturbing and abstract sex scene—but the scene doesn't progress much further. An odd depiction of a woman enduring an unusual job interview is a highlight, as is the final story about a woman who discovers that the pixelated child who keeps appearing might be a visually transmitted computer virus designed to drive her to suicide. VERDICT While visually compelling, these five stories might not satisfy if taken individually. When read in sequence, however, the aggregated ambiguity and absurdity results in a sense of unease and eventually awe at Galvañ's originality and technical expertise.—Tom Batten, Grafton, VA

Library Journal