#20 Art & Comics

Cover Art – ‘Panthenon’ by Ana Prundaru

The cover is a photograph; a man and woman walk down a flight of steps with their backs to us, a city stretching out before them. The image has a vintage, faded, sun-kissed feel to it, the sky an almost grey-teal and the buildings mostly light pinks.

Cover art by Ana Prundaru for The Suburban Review #20: Handbag

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Places I Have Never Been

Harriet McDougall

Page 3. Panel 1: A long panel of three framed photographs sitting atop a bookshelf. In each we see our narrator as a young woman with her friend. (Her partner perhaps? I wonder where she is now?) In the first photograph they stand by a windsock, mountains in the background and hiking packs over puffy jackets. In the second, they pose before the Eiffel Tower. We can only glimpse a sliver of the third photo, it seems to be her friend beneath a palm tree with the ocean in the background. Below the panel, a speech bubble on the lower right reads, ‘I’ve seen places I never could have dreamed of.’ The next three panels are designed to look like photographs, overlapping one another as if plopped down on a table. Panel 2: The narrator posing in front of her computer screen. On the screen are the Pyramids of Giza. Panel 3: A poorly framed selfie, the narrator smiles before her computer screen, this time displaying a forest. Panel 4: This one is framed pretty well, it’s convincing! It really looks like our narrator is standing before Machu Picchu. Panel 5: A speech bubble reads, ‘People on Facebook must be wondering how on earth I do it!’ The narrator’s Facebook page, showing one of the photos she’s uploaded of her herself posing before a historical building. Panel 6: A speech bubble reads, ‘HA HA!’ The narrator is sitting alone at her computer desk, a halo of light from the screen illuminating the dim room.

A four-page comic by Harriet McDougall for The Suburban Review #20: Handbag

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One Shoulder or Two

Darren C. Fisher

Page 2 From the top left: The text reads, ‘One shoulder or two. Who are you?’ To the right, two men stand in nature, each with a backpack over their shoulder. The text reads, ‘Hip student days far behind time to grow up. A briefcase something more mature’. To the left, a middle-aged man with a backpack over his shoulder looks at a handbag on a pedestal. The text reads, ‘Burdens now of a vintage variety’, and on a new line below, ‘Lost loves become broken marriages’. To the right, a complex, beautiful symbol: a heart, half in flame, is divided down the centre, seemingly being shredded, with a thorny rose growing up and around, leading the eye to two wedding rings. Intersecting it is a grid against which two arrows are plunging down, bisecting a slamming gavel. The text reads, ‘Minimalist’, on the next line, ‘Survivalist’, below it, ‘Old shames’, again below, ‘New regrets’, and finally, the last line of text reads, ‘What do you carry?’ To the left, an elderly, bearded man with closed eyes, a handbag over his shoulder. His hair flows up into two hands holding open an empty wallet. To the right, a soldier with an enormous pack is superimposed over a hippy-type who sits atop their own enormous pack, legs crossed and arms resting as if meditating against the backdrop of a forest.

A two-page comic by Darren C. Fisher for The Suburban Review #20: Handbag

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