And You Think You’re Insecure?

‘Tales Of Mere Existence’ are cartoonist Lev Yilmaz’s autobiographical series of mostly one-page black & white comic strips, detailing his observations on everyday life in a somewhat sarcastic, existential vein that packs in more than a few laughs along the way, from the ‘It’s funny because it’s true’ comedy tradition. In these 3 self-published volumes Lev offers a series of pieces with self-explanitory titles like ‘Girls I Probably Could Have Slept With’, ‘12 Ways I Could Try To Seek Happiness’ and ‘Why I Bought The Food In The Fridge’ – narrated by and featuring himself as represented by a wide-eyed wavy-haired little character drawn in a simple doodle-like style.

Lev presents himself as a somewhat downtrodden guy lacking in motivation and insecure on his prospects with jobs and women. Lev’s domestic worries, like worrying about what to wear at his age “I’m afraid I’ll look like I’m stuck in the past and everyone will make fun of me”, show his downbeat sarcastic side. On the other hand when Lev meanders into daydream territory, such as in ‘Things That Would Be Neat’ – “if I could give people I don’t like bad dreams in which I am King Kong so they’d be sorry they ever messed with me” – we see a more upbeat whimsical side.

At his best Lev has a really articulate, clear structure to his work and his talent for clarity makes his work look deceptively simple to the casual reader. My favourite pieces are ‘The Eternal Cycle Of Human Disposition‘ (detailing the decay of optimism over a lifetime) and ‘My Saturday In Hieroglyphics’ (Lev’s nondescript saturday routine). Here Lev breaks away from his usual pattern of first person narrative introspection, and experiments with his usual grid panel structure, resulting in some devastatingly effective storytelling.

Lev’s observational style is less nihilistic than other notable artists who’ve worked in this genre, like Robert Crumb, James Kochalka or early Dan Clowes. Lev’s humour is more good-natured than searing or crude, when he ruminates on why he doesn’t attract all the pretty girls or get good jobs we don’t get the sense of bitterness often inherent in Clowes’ or Crumb’s work, and he’s too much of a nice guy to throw a cynical putdown at them for the sake of a gag. Lev’s work has more of an ‘oh well that’s life’ feel. Although Lev experienced a similar experiences of social isolation to other autobiographical cartoonists such as Robert Crumb and Joe Matt in his early life, he certainly seems less preoccupied with that period, and better socially adjusted in adulthood than his illustrious peers – crucially he’s more popular with the ladies, despite his insecurities with them.Lev is a bit of a paradox in that having this regular-guy persona, which makes his work popular and easy for people to identify with, his work lacks the quirky colour and edge of guys like Crumb and Matt – who most definitely aren’t regular guys.

I feel Lev’s work is best enjoyed in small chunks, otherwise his introspective observations can become pretty repetitive, however that’s a criticism of many collected short-form strips. More importantly, your level of enjoyment from Lev’s work will probably depend on how familiar you are with the small-press comics scene, where this kind of work is as ubiqitious as superhero fayre in mainstream comics, and in which context Lev’s sharp musings seem pretty old-hat. One piece in particular, ‘Judgement Day On The Bus‘, is uncomfortably similar to Dan Clowes 1991 Eightball strip ‘Marooned On A Desert Island With The People On The Subway’. On the other hand if you’re new to this scene you’ll probably have a blast with Lev.

With each comic Lev includes a DVD of his extremely popular short animations, which I haven’t reviewed since you can watch them on youtube right now, they’re very consistent with what you’ll find in Lev’s comic.

Words by Kurt Vile

BROWSE:
Lev’s official website
The Autobiographical Comics Wiki