Reincarnation Stories

Kim Deitch is an underground cartoonist—i.e., a contemporary of Spiegelman, et al.—whose craft just keeps getting better and better. Aesthetically inspired by silent film and 1930s animation, Deitch’s comics are infused with 1960s psychedelia and spiritualism. Reincarnation Stories is a collection of comics narratives that combine into a graphic novel. It spans the past, present, and future of human history, with appearances by Frank Sinatra, monkey gods, a forgotten cowboy star of the silver screen, and a tribe of Native Americans that successfully resettled on the moon. In a parallel reality, Deitch himself is the mega-successful creator of a series of kids books about a superhero called Young Avatar, who helps marginalized souls lead better lives and whose alter ego is a carpenter. Deitch’s spiritual nemesis (an incarnation of Judas Iscariot), Waldo the Cat, makes an appearance.