Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
Metadoggoz
Metadoggoz by Bérénice Motais de Narbonne, published by Drawn+Quarterly, creates a world as intricate as it is thought-provoking and as beautiful as it is horrifying. The precise genre for a graphic novel like this is difficult to nail down as it is clearly dystopian, but there are bright shining beacons of love and hope. Its futurism with synthetic super-drugs and crowded, advanced architecture also has familiar elements such as borrowing instruments from friends and troubles with plumbing. The cyberpunk aspects touch more on the human soul than on robots, so perhaps it’s best seen as “punk” overall, doing its own thing no matter what anyone else thinks.
The story of Metadoggoz flows the same undefinable way, through different protagonists and events all leading to the same great catastrophe or brave new beginning, depending on what viewpoint the reader wants to take.
The first part, “White Night,” follows burnout Gael as he discusses love and life with his pals before hitting a rave and trying a tab of the drug metadoggo. It escalates more and more until he is able to float through the whole city of Metastation, calling into question whether he has died and become a ghost or remained physical while experiencing something on a totally different plane.
Gael’s journey is only the beginning. The story takes a radical turn, to Naomi, an office worker struggling with stress, relationships, and victimizing gossip. She, too, experiences an ascension into the world beyond the norm, in the Gap, which she cannot describe or place, wondering if it’s a black market, a garbage dump, or a cultic temple. No one clarifies, so the Gap can be anything it wants. The spiritual freedom runs afoul of capitalistic materialism that wants to bulldoze it, leading to further chapters exploring resistance, violent complacency, fate, and disaster.
The strong world-building and fairytale storytelling in Metadoggoz is complemented perfectly by Motais de Narbonne’s hypnotizing artwork. Each panel is packed with detail, especially the establishing shots and landscapes of Metastation. The city feels alive with people hanging out on balconies, cozying up in their apartments, eating in restaurants, and partying at raves. The Gap resembles Burning Man, with characters that hold unexplained meaning tied to their appearance.
Though the whole of Metadoggoz is black and white, the painstaking detail makes for deceptive panels that seem to have grayscale. Motais de Narbonne’s meticulous inking can blur the edges of a face to appear to be a soft shadow, even though it is actually tiny swaths of black resting on the same white as the rest of the face. The lines between black and white become so thin it seems as if the guards’ flashlights blinding Gael actually shine. This fits perfectly with the themes of the story, where the truth is technically obvious even if our eyes cannot interpret it without looking very closely – and even then we can fool ourselves by looking away.
