Unfolding at a significant pace and moving at light speed through a mixed media-enhanced, cross-dimensional and trans-temporal fever dream, Junction Jones and the Corduroy Conspiracy is just as dense and, at times, baffling as that description suggests.

At its core, it’s the story of a Private Investigator and his partner, a cat (sort of) named Mr. Nibs; the book sees them investigating a hobo’s grisly demise, leading to threads being pulled at and scrutinised, across different spaces and places in time.

Each chapter is followed by dense piles of supplemental material, taking the form of adverts, reports and other documentation. If you have the patience for it, allowing yourself to be taken along for the ride knowing that you won’t necessarily get answers to even (at times) the simplest of questions, Junction Jones and the Corduroy Conspiracy can be an incredibly rewarding, rich experience.

Yet there’s no denying that it has a somewhat fractured and impenetrable structure that can be alienating, particularly in the first few chapters. There’s an awful lot going on, and lots of moving parts to keep track of; it’s not helped by the slang and snippets of world-building that add layers of complexity to what is a relatively straightforward narrative in the end.

It’s a twisted, at times very gory, punky noir that very much feels like outsider art at times, and writer TC Pescatore, along with artist Locogonzales, should be commended for sticking with their uncompromised artistic vision throughout.

Speaking of which, from a visual perspective alone, Junction Jones and the Corduroy Conspiracy is absolutely dazzling, utilising a bewildering array of techniques to tell its tale. In the artwork alone, even without considering the mixed media material, there’s a wide variety of styles at play, and the sparing use of colour is cleverly deployed too.

Though it did frustrate me at times, I did find myself endeared to the odd couple at the core of the story, and having spent so much time in their brilliantly detailed, if baffling, worlds with them, I certainly wouldn’t balk at meeting up with them again sometime. Perhaps not in a dark alley though.

Junction Jones and the Corduroy Conspiracy is available now, published by Markosia. Many thanks to TC Pescatore for sending me a digital copy for review purposes.

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