{"product_id":"9781606993569","title":"Freeway","description":"\u003cp\u003eA down-on-his luck animator looks back in anger.\u003cbr\u003eIn his first new graphic novel since 2001’s acclaimed Mail Order Bride, Mark Kalesniko delivers a 416-page tour de force chronicling a single day—a few hours, even—in the life of his recurring dog-headed alter ego, Alex Kalienka.\u003cbr\u003eStuck in a horrendous traffic jam on his way to his increasingly miserable job as an animator at Babbitt Jones Studios, a burnt-out and depressed Alex alternately rages, reminisces, fantasizes and hallucinates. Thus flashbacks to his earliest days as a starry-eyed young animator snagging his dream job, through the increasingly depressing political battles and creative compromises, with a love affair gone badly wrong along the way, alternate with scenes of an increasingly agitated present-day Alex, who imagines a series of increasingly violent deaths for himself.\u003cbr\u003eThen again, are they in fact fantasies, or prescient flashes? Is a threatening car tailing Alex just a paranoid fantasy or a genuine threat? Readers will have to wait until the very end of this hugely ambitious graphic novel to find out.\u003cbr\u003eMoreover, woven into this narrative fabric is a series of imagined moments from two generations ago, a Golden Age of animation, when an earlier Alex made his entry into a much different Babbitt Jones Studio—as imagined by the increasingly despondent present-day Alex.\u003cbr\u003eLoaded with fascinating insider information on two different generations of animators, skipping seamlessly among present and several different pasts, reality and fantasy, Freeway is another step forward for a major cartooning talent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fantagraphics Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47036317696240,"sku":"9781606993569","price":28.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781606993569_p0.jpg?v=1763829567","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781606993569","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}