Omg this was so weird and amazing. 450 pages of the most bizarre fantasy world I've ever read. I really learned a lot from this book and I'm so happy that I read it.

- Art can represent more than reality could
- Death is a fickle subject. Although, it's probably best if it happens by surprise and without notice (preferably in sleep). That way, one doesn't have to worry about it.
- A ghost is the fragmented parts and images someone leaves behind after death.
- It'd honestly be annoying to either a) know when someone would die, and b) not knowing when someone would die
- Maps, history, and the internet exist everywhere and are in constant dialogue between the environment and those who interpret it into maps, history, or the internet. A history of moon birds is a history of humans is a history of termites in feathers. Recording information in trees, water ripples, ice, and the network of mushroom roots.
- Casual sexuality/polycules are awesome. Platonic relationships is a myth guised by fear.
- Earth is needy and sucks. ( )

You'd think, statistically, if you stacked 450+ cartoons up in a stack of paper over an inch high, I'd have to laugh or chuckle at least once, even accidentally, but Birds of Maine easily beat the odds. Hell, even Garfield Complete Works: Volume 1: 1978 & 1979 managed that simple task. Of course, "I hate Mondays," is a much more accessible catchphrase than, "The time is 9:45."

This is a dreary, surreal, satirical look at the day-to-day lives of talking, intelligent birds in a sort of bird utopia under a dome on the Moon following a gentle falling out with a crumbling humanity. They drone on and on making sideways criticisms of humanity between piles of absolute gibberish.

I've been avoiding Michael DeForge's books for years, because one look at his covers -- including this one -- tells me that these are not books I will like. It's all wiggles and scribbles. The main character here is a red splat on the page. (Yeah, see her there on the cover? It never gets better than that.) But somehow this made the cut for NPR's Books We Love 2022: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels, and one of my goals for 2023 is to compulsively read all the books listed there, so I finally gave in and read one of DeForge's books, and it turns out you can judge them by their cover.

So far this and Time Zone J have been the biggest stinkers on the list. I hope there are no toppers still lurking. ( )