Our little family recently came into possession of the book The Night Riders by Matt Furie. First published by McSweeney’s McMullens (their children’s imprint) back in 2012, it was reprinted in 2020 (I think) in support of Furie’s campaign of lawsuits and publicity as he attempted to reclaim his character Pepe the Frog from the gibbering goons who had hoisted the character onto their message boards as a symbol of hate. I love this book.

Wordless, its 48 pages follow Pepe and his friend, a rat, as they eat dinner (insects for Pepe, lettuce for the rat), go for a bike ride, encounter a dragon, hassle a subterranean bat friend, go for a swim, escape a giant crab with some help from two Lisa Frank-ass dolphins, and watch the sun rise.

Furie’s style is zine-y and outsider-y, funny but also sharply observed. It does that thing I want all art to do: makes me feel I am experiencing the world through someone else’s sensibility. Though the content is fantasy, the work often feels intimate, even voyeuristic, like you’re pawing through your stoner buddy’s sketchbook while he’s in the bathroom.

The feeling of reading The Night Riders echoes back a memory: a spring evening, riding down the backstreets of Cambridge and Somerville on the orange street bike Thalassa willed to me when she graduated, smoking a cigarette as I coast, the chain slipping clickily off the freehub, the warm evening breeze billowing through my blazer, the pedals slipping under my dress shoes, and me feeling like a bird on wing, like my feet might never again touch the ground.