Nicolas Mahler: Lone Racer

At some point, many years ago, Lone Racer was a champion on the track. Presumably he had it all – fame, fortune, and the perks that accompany being the best there is at your chosen sport. These days, however, he’s an answer to a trivia question, overshadowed by younger, faster and more aggressive racers that have stolen his thunder. His wife is in the hospital, he lives in a small apartment, and he drinks his nights away at Bar Juanjo with former driver “Rubber” and racetrack-mechanic-turned-cop “Irksome.” Along the way, as the story unfolds, Lone Racer is drawn into an aborted bank robbery, an odd romance and even odder conversations before rededicating himself to racing and hitting the track once again in pursuit of his dignity and self-respect.

Nicolas Mahler’s Lone Racer is a small graphic novel but a large, brilliant work of storytelling. Mahler’s narrative is compact and lean without a wasted motion or a meaningless word. Mahler’s minimalist drawing style is slightly surreal, with odd-shaped characters and unsightly, almost Dali-esque perspectives. It’s with this unique style, however, along with the Spartan coloration provided the panels, that Mahler makes his story of the down-and-out racecar driver resonate with truth and reality. In weaving a tale of loss and redemption, Mahler has struck a vital nerve at the heart of every reader, encouraging us all to react like Lone Racer and get back on track to chase our dreams.

Lone Racer is an entertaining, thought-provoking story, magically offbeat yet ambitious in scope and universal in its reach. Well-known in Europe, where his work has appeared in German, Swiss and Austrian newspapers and in French and Czech anthologies, Austrian artist Mahler is an intriguing, one-of-a-kind storyteller and artist, a talent well worth keeping an eye on.... (Top Shelf Productions)

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