BIO

Joakim Drescher was born in Denmark and raised in Indonesia, New Zealand and China. He is the eldest son of illustrator and author Henrik Drescher and artist Lauren Drescher. Joakim studied fine arts in Amsterdam at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy where he was a part of the now defunct tape label So Obsolete Records and one part of the DIY publishing outfit Stalking Cat Editions with artist and illustrator Marie Boye Thomsen.

IN PRAISE OF JOAKIM DRESCHER

Motel Universe consists of a staggering 110 pages filled with dynamic illustration, while its sequel possesses an even more impressive 180 pages of intricate drawings. Both publications are set in eponymous Motel Universe; “a greedy, seedy, unjust place” explains Joakim. The first volume follows “a race of slaves who are trophy hunted for their precious skin for the pleasure of the rich and famous.” The story features two antagonists, the first being the ghost of the Roman Emperor Caligula while the second is modelled on the real-life you know who – the all-too-familiar “real estate tycoon come world-developer, B. Flump.”

– It’s Nice That

The intergalactic adventures of Motel Universe unfold in seemingly free-form fashion, driven by creator Joakim Drescher’s delightfully go-for-broke imagination in both storytelling and visuals, along with his seriously loopy sense of humor. Drescher sneaks in some potent tropes about scapegoating and the exploitation of the most vulnerable members of society, but his satire is offered up in such over-the-top surreality that it all goes down quite easily. Drescher is clearly having a lot of fun with his creations and that fun is contagious… …But he remains a sui generis talent, and his extravagant satire hits the spot in these crazy-weird times. I really enjoyed this delightful, warped journey through his id. Though we’re only halfway through the year, Motel Universe is already on my list of favorite comics of 2019.

– The Comics Journal

I’m about to tell you why your life is well and truly empty without this comic on your shelf… …Drescher is one of those cartoonists whose stream of consciousness runs in such interesting directions at such breakneck speed that it’s literally impossible to keep up with him — even as everything he comes up flows together seamlessly and even, believe it or not, makes a deeply intuitive type of sense. I don’t pretend to know how that works, mind you — I’m only here to tell you that “work” it most assuredly does… …Perhaps most remarkably, though, given all this 10,000-light-years-per-second stuff going on, the entire book follows a clear linear through-line in terms of its narrative — but this adherence to convention doesn’t limit the scope or the ambition of the work itself, the end result instead being a deceptively accessible comic that nevertheless makes no compromises in terms of how it realizes and communicates its breathtakingly idiosyncratic vision.

– Four Color Apocalypse

MORE PRAISE FOR JOAKIM DRESCHER

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