Aldo by Yannick Pelegrin

Aldo has been twenty-eight for three hundred years. Despite his long life, he still hasn't developed very good social skills. His whole family has been dead now for a long while, and nobody believes he is immortal. As a result, he leads a lonely existence. He is afraid to love anything or anyone, except for his beautiful Alfa Romeo and his little pug Gustav. When he tries to seek professional help, there too the truth seems too absurd for words. But then he spots someone on television and recognizes him from an encounter two hundred years ago. And he decides to visit the man to get some answers.

Format: ebook

Narrator: n/a
Performance: n/a
Story: 🌑🌑🌑🌓

I didn't completely understand everything but Aldo elicited a strong melancholic mood that drew me in. The titular character, Aldo, searches for answers and connections that took him to many places. Being 300 years old, he has witnessed many of his friends and loved ones grow old and die. His moments with his only friend Oscar, an elderly man, was especially touching but it was his relationship with Gustav, the pug, that gripped my heart the most.

We are led to ask the question, immortal or a case of non compos mentis? The realities blur and the art style reflected how those lines overlap and the character's loneliness and sense of isolation. It is an open-ended story that give you more questions than answers which could be frustrating because let's give the poor guy a break!

P.S.

Did somebody let Gustav out?

I received a copy of Aldo  from Europe Comics  via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

                                       

SOUNDTRACK

Airbag
Radiohead
OK Computer

(acoustic)

In the next world war

In a jack knifed juggernaut

I am born again

In the neon sign

Scrolling up and down

I am born again

In an interstellar burst

I am back to save the universe

In a deep, deep sleep

Of the innocent

I am born again

In a fast German car

I'm amazed that I survived

An airbag saved my life

In an interstellar burst

I am back to save the universe

In an interstellar burst

I am back to save the universe

In an interstellar burst

I am back to save the universe