Illustration by CASEY CROWE/Daily Bruin

By Michael Rosen-Molina

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

It’s just one of those days. First, you show up to class late, only to realize that today is the big midterm that you totally forgot about. Then, you realize that you don’t recognize any of the test material. Then you realize that you’re completely naked.

Then you wake up.

Dreamcatcher Jesse Reklaw sifts through the nebulous other world of the sleeping psyche to create “Slow Wave,” a comic strip that celebrates just such bizarre nightmare situations.

“Dreamtoons,” a collection of over three years of the popular comic, provides a hilarious, disturbing glimpse into the Freudian depths. Originally an Internet cartoon, “Slow Wave” is now published by 12 weekly newspapers across the U.S.

The strips are all based on actual dreams, sent to Reklaw by readers around the world. The cartoonist illustrates the stories, using personal photos provided by the reader to draw his caricature into the strip.

The strips are odd and surreal, as well as unsettling, but still follow an alien internal logic. Their very strangeness makes them comforting and familiar, assuring readers that these are real dreams. No waking mind could ever envision such spectacle.

In one dream, a man recalls visiting a friend’s house to view a brood of baby porcupines. The young porcupines, however, look more like snakes, squirming around in the backyard. One baby then upsets his owner by drinking from a nearby lake.

BOOK INFORMATION    

Title: Dreamtoons

Author: Jesse Reklaw

Publisher: Shambhala Publications Inc.

Price: $10.95    Pages: 126

Rating: 9

Original by JACOB LIAO/Daily Bruin Web Adaptation by Hernane Tabay/Daily Bruin Senior Staff According to dream science, this poor porcupine would not have as many quills when fully grown. The entire scenario boggles the mind. What strange midnight snack could possibly have produced such a vision?

Other stock situations crop up often in “Slow Wave.” Shadowy pursuers chase hapless dreamers down blind alleys, while unseen accusers put them on trial. Teeth fall out, students attend class sans pants, falling people wake before hitting the ground.

Reklaw’s matter-of-fact delivery puts punch into the old themes. For instance, a woman visits an interdimensional mall. Despite the exotic sights, her most vivid memory is of discovering a wallet full of cash, but calmly deciding to turn it in to Lost and Found, because “it wasn’t earth money.”

Dressed to the nines in suit and tie, in another comic dream, a paranoid man awkwardly sips champagne at a swanky party. His fear is justified: “You see,” he explains calmly, “I have the last belt in the world and international terrorists want it.”

The terrorists attack, drug him, and steal his belt. Upon waking in a ditch several hours later, he is horrified to find that, not only has the precious belt been stolen, his hands have also been taken and replaced with new ones.

“I don’t know how I knew,” he says, “there weren’t any stitches, but I just knew they weren’t mine.”

As funny as the familiar stand-bys are, the true gut-busters are so impossibly bizarre that the reader simply cannot make heads or tails of them.

A giant and evil hot air balloon named Cornelius chases a family across a desert. An elephant has fantasies of being a secret agent. Interrogators force an unwilling victim to talk by threatening his friends, who just happen to be a packet of fancy ketchup and a packet of relish.

Yes, his friends are talking condiment packets.

Reklaw presents even these dreams with the same deadpan sincerity, making them all the funnier. He opts to draws his subjects as subdued, not as bug-eyed caricatures. The realistic drawings and understated prose only emphasize the absurdity of the subject matter.

Although most of his comics tend to be more realistic and the less ‘cartoony,’ Reklaw’s style shifts depending on the dream.

When a reader recalls a dream where her enraged father abandons her in hardware store, Reklaw is able to skillfully exaggerate her feelings of helplessness while at the same time, diffusing a potentially disturbing dream, making it funny by adopting a looser, comic style. The angry father bears a striking resemblance to the blustering Bluto of Popeye cartoons, while the hapless child is a gangly stick-thin waif that recalls Popeye’s love interest Olive Oyl.

Sandwiched between uproarious cartoons are nugget’s of wisdom from psychologists and Zen masters alike, all pontificating on the mysterious subject of dreams. The quotes fit well into the scheme of the book, adding to the almost documentary tone of the strips.

“Dreamtoons” is a fresh new idea in cartoons – innovative and daring. A rorshach comic, readers can impose any interpretation on the confusing storylines. Although inherently voyeuristic, “Dreamtoons” playful irreverence keeps the experience from becoming dark or creepy. Rather, it feels like a healing exercise in trust and acceptance: complete strangers lay their psyches bare for the world to see, warts and all.

More important than all of its social and psychological ramifications, though, is the fact that it’s just plain funny. The random humor works well, sending readers into paroxysms of laughter. “Dreamtoons” injects a much needed dose of absurdity into this dreary, work-a-day world. Besides, if you can’t laugh at a chorus line of dancing pigs in tutus, then what’s left?

BOOK: For more information on “Slow Wave,” visit www.slowwave.com.