My Muse Lies on the Settee

Every chapter of ‘My Muse Lies on the Settee’ opens with a short poem that is depicted in an accompanying illustration. This is followed by a comic strip, usually wordless, of a few pages, which builds on the same theme. Wide Vercnocke does not opt for adventurous themes, but instead explores the world of the couch potato. Although the idle protagonist wallows comfortably in the security of his lazy existence, the repeated and powerful depiction of his biceps suggests that his passivity is only a temporary phase, the silence of a resting volcano.

Vercnocke’s poetic ode to laziness allows him to go to town with his narrative and graphic skills, making ‘My Muse Lies on the Settee’ both narcissistic and ironic, lazy and virtuoso, literary and visual. In spite of the apparently limited subject – a man and his favourite piece of furniture – this is a multifaceted book and a most impressive debut.