K IS IN TROUBLE AGAIN

A talking beetle, a goat, and a possible new friend help the hapless K weather more surreal misadventures.

Accompanied by pithy dialogue and a narrative that’s pointedly printed in a typeface called “KafkABC,” Clement’s sparely drawn panels depict a solitary, Buster Keatonish schoolboy in a chain of pickles and odd situations. Fortunately, whether he’s suddenly snatched off a Ferris wheel by a trapeze artist, stranded in a barn far from home with a goat who eats his train ticket, left forgotten in a huge, empty school infirmary, or snagged by the back flap of his swimsuit on the edge of a high diving board to the amusement of crowds below, relief eventually arrives. The assistance is often of an unexpected sort, however—the same goat, for instance, trots up to free him by eating the buttons on his bathing suit. Sometimes there are bright spots, like the friendly (if nameless) farm girl who helps him find a train back home and later comes to visit. Since these sorts of random events are commonplace for K, he seems less perturbed than the towering grown-ups in his life, all of whom, parents included, apparently find him annoying and frequently wind up shouting at him. Readers who sometimes feel themselves blown like leaves in existential winds will relate. The cast, all in dress and settings from the late 19th or early 20th centuries, is light-skinned.

Amusing, if sometimes unsettling, exercises in absurdity.