Insectopolis: A Natural History

Peter Kuper is a cartoonist who is living the dream of making it big in the big city. His work has regularly appeared in three iconic NYC publications: The New Yorker, The Nation and Mad, the latter being where he wrote and illustrated “Spy vs. Spy” for nearly 30 years. Perhaps most notably, considering Kuper’s passion for progressive politics, is the fact that he’s the co-founder of the activist comics magazine, World War III Illustrated, which has been around for over 40 years. This brings us to Kuper’s new book, another very New York-centric project as well as one that speaks to Kuper’s concern for the planet.

The next time you see a silverfish skitter across your bathroom floor, be sure to give it a salute, pick it up and set it free outside. After all, these critters have survived for over 400 million years and deserve some respect. That’s the frame of mind to be in when you read Insectopolis: A Natural History, Kuper’s new book on the world of insects and how it interacts with humans. His comics have taken us down many mesmerizing paths and his latest work should win over even the most squeamish of bug haters.

You attract more flies (or is it bees?) with honey than with vinegar, right? That’s Kuper’s approach, to charm the reader. I know I’ve been charmed by Kuper’s work. I refer you to Ruins (Self-Made Hero, 2015), one of his most ambitious graphic narratives, which features two stories on parallel tracks: a couple trying to repair their relationship during a vacation in Oaxaca, Mexico; and a monarch butterfly dealing with its own struggles as it migrates to the same destination.

That same butterfly, or a close cousin, flew from one Kuper work to another. For a time, it made its home on the walls of INterSECTS, an exhibition of Kuper's work in connection with his fellowship at The New York Public Library, during 2020-21. And that evolved into this new book, just as magical, expansive and immersive as Ruins, with a bonus of educating the reader with just the right amount of whimsical humor. It helped me gobble up all sorts of interesting fun facts, like the fly ranking only second in the world to the bee for its high pollinating skills. And Kuper doesn’t only rely on, say, one form of polite whimsy. He’s more than happy to engage in a certain gentle form of gross-out humor, like his extended scenes of the dung beetle and its ... dung. Kids and adults will love it. Kuper has been around the block. He knows how to amuse anyone.

Kuper’s book is set in a post-human future where insects are able to speak to each other as they ponder a grand exhibition devoted to them at The New York Public Library. He maintains a sense of wonder tempered with a sense of order. Like any great, immersive work of comics, there’s a sturdy framework holding it all together. Here, you have a steady flow of creature features (ants, cicadas, moths, beetles and more) along with an impressive set of historical detours and informational asides that are smoothly interwoven. In this context, it totally makes sense for a bust of Vladimir Nabokov to chat with some butterflies about his intense interest in them. It’s that kind of book. Nabokov gets to hold court and explain in some detail his observations on how and why some flies and bees resemble each other. It's very concise and entertaining, in keeping with the honey vs. vinegar strategy. This allows Nabokov to proceed onward with a few more thoughts on what is going on when an insect alters its appearance to hide from predators. Finally, Nabokov even gets a few words in on his theory that the bug in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is not a cockroach, as widely accepted, but a beetle.

The book’s premise — that the insects have taken over after the extinction of humans — fits right in with Kuper’s political comics. It is quite fitting for Kuper to include an extended piece on how ants were turned into horror movie monsters as Hollywood’s answer to the atomic bomb and the threat of nuclear war. How the ants in Kuper’s book respond to this part of the insect exhibition is priceless. So, ants are the bad guys? Not even close! But Hollywood’s inclination to demonize insects is not completely off the mark. Insects have brought humans to their knees many a time. As Kuper points out in the book, many a conqueror (Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Alaric, Atilla the Hun) have been killed or maimed by mosquito-transmitted malaria.

Kuper’s art dazzles the eye and his writing enchants accordingly. He conjures up a dreamy world that allows readers to let down their guard and consider the big picture issues of how we humans and the planet do more than merely co-exist. One very moving vignette in the book features two prominent environmental scholars: Rachel Carson (1907-1964) and Margaret Collins (1922-1996). A dragonfly is treated to a conversation with both of them, or at least their ghosts, who shapeshift from children to adults. They age as matters discussed grow more serious. For Carson, it relates to the fallout that came from her tremendously popular book, Silent Spring (1962), warning about the indiscriminate use of the insecticide DDT. Seeing this as a threat to their lucrative business, chemical companies branded her a communist. Collins, a Black female academic in the 1950s, had to struggle with the sexism and racism of the era, but that didn’t stop her from becoming an expert on termites, which led to her working at various universities and becoming president of the prestigious Entomological Society.

Kuper rises to the challenge and beautifully harnesses the power of the comics medium to create a unique resource. His masterful use of words and pictures will no doubt compel the reader to engage and seek out more. Among the insect-friendly scholars quoted in this book is E.O. Wilson who said: “There are millions of species of organisms, and we know almost nothing about them.” Well, we have no time to lose to connect with our fellow Earth inhabitants. Consider Kuper’s book a great first step to getting better acquainted.

The post Insectopolis: A Natural History appeared first on The Comics Journal.