Remy Boydell’s 920London And The Comfort In Feeling Doomed

Sometimes all you really need is someone around that recognizes how hopeless everything is.

Upon cursory examination, Remy Boydell’s graphic novel 920London seems like a distinctly modern project. Something that could only have come out the past decade or so. A nostalgic love-letter to the Myspace-era, Hot Topic and the goth-inspired music scenes of the 00s. Anthropomorphic “furry” imagery with a decidedly DeviantArt aesthetic. Frank, unapologetic discussion of gender dysphoria and queer romance and despair.

However, one of the first books that came to mind when I read it was the anarchic Dennis Cooper/Keith Mayerson 1996 collaboration Horror Hospital Unplugged. I found echoes of other contemporary work such as Kevin Thomas’s enigmatic 1994 one-off Caliber Presents: Cinderella On Fire. While Remy himself has his own set of influences he proudly wears on his sleeve, it can’t be denied that the styling, the atmosphere, and the angst of 920London settles into a comfortable vignette of doomed queer love found in media as disparate as Greg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy and 2013 point-and-click adventure game Gone Home.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.