Wandering Review

 

Wandering Review

Writer & Artist: Jonathan Djob Nkondo

Publisher: Magnetic Press

Hardcover Price: $29.99 US

Kindle Price: $19.99 US

Book Description: Black-and-White, 200 Pages

Release Date: October 20, 2026

 

Standing in a spotlight, a speaker addresses his audience. As an oddly shaped ring circles the planet overhead, another spotlight reveals more people encircling a fallen man. Surrounded by stage assistants, another actor waits in the wings. Then, he accepts a knife with a flame-shaped blade and enters the stage. A third spotlight accompanies him toward the actors in the second spotlight. What is the play about? And who is watching the production? Let's leap into Wandering and see!

 

Story

As the audience watches, the two spotlights touch. But when the actor, clad in robes and a hat, raises his knife, an attendee breaks the spell. The spectators watch the man navigate the narrow walkway between elevated rows of seating. Outside the auditorium, he walks past the towering columns in the lobby and two lovers on a narrow stairway. The man declines an incoming call. Then, he merges with the crowds packing the streets.

 

In Wandering, the man tries to immerse himself in his civilization. Yet he also seems a stranger to the city. He observes his surroundings as he walks, while those around him take little heed. The man gazes up at advertisements. He checks out a crowded marketplace. The traveler prefers watching to interacting as he drifts along, awaiting each discovery.

 

As Jonathan Djob Nkondo follows the man’s reawakening, his gaze occasionally drifts upward. Far above the central character, another man gazes around in wonder. While the man below walks past vehicles and technological marvels in a suit, the man on the surface wears shorts. He carries a spear. The surface dweller hunts for food. Unlike the man in the underground city, the man on the planet's surface seems at home in Wandering.

 

Art

One or two Black-and-White images per page tell this tale of two travelers. On the surface, the thin man with dreadlocks chases birds that evoke robots. Yet the V-shaped drones flying over the city below don't flap their wings. Machinery and conduits line walls seemingly extending into infinity. On the surface, the half-dressed man watches the city’s roof sections rise, tilt, and fall.

 

The man below ground often chews gum. An advertisement and a woman who approaches him suggest why he pursues this habit. Perhaps it also explains his renewed interest in his surroundings. Unlike him, many of the people around him experience their world with their eyes closed. Yet the poorest people watch passersby as they huddle in tents clustered in an encampment. Those slightly better off find joy in their lives, even if that means hurting others.

 

No thought balloons adorn the pages of Wandering. Although advertisements sport words, none appear in panel backgrounds or in the margins. Instead, readers ponder the thoughts, lives, and hopes of these two disconnected travelers on the surface and far below it. Thanks to Oni Press and Superfan Promotions for providing a review copy.

 

Final Thoughts

When a wealthy man grows disinterested in a scripted drama, he cuts himself off from his social network to experience life from another perspective. While he travels a world he inhabits but has never noticed, another man lives on the surface of their planet. Physical and social distance separate them. Yet both wonder what, if anything, their futures hold in Wandering.

 

Rating 9/10

 

Take a look inside and/or buy Wandering at Amazon.