Michael DeForge's latest, Birds of Maine collects the 455, full-color, six-panel, one-page strips that made up this series, in the process creating a world that offers an intriguing mirror to our own.  It is a world that is, apparently, an artificial environment on the moon, populated by anthropomorphized birds, wherein, ironically, life is able to harmonize with nature in a way that has been lost to humans on earth.   It is also one of constant continual communication – between birds, yes, but also, evidently, between trees and fungus, and even a human being, one that is filled with meditations on mortality and meaning, sound and vision, organizing principles and chaos – and with a library at it's center.  

The mis-en-scène of Birds of Maine presents us with a semiotic free for all, where every object and act is simultaneously a sign.  There is much æsthetic pleasure to be had in these pages, as well.  DeForge, who has at this point in his career produced a prodigious number of comics pages, has developed a mastery of the form that allows him to – seemingly – effortlessly balance color and composition with an inherent sense of pacing.  Each of these 455 pages is both a building block of a world, and a treat in and of itself.  But there's more.  Along the way a story takes shape...