Mr. Lovenstein Presents: Feelings by J.L. Westover

I’ve seen plenty of Mr Lovenstein panels and cartoons floating around as memes on social media, but it never occurred to me that these were actually part of a regular webcomic. Thank goodness for books collecting this material so that people like me can finally understand what the rest of the Internet has been going on about for ages!

The Mr Lovenstein comics themselves are fairly basic, usually consisting of three or four panels each, with a “secret” panel (in this book printed on the overleaf) that serves as an extra punch line. Each comic deals with a seemingly innocuous yet emotion-filled slice of life, usually transforming a dark everyday moment into something humorous, if not outright uplifting. This collection focuses on feelings, and runs the gamut from joy to affirmation to anxiety to annoyance to envy to grief to despair, with tons else covered in-between. It can sometimes feel shockingly deep in the way it pokes at the emotional welter of everyday life, teasing out the moments that so many of us encounter but don’t really want to talk about for fear of being misunderstood. Not everyone has friends they can reliably talk to about, for example, feeling angry or horny or proud of themselves without feeling judged (and shout-out here to my bestie Karin, who has listened to and supported me through some of my darkest times! I am very lucky to have her in my life.)

So books like these, that remind readers of the universality of their experiences by being achingly but also hilariously vulnerable, are truly invaluable. I never really figured out who Mr Lovenstein is (the sweaty yellow figure on the cover, I presume) and since I’m being completely honest, the only character I can actually identify after the fact is Milo, the BEST cat ever. But you really don’t need to know who these cartoon characters are because they represent Everyperson, being so rudimentarily described as to make their individuality a moot point. The real purpose of these figures is to channel the emotions and embody the situations that all of us readers are going through: having them be memorable enough to attach identities to defeats the purpose because they’re meant to be any and perhaps every one of us.

The art thus is overall fairly basic except in one crucial way: the expressiveness of the characters. J. L. Westover does so much with just a few figurative lines, and combines each expression perfectly with its speech bubble or caption. The colors tend towards contrasting solids with a preference for pastels, a visual palette that underscores the act of finding humor in pathos and how these cartoons are, ultimately, meant to be comforting. The influence of pop art and particularly Keith Haring are impossible to deny, as Mr Westover turns his eye to the interior struggle of readers trying to find meaning and worth in a late-capitalist society. He might not intend to use his webcomic as a way to fight back against a system that happily reduces people to cogs and tells us we’re wrong for wanting more, but his relentless validation of readers’ feelings of alienation and dissatisfaction while pointing out the absurdity of modern life is balm and bolster to the tired soul.

Mr Westover’s afterword is perhaps the most moving part of this collection. In it, he talks about losing a dear friend and how he’s used the act of creating more Mr Lovenstein strips to help him process his grief. 2023 was a year of tremendous loss for me, but his final bonus comic helped make me feel better about finally being well on the road to healing and acceptance. Feelings are hard, but Mr Lovenstein is genuinely helpful in showing readers that there are many positive ways to deal with them. Recommended.

Mr. Lovenstein Presents: Feelings by J.L. Westover was published October 1 2024 by Image Comics and is available from all good booksellers, including