The Last Delivery: When the End Times Come, I Probably Won't Be Invited to This Party

Evan Dahm's latest graphic novel is a killer piece of horrible comedy that's like a howl of despair as the world falls down around us.

The Last Delivery
By Evan Dahm
Published by Iron Circus Comics
Out on June 11, 2024
Buy it

Evan Dahm is a cartoonist who has been quietly toiling away in the world of comics for nearly 20 years. He’s been honing his craft throughout this time, coming up with endless fascinating imagery, but I don’t know if he’s received much in the way of attention outside of webcomics circles. One of these days, one of his comics is going to break through, win some awards, and bring him the fame and fortune that comes to all great comics artists (as long as we’re thinking wistfully). Maybe this will be the one, who knows?

Fortunately, Dahm does have a following, with thousands of people regularly reading the comics he posts online and hopefully buying the collected editions, as well as the other graphic novels he’s published, such as The Harrowing of Hell. I haven’t done too much to help, having only sampled his work here and there. I’ve liked what I’ve read, but most of his work is among the countless pieces of art and culture that I haven’t gotten around to yet.

Thus, The Last Delivery is the first full-length work of Dahm’s I’ve read, and it’s good enough to make me want to dive in and experience more of his comics. Unlike some of Dahm’s comics, which take place in a fully-realized world he’s created with its own culture and languages, this is a standalone work. It’s something of a metaphorical story, although not specific enough to be a one-to-one allegory of anything in the real world, at least as far as I can tell. Instead, it’s fairly symbolic, giving off recognizable vibes that people living in our current age can probably recognize.

The story, such as it is, involves a delivery guy who looks kind of like a turtle man, but instead of a shell, he spends most of the book carrying around a large box on his back. After trekking through a wasteland, he shows up at an ominous-looking mansion to make a delivery, but actually finishing the job is going to be harder than he expected. Inside the mansion, he finds a wild party going on, with all manner of creatures engaging in drunken debauchery. Nobody will sign for the package, so he’s forced to make his way through a raucous crowd of people who are quick to engage in violence, always ignoring his requests and only occasionally vaguely gesturing in the direction that maybe he’s supposed to go to find the house’s resident and complete the delivery.

That’s about all there is to the story, so it ends up being a harrowing trip through a world gone mad. The party-goers are all depicted as fantastical creatures, with some of them looking like animals such as crocodiles or monkeys, and others kind of like old-timey cartoon characters or basic rounded shapes with facial features. Many of them dwarf the delivery boy in size, making them seem intimidating and dangerous, especially when they get angry that he’s not going along with the festivities.

The book ends up taking on the feel of a quest as our main character, who seems heroic against the indifference or outright hostility that he constantly faces, encounters setback after setback but still keeps struggling to finish his goal. He’s just trying to finish his job, and maybe he could have just left the package inside the door or something, but once he’s gone far enough, he has to finish the task, no matter how much physical and emotional damage he suffers while doing so.

As everything proceeds, it seems like there has to be some sort of meaning to it all, or at least that Dahm has some sort of message he’s trying to convey. It’s never explicitly stated though, so it’s up to us to provide our own interpretations. From my perspective, it seems to be a commentary on the decadence of our modern society as it crumbles around us. So many people are focused on meaningless, self-destructive pursuits, with no objective other than pleasure, or at least making enough noise to mask the approaching horrors.

That’s what seems to be going on here, with the party-goers growing increasingly violent as the story goes on, while also seeming offended when things don’t go as expected or when the delivery guy doesn’t participate. At the same time, there’s an underclass of workers who are attempting to keep things operating, and they’re just doing their jobs while also being completely indifferent to the plights of others. This weird environment seems to run on death and destruction, forcing characters to mutilate themselves and others and even accepting self-harm as a form of payment. It’s scarily reminiscent of modern American society (and probably much of the rest of the world as well) and spoiler alert, it’s all meaningless, with no answers about why anything is happening and no rewards for anyone’s efforts.

That’s all pretty bleak, but we live in bleak times, so it’s fitting. However, Dahm provides plenty to enjoy along the way. He’s created a fascinating, grotesque world here, fully defining the spaces where all the depravity is taking place and making us feel every bump, bruise, and stab wound our “hero” experiences. There’s plenty of well-written dialogue, with characters making pronouncements like “Charming ingrates and meanderers, drunks, addled fuckabouts, flirters and jitterers—now—the snapping hour is now!” The action is smooth and dynamic, all taking place in well-rendered environments, with the main party taking place in circus-like rooms that are reminiscent of the architecture of Dr. Seuss, and the corridors behind the scenes being a bunch of dank passageways full of ducts and conduits.

It’s a beautiful book, full of striking moments, gorgeous detail, and emotions ranging from manic euphoria to despair. Dahm has created another fascinating world here, only to destroy it before our eyes and make us feel a sense of desperation as we’ve lost all control over our path of decadence, depravity, and destruction. It’s a book that fits right into the state of our lives in the 2020s. I can only hope that we’ll be able to look back on it and recognize the way we were feeling at the time before things got better rather than seeing it as a harbinger of the doom that was to come.