FF1992: The Librarian

The Librarian by Penny Moran Van Horn.

Is that Steve Jobs?

Penny Moran Van Horn had earlier published short pieces in Weirdo and Twisted Sisters, but this was her first (and only, I think) solo publication (except the Recipe for Disaster and Other Stories compilation published later).

The story is about a slum lord librarian who is cursed (by voodoo) and then re-educated. Very odd.

The artwork is in Penny Moran Van Horn’s usual scratchboard style, but with typeset text floating around. I’m not quite sure that the juxtaposition of the very formal-looking text and the images here work as well as they should.

It’s frequently very fetching, like here, but some of the pages (like the one above this one above here (err)) seem slightly disjointed. But pleasurable to look at, nonetheless. I seem to recall her shorter stories from Twisted Sisters being very strong.

Her last published work was in 1998.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

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