Comics Daze

OK, gotta read gotta read gotta read some comics.

And for music, let’s got with… albums from 1975. Sure.

David Bowie: Young Americans

16:45: Flake by Matthew Dooley (Jonathan Cape)

Hm… the name seems familiar, but I can’t quite place it…

Well, my immediate reaction to the artwork isn’t very positive — it looks like it’s a derivation from art inspired by Chris Ware, like somebody who’s really into Ethan Persoff. But like it’s drawn in Photoshop. And then there’s Nick Drnaso smothered all over it. I realise that probably everybody who’s doing comics from major publishers (that are supposed to be “literary” as opposed to YA, etc) probably get told MAKE IT LOOK LIKE DRNASO these days, and it’s a horrific development.

(And also… Scott Russo and somehow Al Columbia, too?)

But… this is quite amusing. The distanced artwork somehow makes the jokes land harder.

That’s a solid joke.

Anyway, I’m not quite sure what to make of this book. It’s quite well-told, it’s amusing, and it’s a bit affecting, too. But reading it, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps it was a parody of something, although I’m not quite sure what. (And there’s the sci-fi aspect of a guy apparently making enough from an ice cream van to support his family (but perhaps the wife makes all the £££ — typically, we’re never told what she does, I think?).) It does read a bit like a pitch for a feel-good slightly kooky British movie.

It’s a fine book. Although the artwork is hard to get enthusiastic about.

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here

17:38: A Home Without by Don Gaddis (Northwest Press)

This is a pretty harrowing book of domestic abuse.

The problem with it is that it reads like a series of vignettes instead of a story — there’s no feeling of time passing, so I wondered whether we were just getting a bunch of anecdotes about how much his abusive father sucked. But then towards the end, we leave the static setting and things change, and that’s jarring, too.

So the overarching storytelling doesn’t quite work, which is a shame, because the artwork’s attractive and the page-by-page storytelling is strong.

17:57: Copra 44 by Michael Fiffe

Always fun to get a new issue of Copra in the mail.

As usual, I have absolutely no idea what is going on — I always forget who all the characters are between the issues. And as usual, that’s fine, because the book is fun to read in a state of complete befuddlement, anyway.

Joni Mitchell: The Hissing Of Summer Lawns

18:07: A Gleaming by Adam de Souza

This looks really attractive. Love how it flows so apparently natural.

And… it’s fantastic! The storytelling is so assured — it makes the reader work a bit at understanding what’s happening; getting the reader involved emotionally at the same time. And he sets up all these characters (at least a dozen?), but manages to keep them all distinct.

It’s a lovely book, and I’ll be on the lookout for further issues. Hm… oh, it’s out years ago. I guess I just have to find somebody selling it.

18:27: Acid Nun by Corinne Halbert

This is wild.

And also cathartic. It’s good.

18:37: Hobo Mom by Charles Forsman & Max de Radigués (Fantagraphics)

This feels a bit like a throwback to something you’d find in anthologies in the 90s. It’s barely a story at all, but expanded to quite a few pages.

It’s also just set in a squishy kind of past or present that’s hard to believe in. The “hobo mom” travels on oldee tymey train cars, while the rest of the book seems to be set in… er… the 60s? There’s a beetle car… I dunno; it didn’t quite make sense to me.

And always with the rape as character development.

Brian Eno: Another Green World

18:49: A Frog in the Fall (and later on) by Linnea Sterte (Peow)

This is a lovely book. I mean, as an object — it’s in a slipcase so that it looks like a vertical book, but it’s a horizontal one with this nice “naked” spine.

And… it’s really good. It’s a fable of sorts, I guess, or just a story about a kid going out into the world with some possibly shady characters.

I guess the obvious touchstone here is A Wind in the Willows.

But this is it’s own thing — it’s quite unique. There’s a slight feeling of menace throughout, because we don’t know the rules of this world — are the cats going to eat the frog and the mice, or are they going to dance with them? It’s a whimsical book, and feels magical. It’s really special: The lovely artwork, the meandering story, the wistful tone, and, yes, the physical book. I love it, and if I’d read it in 2022, it would have been on my “best of 2022” list.

The Residents: The Third Reich ‘n Roll

19:19: Clusterfux Comix #3-4 & FCBD edited by Cameron Hatheway

The third issue follows in the footsteps of the previous ones.

A mix of horror and humour, I guess.

The FCBD book is mostly illustrations, but also has a few one-page strips.

The fourth issue has longer stories, and I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing altogether. There’s a strong point of view here, but it’s mostly rather unpleasant (instead of being horror), and the storytelling mostly isn’t up to snuff.

There’s some pleasantly absurd pieces here too, though.

I feel like perhaps the editor should be editing a bit more, because it’s slightly exhausting to read as is — it’s too much of the same thing.

Kraftwerk: Exceller 8

20:06: Parenthesis by Ëlodie Durand (Top Shelf)

Yet another Top Shelf book I’ve missed — I feel like their books fly below the radar a lot these days. (Oh, many of the more book-like books (like this) in today’s haul are from a sale at a bookstore here.)

The back cover says that Fnac praised this as one of the ten best comics about illness ever. That’s… er… er… is that high praise?

But this is really good. The artwork is expressive which allows the storytelling to be really straightforward. There’s no special pleading or mystification going on here — Durand describes her experience in as clear as way as she can: Both what she remembers (which sometimes isn’t a lot (we’re talking brain tumour)), and constant later corrections from her parents about what was really happening.

The effect is heartbreaking. It’s a really moving book that’s not maudlin for a millisecond.

Robert Wyatt: Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard

20:59: Det grymma svärdet edited by Fredrik Jonsson (Lystring)

Last time around, I had stumbled onto the final issue of this long-running Swedish anthology, and I got a box of older issues in the mail the other day. So here I pick one at random — this is a thick one from 2020. (The series seems to have no set size or format.)

This anthology had its finger on the pulse (of 2020) (Simon Hanselmann.)

It’s got a very clear editorial point of view. The vast majority of the pieces are drawn on paper, and most of them are pencil only (Rikke Villadsen). So it’s “the other” stream in art comics in the past decade.

It’s also virtually all narrative pieces, where most of them have clear stories , like this excellent piece by Joanna Hellgren.

Some of the pieces are more jokey (HTMLflowers).

Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Kate & Anna McGarrigle

Just when I thought it was all going to be pencils (and coloured pencils), there’s Tommi Parrish.

And there’s also a bunch of text pieces here.

The most dominant stream in art comics the last decade was Instagram/cartoon/Corporate Memphis stuff, and a couple of pieces from that lineage have snuck in here, too (Aisha Franz). They do stick out awkwardly in this company.

Anyway, looks like it was indeed a brilliant anthology series, so I guess I’ll be reading all of it…

21:52: Action Hospital 1 by Dave Baker and friends

Wow, you can get whiplash from reading comics… this is, er, not… quite… Actually, I have no idea how I came to buy this book, so I had no expectations. But it seems like it’s a sci-fi action kind of thing? I like that, so let’s go.

Unfortunately… the storytelling is really clunky, and the artwork varies wildly from chapter to chapter (there’s one writer and different artists). And I just lost interest in this, completely, after about 20 pages.

So I ditched it.

Betty Davis: Nasty Gal

22:11: The Story of Bern by Dorothy Iannone

This is printed the same way as Doucet’s Time Zone J — but it made more sense there, as that was drawn as a continuous scroll, while this is just single pages…

Anyway, this was originally published in 1970, and it tells the story about censorship at an art show in Bern. So we get a lot of discussion between a handful of characters about whether to remove the work from the show or not, and… it feels more like a way to document what happened than as something that’s meant to be fun to read.

But the artwork’s pretty appealing, and it’s a handsome book, anyway.

Keith Jarrett: The Köln Concert

22:24: Alltid hejdå by Alma Thörn (Galago)

Back in very popular genre land again — this is about growing up and stuff, and it’s set 20 years ago, so I’m guessing it’s (partially?) autobiographical.

Because it’s kinda high concept as these things go — it’s about a girl (of divorced parents) visiting her father, but she’s found her mother’s diary from when her mother was 12 — and mother’s parents were getting divorced.

So we get both of these timelines, and we see the connections between the grandmother/mother/daughter… and it’s interesting. But the storytelling is sometimes kinda choppy, because she features more than a handful of secondary characters, and it’s hard to keep up with who’s who — I’ve found myself flipping back pages half a dozen time now to confirm just who these people are.

But at about the halfway point, things straighten out a bit (so to speak), and it becomes riveting. And very moving.

23:04: Revolver-Harry by Jakob Nilsson (Kartago)

This book presents itself as being the biography of a guy called Harry Södermark, and I have no idea whether that’s true or not (I don’t know from famous Swedes).

The colour palette isn’t very appealing — it’s all very muted and dreary. But I do like how he draws buildings. It’s very Tardiesque, right? The figures are less like Tardi — or rather, they’re as if… uhm… you told Jacques Martin to try to substitute for Tardi. On a Cintiq! Or something!

Oh, heh heh. I guess the Tardi homage is explicit…

The book doesn’t make much dramatic sense. We get one anecdote after another from his life, and we skip back and forth in time. After 120 pages of this stuff, I realised that I had kinda stopped paying attention to what I was reading, and I think that’s a signal that I should stop. So I did.

Kraftwerk: Radio-Activity

23:51: The Grande Odalisque/Olympia by Vivès/Ruppert + Mulot (Fantagraphics)

This is two big albums in one slipcase.

This is very pretty, and it’s not what I expected from Ruppert & Mulot — it’s a fast-paced, jokey heist movie. I mean comic. It’s got all the clichés, and has a lot of fun with them.

It’s a good read. It’s really appealing, and feels like a real epic. So I’m wondering if anybody has done an adaptation of this, because it seems ready-made for a Michael Bay adaptation. (Some of the set pieces were so similar to what Bay did in 6 Underground that I started to wonder whether that was somehow the adaptation of this, only they’d changed the women into Ryan Reynolds. It could happen!)

But no — Netflix is doing the adaptation now, apparently.

David Bowie: Station To Station (1)

After making such a successful album, I totally understand why they’d want to make another one. But they unfortunately decided to make the characters deeper, and deal with loss and stuff, and that makes the first half of Olympia less than thrilling reading.

However, the last half brings the fun again, and the resolution to the storyline is so flabbergastingly over the top that I’m at loss for words.

I know!

So… *four thumbs up* (I see that the nerds over at bedetheque do not like these albums much.)

Patti Smith: Horses

01:08: Jerome K Jerome Bloche integrale 6 by Dodier (Zoom)

I’ve been living under the delusion all these years that this series was rather naff. And indeed the first couple of albums aren’t all that great, but once artist Dodier took over the writing himself, it became a whole nother thing — charming and smart.

So I’ve been reading these collections slowly over the last few months, and this one is the only one left. *sniff*

I really enjoy the way Dodier draws Paris. It gives a real sense of location to the series — there’s nothing generic going on here.

The second album has a kinda cliched plot concept, but the resolution is quite original.

And the final album here is properly original — a mystery involving a painting and stuff.

Dodier is still doing this series, and they’re up to 28 albums, so hopefully the Danes are going to get around to translating them all…

Richard and Linda Thompson: Hokey Pokey

02:22: The End

And now I should go to bed, but: Jamie Coville has just dropped his combined Best of 2022 list. Those are always useful to see whether there’s something I’ve missed buying, and fun to see how far down any of my pics are…

Ducks by Kate Beaton won — I’m not at all surprised. I didn’t think it was quite all that, but it’s good, so that’s a fine choice.

I’ve read some of the rest of the top 10… Oh! I haven’t read the Jim Woodring book! I thought it was just a collection of old stuff, but there’s a 100 new pages. Well, I’ve gotta order that, then.

The rest of the books that I haven’t read don’t look very interesting to me.

The first appearance of something I have on my “Best of” list is the Julie Doucet book — at #24, if I counted correctly. Let’s see… anything more… man, there’s a lot of tedious stuff on that list, or books that are “well, that’s a somewhat professionally-made book of that kind”. I’m down to the Top 50, and I’ve read quite a few of the books, and it’s just so… unambitious.

Well, these two are fine.

OK, that’s an art comic, at least.

Well, that’s good.

Yeah, only a single book from my list made it to the “five or more” section of the combined table. Whoho! I’ve still got it!

Julie Tippetts: Sunset Glow

02:37: The End For Real

It’s sleepy time.

February Music

Music I’ve bought in February.

Haven’t really been buying much this month — it’s mostly just random bits and pieces. Hm… oh, it’s almost all old albums, isn’t it? Or albums from people who’ve been around for quite a while.

Home (feat. Anna B Savage)

One pleasant surprise was the new Orbital album — it sounds very early 90s, but in a pleasant way. That is, it could almost have been released at the time, and wouldn’t have felt out of place. I lost interest in Orbital in the late 90s, so getting a new “old classic” album was unexpected.

“Martin”

The biggest mystery in musical history is why there were so many songs called “Martin” released over a few short years. I’ve got albums with at least four:

Tom Robinson Band (77).

Tom Robinson (81). So this is a kind of followup to the first one, I guess.

Soft Cell (83). But this is a different Martin?

Normil Hawaiians (84). And so is this?

Perhaps Martin’s just a funny name?

It’s a mystery.

Comics Daze

It’s a pretty nice day today, but I gotta get some comics reading done. I was planning on cutting back a bit on my comics buying, but that plan hasn’t quite worked out. It’s like I’m still mentally stuck in an age where there was a dearth of comics worth reading, so whenever I see something interesting it’s GOTTA HAVE GOTTA READ.

So let’s go.

And… I’m gonna continue listening to music from 1982/83, just because.

New Musik: Warp

09:24: Kuš Minis #111-114 (Kuš)

Marco Quadri’s mini is a sly look at corporate culture. It’s fun.

*gasp* It cannot be! A new comic from Gina Wynbrandt! Someone Please Have Sex With Me is one of my favourite books — it’s pure genius.

So this is like a big event.

And… this mini is really funny, and also heartbreaking. Excellent stuff. More Wynbrandt books, plz.

Michael Fikaris does a slightly abstract thing about social media and abbrvs.

João Fazenda’s mini is about going home again, and where the magic may or may not be. Love the colours and the wistful story.

Grace Jones: Living My Life

09:49: The Face of Struggle by Seth Tobocman (AK Press)

This is a little wordless book about… yes.

It’s good, and it has a happy ending that, unfortunately, seems way too optimistic.

09:54: Fractures #1 by Aaron Wolfgang Crowe (Colossive Press)

This is a really intense book.

It’s a harrowing retelling of an assault by a disgruntled customer — the storytelling is unusual in that it’s extremely detailed, with minute details about what happened. It’s good, got my blood really pumping, and I can’t wait for the next issue.

10:10: Mid Career Survey by Dean Knight (Landfill Editions)

I was checking out the Landfill web site to see whether they had anything new (or old that I had missed). No comics, but a couple of books of artworks — and virtually everything is sold out? Are they shutting down? It’s a pity, because they’ve published a bunch of extremely interesting stuff.

This is nice — it’s a mix of watercolours (I think) and ceramics. (Most of the ceramics are abstract ashtrays.)

10:16: Full Gas by Charlie Duck (Landfill Editions)

It’s cool.

And there’s hands.

Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft: Für Immer

10:31: My Beijing by Nie Jun (Graphic Universe)

For the first couple of stories here, I found this book to be insufferably saccharine.

But then things snapped into focus (or perhaps the two last stories were much better). The third story is actually moving, and the fourth story is really sweet.

And the artwork, which I didn’t much enjoy to begin with, also grew on me.

10:50: Blood on the Tracks 1 by Shuzo Oshimi (Vertical)

Nice.

The storytelling here is really odd — there’s all there… pauses… that… don’t… seem… to really be… motivated by the subject matter. I mean, it’s just a simple domestic drama thing, right?

RIGHT?!?!

OK, I’ve got buy the next volume… Eek! There’s 15 volumes! OK, got the next five volumes, at least.

Chris & Cosey: Trance

11:09: Godhead 2 by Ho Che Anderson (Fantagraphics)

What’s happened? Anderson’s artwork used to be totally gorgeous… I guess he’s stopped using pen and paper and is now just doing stuff on the data computing machine?

The story’s pretty basic, too, underneath the rather confusing storytelling — it’s just impossible to keep the characters distinct. Fortunately they spout off reams of Golden Age of Quality TV-like expositions.

It’s a really goofy book. I’m still not sure whether Anderson meant this as a parody of people like Benjamin Marra, or whether he’s been inspired by those people, but it’s… it’s… goofy.

But if you don’t expect more from this than an action/heist TV series with robots with funny heads, you won’t be disappointed.

Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel 4

12:16: Snakkebob by Tim Ng Tvedt (Jippi forlag)

Very conceptual.

It’s basically phrases repeated again and again in a very insistent way. It’s hypnotic and makes for propulsive reading. It’s great!

(And I’m guessing the artist has seen Gerald Jablonski.)

David Bowie: Baal

12:30: Magical Beatdown 3 by Jenn Woodall (Silver Sprocket)

This is a lot of fun.

It’s the perfect spurt of pure gleeful energy. Whee.

Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

12:36: Epoxy 3 by John Pham

I read all the other issues of this a few weeks back, but I finally scored a copy of this issue.

Heh heh Jack Kamen.

The first half of this book is a masterful story where we follow about half a dozen characters at a fair, where their paths intersect in various ways. It’s absolutely amazing — the storytelling is so assured, and everything seems to make sense in a sort of slippery, intuitive way. It’d be hard to describe what happens, really — but reading it, it has such emotional impact, and feels to vital and exciting.

Absolutely amazing.

There’s some smaller pieces, and then a epic involving the search for Astro Girl and a robot monster valley, and it’s drawn in a very adventuresome way — I guess some Acme Novelty Library influence? It’s great, too — Pham manages to do these intriguing layouts without the reader getting lost.

Joni Mitchell: Wild Things Run Fast

13:34: Earthman by Robert Nunn (Floating World)

This is allegedly a comic book drawn in the 70s and printed in the 90s that’s now been rediscovered. Tales like that usually aren’t true, but this one is? (Or perhaps they’ve hacked some databases.)

I guess I see what the attraction is — it’s “outsider art” for sure.

It’s kinda fun.

And there’s also some new bits.

They also include The Torch, which is about being against male nakedness and sissy behaviours. I sense… issues…

King Crimson: Beat

14:11: Liv & død (Magicon forlag)

Ah, this is a book made for an exhibition at a technical museum, and it’s about inventions like resuscitation training dolls, which is actually pretty interesting.

But also stories about being ill.

And corona. Very topical.

When I saw that this was an exhibition catalogue, I expected it to be dreary, but it’s pretty good.

Kate Bush: The Dreaming

14:29: Stretching

I need to stretch my legs (and buy some bread). Back in an hour!

15:21: Let There Be Light by Liana Finck (Random House)

Oh, god. This is one of those “religious damage” books. So Finck is apparently working through hers by adapting the bible.

The artwork is passable, but if you’re not Christian (or in recovery from being Christian), it’s distilled tedium.

I ditched it after 40 pages.

Depeche Mode: A Broken Frame

15:37: Why Don’t You Love Me? by Paul B. Rainey (Drawn & Quarterly)

Oh deer. This is one of those continuous-story-told-as-separate-strips kind of things, which isn’t really my favourite format. The constant start-and-stop is tiresome — unless the story really warrants it, and then it can be good.

But this is pretty tiresome. It seems like it’s a slightly absurd look at a depressed, alcoholic family? So I was ready to ditch this after 20 pages — none of the jokes were funny, and it didn’t seem interesting as a whole.

But then I read on the back that that’s what Neil Gaiman thought, too, but that it gets better or something? So I soldiered on for another thirty pages and… zilch. But I’m guessing that perhaps they’re trapped in some kind of loop or something?

Anyway: *ditch*

[Edit: While putting the stack of comics away the day after, I thought “well, perhaps I could finish this book” and I did. It… wasn’t worth it. I mean, the twists are pretty good, but the storytelling is still tedious. If he’d done away with the “Sunday strip” format, it might have been an OK book.]

16:05: Dracula by Alberto Breccia (Fantagraphics)

Wow, awesome art from Breccia. But is it supposed to look this desaturated? I mean, it’s quite possible, but it would certainly have popped more on glossy paper. (And I normally dislike glossy paper, but perhaps it would have made sense here?)

While the artwork’s great, the stories all have simple “ironic” twist endings, so that’s not really very thrilling.

Talking Heads: The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads

16:13: Joseph Smith and the Morons by Noah Van Sciver (Abrams)

Uh-oh. Well, I quite like Noah Van Sciver, so while this is the sort of thing I would normally avoid with every last fibre of my being (it’s a comics biography — they usually suck, and it’s religious — that always sucks), I bought it anyway.

I’m girding myself for some serious ditchage.

Yeah, I have no interest in this. Van Sciver’s artwork’s fine, but the storytelling is pretty plodding, and I’m guessing he wants to cover every nook and cranny of Joseph Smith’s various con jobs.

I’m sure ex-Mormons will find a lot to snicker about here, though.

16:36: Code 3;5 Burnout by Lale Westwind (Colorama)

This is a sci-fi story, but it’s very odd indeed — I couldn’t really make heads or tails of it.

But the artwork is great.

16:52: Void Packer by Lale Westwind

Westwind says in the introduction not to post too many snaps of this book online, so you only get one panel.

The book is great, though — Westwind is branching out in many different directions, and the artwork has never looked better. The stories are pretty exciting, too.

17:00: I’m A Cop and Failure Biographies by Johnny Damm

Both these books combine quotations with images from old comic books as well as photography. The first book quotes a bunch of cops.

The second, which is more interesting, I think, is about “failed” artists, and has a lot of information that I didn’t know… and that I don’t know whether is true or not, so er uhm.

But interesting nonetheless.

It all works quite well, but I don’t know how much these juxtapositions really add to anything. The Venus de Milo thing was good, and I quite like these strips with the more stark colouring.

Robert Wyatt: Nothing Can Stop Us

18:01: Jerome K. Jerome Bloche integrale 3 by ()

I had read the first Bloche album (or so) back in the 90s, and I was extremely unimpressed. But the first two albums were written by somebody else, and as I found out when I started reading these collections, when Dodier took over writing the book himself, it became something else — thoughtful, slightly wistful, but still amusing, and with very original plots.

So I’ve slowly been reading these, and I’ve been very impressed so far.

And nobody has time for any food cookery while reading comics, so takeout from a new pizza place again.

And this one is… hey, it’s quite good. Very yummy parma and nicely crispy crust.

But very salt!

Scritti Politti: Songs to Remember

And this is also really good. Perhaps it’s the pizza that’s giving me So Many Emotions, but it’s more than a bit touching in addition to being quite exciting. The series is obviously well inside the French(ey) comedy/detective genre, but is a bit more realist in rendering and less reliant on well-worn tropes than most.

Dodier is really adept at creating convincing characters (that are more than just a collection of tics), so the plots flow more or less naturally out of the characters and situations instead of being totally contrived (like, say, Ric Hochet).

Simple Minds: New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)

In the final album included here, Jerome K Jerome Bloche is even missing the entire album, and the other characters have to solve the mystery (which includes finding him). It’s fun.

And the artwork is really appealing, I think.

Tom Robinson: North by Northwest

19:51: Det grymma svärdet 43 (Lystring)

What the… it’s a Swedish anthology? That’s obviously been going for quite a while if this is the 43rd issue? And it’s a thick book. How weird that I’ve never stumbled across this before…

It’s a really good anthology. It’s very cohesive without being samey. (Jérôme Dubois.)

It’s not very heavy on narrative, although all the pieces are narrative (Anna Haifisch). That is, they mostly just sketch out a situation and then stop instead of having a longer plot.

It seems like the aesthetic is (as Chicks on Speed put it) “very now yesterday” (HTML flowers). That is, we get a large number of artists that have worked for about a decade or so? So it’s all one cohort of people, mostly, and it’s not the youngest cohort.

I’m not complaining or anything, but it’s definitely… striking (Simon Hanselmann)

Mostly very colourful stuff (Teddy Goldenberg).

It’s a solid anthology (Melek Zertal). And now I guess I have to find some way to buy older issues of this. (This is the final one — of course I discover it just when it ends.) Oh, it started 15 years ago. Hm… seems like earlier issues may or may not have been comics anthologies? Oh, and it looks like most of the issues are available from here? Well, that makes things easier.

Thomas Dolby: The Golden Age Of Wireless

20:33: Vision by Julia Gförer (Fantagraphics)

I happened onto this 2020 book in the bookstore yesterday at random. It’s so weird what books I miss — I mean, I pay attention to new comics being published, and I’m a Gförer fan, but I missed this one.

And it’s really, really good. Gförer’s line is freer, more sketch-like here than in the past, and it suits the story very well. And it’s a properly creepy little drama. Excellent.

20:53: The End

And now I’m completely exhausted — I’ve been reading comics for almost twelve hours with just a little break in the middle there. The day started off well, but then there were three pretty bad books I had to ditch, before ending the day with a number of strong books.