Ba’al-Zebub’s Birthday

Yellow paper is a perfect choice for an illustrated litzine about a giant fly in a suit talking to a bartender. I commend Daniel for that. His woodcut illustrations are also well done and bring a certain flare to the aforementioned bartender and giant fly in a suit.

What starts out as a comic devolves into what is essentially an illustrated dialogue between the two characters. Likewise their mildly interesting conversation quickly devolves into long rambling paragraphs with the fly explaining how he went from being a god to an office worker. This is just really not interesting or exciting or funny or intriguing — qualities which one usually looks for in a story. Instead it’s just odd.

Despite its short length (the entire story is eight pages long) you still wind up feeling like you’ve been robbed of precious time by the time you hit the conclusion. (Harley R. Pageot)

Litzine, Daniel Barclay, theasbooks.com/bpbcomics, $2