Mouse Trap
Lauren Norby, 8 pgs, self-published,@laurennorby, $6
Mouse Trap is a quick little Risograph comic from Montana-based artist Lauren Norby. Joe and Rosalyn, two mice, find a cracker, and proceed to make mildly explicit mouse love. In the afterglow, Joe thinks about what else is out there, wanting something more. What’s beyond the driveway and shed that make up their tiny world? Are there more mice besides Rosalyn and his family? It’s a big world. What’s a mouse to do? Mouse Trap isn’t the longest (or even the largest) of zines, but Norby has an eye for dialogue that makes up for the briefness of the material. Joe and Rosalyn sound like they are straight out of any romantic drama or soap opera, and the (pardon the pun) cheesiness works well with the small figures of the mice. The red Riso ink adds a suitable sense of anger to the dialogue. Norby gets a lot of face time out of the characters, with each going through about three different expressions per page, each funnier than the last. Mouse Trap doesn’t last long, but when everything is landing as well as it does here, it doesn’t really have to. I hope Joe finds what he’s looking for.