Drown These Evil Spirits and Penetrate the Obstacles
comic zine, Dana Kearley, 8pgs, danakearley.com, $10
With no one going on Tumblr anymore, and Twitter a burning hellhole, the need for good illustration zines is now more crucial than ever. Dana Kearley’s Drown These Evil Spirits and Penetrate the Obstacles is one of them.
Comprising seven drawings and one comic, the zine is a sparse eight pages, but when the work is this good, it would be showing off to have it be any longer. Kearley leaves you wanting more, encouraging you to actively seek out more of her work, which you definitely should.
The illustrations in Drown These Evil Spirits and Penetrate the Obstacles reminded me of fashion photography, the characters posing for no one in particular, their spectacular and voluminous outfits billowing out around them, making the line between body and clothing indistinguishable. A figure sits with a flower and a bow, one adjusts their legging, a group poses together, faces blurring and bodies colliding.
The sole comic in the zine, “Scorpion,” is a wordless seven panels. A figure is approached by a scorpion, which mounts them and departs with their eyes. The figure remains motionless, with the scorpion’s movement consisting only of a single rotation. It’s brief, quick, and over before it begins. It’s superb.
A zine doesn’t need to be overloaded with content, and Kearley excels at proving that here. Drown These Evil Spirits and Penetrate the Obstacles is a brief read, but it more than makes up for that in quality.