Rebecca Dart is a regular factory of comics, all of them pretty good, so it was with much anticipation that I perused the cover of what I presume will be a fairly regular anthology of her work. I looked at the cover, and I liked what I saw: a raggedy-Ann doll speared by a pencil, hanging limp under the snarling battle between a crow and a savage dog. “Free with every issue,” the cover says, “a squandered Soul!” Naturally, I figured that we were going to get some bad-ass occult stuff happening. I was a little surprised — this seemed a derivation from Dart’s previous work — but I was excited too. So when I finally opened up to the first story, I found that it was called I Like Crows. This was a pleasant comic essay on crows — a little history, a little personal anecdote etc. Not very dark, despite the shadow society casts over the innocent bird. The next story was a lot more like what I expected. Two rabbits battle it out in the hutch. There’s a surprise ending, I won’t spoil it for you, its lack of sentiment was more than refreshing. Skipping ahead a bit, I didn’t understand Flesh famine, good name, but I got bored trying to figure out what all those skeletons dressed as cowboys were arguing about. I think I missed the point. Here’s my point: Rebecca is a talented artist, but a lot of the work in this anthology seem like sketches for bigger ideas.
comic / #1 / publisher: Aries Press / main creator: Rebecca Dart / $1.75 / PO Box 1653, Chemainus, BC, V0B 1K0