Cockratrice
Comic, James Lee, 16 pgs, [email protected]
An unusual piece of surrealist slop, James Lee’s Cockratice is a curious journey into the realm of WTF. Like Jurassic Park crossed with a KLF video (but totally like neither), this comic confounds in meaning or purpose. That’s OK. In lieu, the reader gets a chance to decipher its meaning and likely get lost in the process and try to read between the lines even though there are very, very few lines. Lee does a good job at keeping things abstract. It seems maybe this comic takes place in the afterlife (or an afterlife) but some of the imagery is actually quite lucid and mundane in its reality. Too alive to be dead, I guess. Otherwise, there are creepy druids hanging out in forests, some kissing, a church, a xylophone and much more. Seems like a central theme might be security and specifically, the vulnerability of youth and of love. That could purely be an interpretation though because nothing at all is obvious. It wouldn’t work it is was and it’d be far less interesting and way more stupid. Anyone picking up Cockratice is just gonna have to deal with it and enjoy the heap of confusion it provides. (Cam Gordon)