The writing plays wittily off Chandler; the artwork crosses Posy Simmonds with Edward Gorey; the sense of humor recalls Bob Burden...Superb.
Well, the Chandler and Simmonds/Gorey comparisons strike me as on the nose. The Burden comparison is kind of curious, as the humor of the book that I think they're referring to comes from a single absurd element (that may not even be that absurd, depending on how you want to look at it), while the bulk of the humor is of the sly, verbal sort in the narration. This is funny, and Bob Burden is funny, but I wouldn't say that this and Bob Burden are funny in quite the same ways.
But this is a pretty great genre comic, and that genre is mystery rather than comedy. Britten and Brülightly is a very clever and rather complicated mystery with a likabley unusual protagonist with at least one very unusual tic and amazingly moody artwork (I loved the lettering, and the way you could see the texture of the paper in the white spaces).
If this is where Berry starts, I can't wait to see where she goes next.
1 comment:
I totally read the author's name as "Hanna Barbara" right away. I was not all that excited.
Sounds like something I should check out though.
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