Swiss artist Ott's third graphic-story album accorded U.S. publication in little more than a year (after Greetings from Hellville [BKL Je 1 & 15 02] and Dead End [BKL F 1 03]) showcases six 1980s stories, one of which employs written narrative, something Ott soon expunged from his pages. Ott's broad variation, from panel to panel, of point of view and specific subject; his intricate, scratchboardlike, chiaroscuro draftsmanship; and his taste for the morbid appear already fully developed in this early work. The pieces don't all involve violent death, however, and several bespeak a revulsion for sex and the body that isn't as prominent in the later books. The humor of disgust is everywhere, expressed directly in the surprise endings of "Honeymoon" (the one with the prose narrative, which is annoyingly misleading), "A Wrinkled Tragedy," and the already gory "Headbanger" and coursing beneath the antiromanticism of "The Hero." Absorbed in mere minutes, Ott's early stories, no less than his later ones, fix themselves permanently yet corrosively in one's memory.

Ray Olson

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