I have read bits and bobs of other stuff by Paul Tobin, but primarily I associate him with the charming all-ages material like Bandette which he produces with wife Colleen Coover. But just as her other work includes the charming, not remotely all-ages Small Favors, so this very much isn't one for the young Bandette fans. Right from the off it's clear things are about to go horribly wrong, with two representatives of officialdom off to investigate a girl's absence from school. Her father's place screams redneck nutjob, but the encounter still manages to go even worse than you'd expect. Years later, the survivor of that pair is a doctor in the city, when he meets that little girl again; she's an artist now, creating sculptures which recall the strange figure who saved his life back in that terrible cave, except that according to the people who found him, there was no cave... Andrea Mutti's art catches just the right note of spookiness and uncertainty, with settings always on the verge of shifting and characters never quite able to trust that they've seen what they think they have. Tobin's introduction namechecks Hammer, Junji Ito, Dario Argento, Klimt, but while I approve of all those reference points, and I liked this too, I wouldn't have guessed at them as influences had he not said it. His last line sums Bunny Mask up better: "I'm terrified of this. Let's get closer." Bunny Mask herself is an uncanny figure, but appealingly so, as when she looks at a kid's teeth and prophesies their future:
"I see...you will have laughter. You will share bad fashions with good friends. Fireworks, distant mountains. A fish beneath the sea, and kisses from fifteen pairs of lips before you find the perfect fit. You will have seven dogs in your life, and be bitten by three."
And – the bit a lot of horror comics can forget – the regular people caught up in all the weird shit are also given enough material that we care about them, rather than being cyphers there to panic and bleed. How can you resist characters introduced through conversations like this?
"So I just stared in his face. I mean, yes, I was frightened, but I was fierce. There are times when you can't back down. There are times you have to draw the line."
"I admire your bravery. So, did your cat get out of your chair?"
So yeah. Does it catch a note of the uncanny? Absolutely. But in terms of outright horror, the only time I did that intake of breath here was when someone orders an eggplant pizza. Now that's inhuman behaviour.
(Edelweiss ARC)