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R.I.P: Best of 1985-2004
This omnibus collection of Thomas Ott’s short shock-ending horror stories —imagine E.C. Comics done with no words, and executed in an impossibly lush black-and-white scratchboard style—collects material originally published in three (now out of print) thin European style “graphic albums” during the 1980s and 1990s, plus a few extras.
Presented in the same deluxe format as the now sold-out Cinema Panopticum (for which a softcover release is planned for 2011) and The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8, R.I.P. offers up an even dozen tales of murder, suicide, oppression, terror, mutilation, crime, marital strife, and nuclear annihilation.
Presented in the same deluxe format as the now sold-out Cinema Panopticum (for which a softcover release is planned for 2011) and The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8, R.I.P. offers up an even dozen tales of murder, suicide, oppression, terror, mutilation, crime, marital strife, and nuclear annihilation.
196 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
4 people are currently reading
317 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Ott
38 books181 followers"Thomas Ott was born in Zürich in 1966. He received training as a graphic artist at the School of Design in Zürich and has been a free-lance comics artist and illustrator since 1987. From 1998-2001 Ott attended film studies at the University of Art and Design (HGK), Zürich. He currently lives and works in Zürich and Paris. Ott is also the lead singer of The Playboys." -Fantagraphics Books
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
March 18, 2017
The words dark and disturbing don't even begin to describe this book that could easily be subtitled "Twisted Ways For People To Die". The nearly wordless comics are rendered in a scratch-board technique, though the subject matter bears no resemblance to the puppies and kites I happily etched out in 4th grade art class.
Stark black and white is perfect for the nightmares contained in the pages of this book. Here the characters live in a world that is eternally night time. Shadows play across their ugly, contorted faces, as they cause others pain and torment, occasionally meeting up with an unpleasant end themselves.
There are no happy endings in these vignettes. All of them play out like particularly nasty Twilight Zone episodes. A man dreams of suicide, again and again. A satisfying and poetic fate rises up to meet a white supremecist. A suitcase full of money brings ill fortune to all who touch it, and Death painstakingly adds to his unusual collection.
The book closes with a two page list of the author/artist's "inspirations". Included among the many are Steve Buscemi, Raymond Chandler, Bettie Page, Fritz Lang, Christopher Walken, AND Pippi Longstocking.
I don't know about you, but he sounds like my kinda guy.
Stark black and white is perfect for the nightmares contained in the pages of this book. Here the characters live in a world that is eternally night time. Shadows play across their ugly, contorted faces, as they cause others pain and torment, occasionally meeting up with an unpleasant end themselves.
There are no happy endings in these vignettes. All of them play out like particularly nasty Twilight Zone episodes. A man dreams of suicide, again and again. A satisfying and poetic fate rises up to meet a white supremecist. A suitcase full of money brings ill fortune to all who touch it, and Death painstakingly adds to his unusual collection.
The book closes with a two page list of the author/artist's "inspirations". Included among the many are Steve Buscemi, Raymond Chandler, Bettie Page, Fritz Lang, Christopher Walken, AND Pippi Longstocking.
I don't know about you, but he sounds like my kinda guy.
September 6, 2016
A best of bumper book of the excellent scratchboard artist Thomas Ott is something to look forward to if you're a comics fan. I've read, or looked at anyway as he doesn't use words, his other books Greetings from Hellville, Dead End, The Number, and Cinema Panopticum, and loved them all. The style is inimitable and iconic, the stories very memorable.
So why the average response to this book? Well, first off if you've read Dead End then you'll notice that that entire book is included in RIP. I wondered why but as I read through the rest of the book I noticed that the stories in Dead End were the only lengthy pieces in the retrospective. The others included here for the first time are short 1 page, 2 page, or sometimes 3 page stories, while the rest is taken up with posters for Mexican wrestling. All very attractive but not very substantial so perhaps including Dead End was meant to pad out the volume.
Overall it was an ok book. Well produced in hardback by Fantagraphics, I think it's a good introduction to a fascinating artist for new readers; for old readers like myself I wanted a bit more than what was offered here. There just wasn't enough new material to make this worthwhile for fans, unless you're a collector.
So why the average response to this book? Well, first off if you've read Dead End then you'll notice that that entire book is included in RIP. I wondered why but as I read through the rest of the book I noticed that the stories in Dead End were the only lengthy pieces in the retrospective. The others included here for the first time are short 1 page, 2 page, or sometimes 3 page stories, while the rest is taken up with posters for Mexican wrestling. All very attractive but not very substantial so perhaps including Dead End was meant to pad out the volume.
Overall it was an ok book. Well produced in hardback by Fantagraphics, I think it's a good introduction to a fascinating artist for new readers; for old readers like myself I wanted a bit more than what was offered here. There just wasn't enough new material to make this worthwhile for fans, unless you're a collector.
July 1, 2015
Històries, contes i microrelats negres negríssims, sense necessitat de diàlegs, amb il·lustracions expressionistes tremendament impactants. Onírics, fantàstics, salvatges, atemporals o ambientats en el noir dels '50 a centreeuropa, postals mexicanes i fàbules distòpiques.
Una delícia. Un festival.
Una delícia. Un festival.
September 25, 2012
Hint: IT ENDS BADLY FOR EVERYONE
August 14, 2021
"R.I.P." to właściwie prawie to samo, co wydany w 2005 r. "Exit", tyle że wzbogacony o kilka historyjek.
Nie zmienia to jednak faktu, że zaglądanie do świata wydrapanego przez Thomasa Otta może przyprawić o dreszcze i przynieść niemało przyjemności (podszytej grozą, ale jednak przyjemności).
Na jego kartach roi się od upiorów (mniej lub bardziej z tego świata), szaleńców i dziwaków, a same historie rozpięte są gdzieś pomiędzy groteskową czarną komedią a krwawym, brutalnym dreszczowcem.
Idealna "lektura" na jesienne wieczory. Do poduszki.
Nie zmienia to jednak faktu, że zaglądanie do świata wydrapanego przez Thomasa Otta może przyprawić o dreszcze i przynieść niemało przyjemności (podszytej grozą, ale jednak przyjemności).
Na jego kartach roi się od upiorów (mniej lub bardziej z tego świata), szaleńców i dziwaków, a same historie rozpięte są gdzieś pomiędzy groteskową czarną komedią a krwawym, brutalnym dreszczowcem.
Idealna "lektura" na jesienne wieczory. Do poduszki.
May 21, 2022
Nie do opisania to trzeba zobaczyć. 😉
July 8, 2023
When I ask myself what makes a really great comic, the first thing I think of is ambition – whether that manifests itself in form (see Mazzucchelli's "Asterios Polyp"), in narrative (see Nilsen's "Big Questions"), or indeed in both at once (see Ware's "Building Stories"). However, while I tend to reserve assertions of greatness for the most ambitious work, there's a certain kind of perfection that can be achieved by taking a relatively simple premise and executing it well.
This is a collection of short comics from the first two decades of Thomas Ott's career. Most of the comics here have no more than a dozen pages, and they’re largely just creepy little horror stories, often with a twist ending. All of that could make it sound like this is a b-sides compilation or a compendium of rough early work, only of interest to diehard Ott fans, but that is absolutely not the case, thanks to the sheer quality of execution. The wordless storytelling is flawless, everything is permeated with a wonderfully unsettling atmosphere, and the scratchboard artwork is frankly stunning.
This collection is also notable for its consistency. I definitely have favourites – the 9-page “Headbanger”, the 8-page “Breakdown” and the 29-page “The Millionairs” (sic) all stand out – but almost everything here is great; there are just a couple of short pieces that don’t do much for me (notably including the 5-page “La Fiancée du Lapin”, which is the only collaborative piece here, being scripted by David B). In fact, overall, I think I like this book even more than I liked the other Ott comic I’ve read, the awesome "The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8". It’s honestly one of those rare reads that has left me wanting to go out and immediately buy the rest of the author’s bibliography, which I think says it all.
This is a collection of short comics from the first two decades of Thomas Ott's career. Most of the comics here have no more than a dozen pages, and they’re largely just creepy little horror stories, often with a twist ending. All of that could make it sound like this is a b-sides compilation or a compendium of rough early work, only of interest to diehard Ott fans, but that is absolutely not the case, thanks to the sheer quality of execution. The wordless storytelling is flawless, everything is permeated with a wonderfully unsettling atmosphere, and the scratchboard artwork is frankly stunning.
This collection is also notable for its consistency. I definitely have favourites – the 9-page “Headbanger”, the 8-page “Breakdown” and the 29-page “The Millionairs” (sic) all stand out – but almost everything here is great; there are just a couple of short pieces that don’t do much for me (notably including the 5-page “La Fiancée du Lapin”, which is the only collaborative piece here, being scripted by David B). In fact, overall, I think I like this book even more than I liked the other Ott comic I’ve read, the awesome "The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8". It’s honestly one of those rare reads that has left me wanting to go out and immediately buy the rest of the author’s bibliography, which I think says it all.
September 14, 2014
A collection of twenty years of short short stories, scratchboard, black and white, wordless, pretty amazing artwork, but I had just read three books that are or contain longer stories, and this one, with more, and less focus, had less impact for me. I think I would have rated this higher had this been the only book I had read from Ott… who was? is? the lead singer of The Playboys as well as an amazing atmospheric. dark, creepy comics artist. This collection includes two I had just read in The Dead, including "The Millionaire" and "Washing Day," which are the best things in this collection. So these are horror, crime, and as someone else reviewed: IT ALWAYS ENDS BADLY, every story. I love the epigraph, "You have to do something while waiting for death," (Hakan Nesser), and this helps you get something about his work that I hadn't captured yet, the humor. These are brutal, but in part because of the black and white, not really raw slasher stories, and you slowly realize they are funny, or that horror can also be funny, as Hitchcock and other horror artists know. I see he knows and has worked with the graphic artist David B, which might help you get the tone of his work. He includes two pages at the end of the book of, not acknowledgements, but what he calls inspirations, from literature, film, comics, music, everything, and this might help you get the tone of his work, too, his intentions. There's a love of noir and fantasy and romance for classic cinema that comes through here in the work, not a contemporary feel.
September 13, 2020
An excellent collection of short stories from one of my new favorite authors! Dark, creative and thought provoking. I've never read anything quite like them.
June 27, 2017
Un recueil d'un auteur que je ne connaissais pas jusque là.
Le graphisme et le titre ont attiré mon oeil et je n'ai pas regretté d'avoir attrapé ce livre.
Un best-of de l'auteur, assez copieux, sur presque 20 ans de carrière. Mais aucun dialogue ne vient perturber la "lecture", là est l'ironie.
Le graphisme est très particulier car l'auteur suisse travaille à la carte à gratter. Le noir domine naturellement l'oeuvre.
Beaucoup de cynisme, parfois un peu trash. On sent l'univers rock de l'auteur ce qui est loin de me déplaire.
Des scènes de "vie" (ou de mort d'ailleurs), mises en scène presque cinématographiques. Un recueil à dévorer et surtout admirer.
Le graphisme et le titre ont attiré mon oeil et je n'ai pas regretté d'avoir attrapé ce livre.
Un best-of de l'auteur, assez copieux, sur presque 20 ans de carrière. Mais aucun dialogue ne vient perturber la "lecture", là est l'ironie.
Le graphisme est très particulier car l'auteur suisse travaille à la carte à gratter. Le noir domine naturellement l'oeuvre.
Beaucoup de cynisme, parfois un peu trash. On sent l'univers rock de l'auteur ce qui est loin de me déplaire.
Des scènes de "vie" (ou de mort d'ailleurs), mises en scène presque cinématographiques. Un recueil à dévorer et surtout admirer.
June 19, 2019
Le tipiche atmosfere "graffiate" dell'illustratore elvetico in forma di short (shortissime) stories.
Il tema principale di questa raccolta, come si evince dal titolo, è la morte.
Qui sono raccolti 19 tra i suoi lavori dal 1985 al 2004.
Come succede con le raccolte alcune storie possono piacere ed altre meno, in questo caso diciamo che ci troviamo in una situazione di pareggio.
Ott, autore che amo, da il meglio di sé nel racconto lungo e secondo me condensare dei concetti in 2, 3 pagine non gli è molto congeniale.
Consiglio questo titolo solo ai veri fan, per chi invece volesse approcciarsi a quest'autore consiglio "Cinema Panopticum".
Il tema principale di questa raccolta, come si evince dal titolo, è la morte.
Qui sono raccolti 19 tra i suoi lavori dal 1985 al 2004.
Come succede con le raccolte alcune storie possono piacere ed altre meno, in questo caso diciamo che ci troviamo in una situazione di pareggio.
Ott, autore che amo, da il meglio di sé nel racconto lungo e secondo me condensare dei concetti in 2, 3 pagine non gli è molto congeniale.
Consiglio questo titolo solo ai veri fan, per chi invece volesse approcciarsi a quest'autore consiglio "Cinema Panopticum".
February 15, 2023
A morbid yet delightful collection of murder ballads told in wordless sequential art form. Ott delivers a series of impressive short stories all of which tend to focus on murders or deaths but with ironic twists to them. This is all executed with perfection - Ott's scratchboard technique seems completely irreplicable and otherwordly. I really liked all of the stories in the collection, but one of my favorites was "Goodbye!" - where a man is stuck in a perpetual cycle of dreams involving his many grisly deaths. Ott's R.I.P. collection is macabre with just the right dose of capriciousness to make it engaging from cover to cover.
September 6, 2024
R.I.P.: Best of 1985-2004 is a collection of short comics by Thomas Ott.
Thomas Ott produces wordless comics that often revolve around horror, death, and depression. Many of the comics have drastic twists with a social commentary on societal issues or parody and can often be left to the reader’s interpretation.
Ott has an extremely unique viewpoint on life that is captured in his work. His art is exquisitely crafted scratch boards that captures a ton of detail. While his work is not for everyone, if you are looking for something different and enjoy darker works, give this a read.
Thomas Ott produces wordless comics that often revolve around horror, death, and depression. Many of the comics have drastic twists with a social commentary on societal issues or parody and can often be left to the reader’s interpretation.
Ott has an extremely unique viewpoint on life that is captured in his work. His art is exquisitely crafted scratch boards that captures a ton of detail. While his work is not for everyone, if you are looking for something different and enjoy darker works, give this a read.
March 29, 2018
Wunderbare, manchmal makabre, manchmal humorvolle (idealerweise beides) Kurzgeschichten, ausgeführt in höchstem Detail auf Schabkarton. Comics in einigen ähnlichen Formaten, relativ schnell zur zünftigen Pointe, aber trotzdem wird genug Zeit genommen, um ein eindrückliches Ambiente zu erstellen. Mir gefällt das Licht unglaublich, und wie sich der Leser auch an Situationen herantastet. Dazu gibt es kleinere Bilder, oder Sammlungen zu Themen. Auf jeden Fall sehr viel Unterhaltung pro Seite.
November 29, 2022
Nie wiem, nic szczególnego, oczywiście styl graficzny bardzo zapada w pamięć i wyróżnia się, ale to można powiedzieć o niemal wszystkim... Całość można "przeczytać" w 15 minut, choć myślę, że warto poświęcić chociaż pół godzinki i raczyć się detalami. Niestety nie jestem też pewien co do tego, jaki wydźwięk miały dwie spośród tych historii...
January 21, 2021
Really, really dark, perturbing, thought-provoking, and awesome. I would loan this to anyone anytime! I have a few other Ott books but the size, format, layout, and binding of this anthology makes it really worth owning. Especially great is the one-page 5 panel summary of Alice in Wonderland, ha.
June 10, 2017
3.6 Stars
Wordless and all about people killing and dying, this book of short tales is dark, creepy, violent, and murderous, but with a sense of humour.
July 27, 2017
Very dark - Ott has some real issues, but the art is convincing and done well.
March 25, 2018
A compilation of his best work. If you are into nightmarish worldless graphic novels than this is worth a read. Soo good! And sooooooo weird! Creepy. Unsettling. Original.
August 29, 2020
La parfaite illustration du "show don't tell", et "parfaite" est le mot adéquat étant donné la qualité des dessins.
June 26, 2021
Most of these are okay, some of them are eye-rollers. Ott’a art rules regardless.
September 3, 2021
Circa 3.25/5 stars. Satisfyingly shocking in some areas and unfortunately incomprehensible in others. My favorite were the first few and "Millionairs."
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November 4, 2022Vibes
December 30, 2022
Excelente!!
March 17, 2023
The black and white etchings are hauntingly beautiful. The stories range from darkly funny to amusingly horrific.
August 27, 2023
Neredeyse okudugum en iyi sessiz çizgi roman diyebilirim.
February 24, 2024
I'm traumatized.
February 18, 2025
Najlepsza w tej książce jest kreska. Połowy historyjek nie zrozumiałem, wyglądają jakby były rysowane "pod wpływem".
February 15, 2017
Compact storytelling in wordless, cinematically paneled comics. Quick, dark, and witty—if you think of EC comics as short stories, these are limerick versions of those. The art is wonderful.
June 5, 2016
This is like an artsy grind tape in comic form. Noisy, scratchy art that is still somehow clear and completely realized. It's wordless, but the flash narratives exist in these (mostly) 1-3 page stories about people dying or, perhaps more actively described, getting fucking killed. As an introduction to Ott, this was perfect for me, as it included his book Dead End (which I hadn't previously read: see Sam Quixote's review on this page for more info there) in addition to some great extras.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews