Shadowland
Besides Waldo the cat (All Waldo Comics, 1992;The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, 2002), first-wave underground comics creator Deitch has another compelling recurring character in traveling-carnival operator Al Ledecker, whose adventures this oversize volume collects. Actually A. L. Ledecker Jr., Al's been in the business ever since his father, Buffalo Bill look-alike Doc Ledecker, decked him out, as a small boy, in clown togs and a rather sinister, leering face-paint job that, while he grew into checkered long pants, he kept on pretty constantly until his 1951 death. Deitch's preface to the collection uneasily owns up to how he may have come up with Al's look (he honestly can't recall for sure) by seeing pictures of serial killer John Wayne Gacy's eerily similar clown makeup. That strikes a chilling note that is quite in keeping with the strange, often fatal events in the Al Ledecker stories, which Deitch deliciously tricks out in compositions and with details reminiscent of turn-of-the-twentieth-century carnival posters and early suspense-movie-serial decor.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved