RabbitHead
This comic, which bills itself as a "heavily symbolic tale inspired by spaghetti westerns and Polish literature," puts the "alternative" back into alternative comics. Somewhere in the desert, a RabbitHead With No Name (complete with Clint Eastwood–style poncho) finishes filling in a grave and rides off on her long-necked, worm-headed steed. As she gets underway, she spits, and the two expectorated strands of saliva land and... sprout? At this point, the narrative branches into three separate threads (RabbitHead's story and the respective fates of saliva strands one and two), running parallel to one another on the page. The narrative continues to split until there are seven plot threads, each following a different surreal character. By the time they start collapsing back in on each other, readers have been introduced to potato-shaped cowboys, a hapless skull-headed coyote, a mutant 12-legged mama pig, a belligerent cactus and a domesticated stomach parasite. What these are "heavily symbolic" of is anyone's guess. Dart's artwork is accomplished, with strong layouts, clean inking and a clear storytelling technique. The difficulty is that the plot—though experimentally interesting—doesn't quite justify the device. This title is pretty enough and delivers strange, surprising images, but it lacks weight.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.