Cherry Bomb Comics

Dame Darcy's Meatcake Compilation
Dame Darcy
Fantagraphics: 2003

My personal favourite at Cherry Bomb Comics, and the latest comic that I have fallen deeply in love with is Dame Darcy's Meatcake Compilation.

Meatcake has a fabulous array of freak-show characters and a
delightful Edward Gorey-esque pseudo-Victorian-woodcut drawing style.
If you happen to be in a gloomy mood, this book will make you feel
infinitely better, albeit in a macabre sort of way. It is often creepy
and sometimes a bit sick, “...everyone has endless reasons to be
dripping or drinking delicious black blood...” but it is also deeply
satisfying and very funny. Bear witness to the antics and fetishes of
blonde Richard Dirt and her posse: siamese twins Hindrance and
Perfidia; Strega Pez who was born through the neck of her witch mother;
Wax Wolf the zombie made from real wolf hair and wax; and Effluvia the
impulsive mermaid with a deviantly cruel streak.

In her introduction Darcy alludes to where the title came from – she
imagines Richard Dirt and friends picnicking on “the most decadent food
of all, a combination of Meat and Cake.” This may sound a bit wrong to
the average vegan but don't be put off – a bit of decadence just adds
to the thick, sexy, gothic charm.

The compilation is made up of a selection of stories, rhymes and vignettes which originate from issues 1-7 of the comic Meatcake .
The stories tend to have a very raw narrative structure with wholly
unexpected plot twists, and often end in tragedy or wicked retribution.
There are also some extremely happy and very cute moments, and the book
includes the definitive selection of paper dolls in the back, which is
always a bonus.
TG 25/8/04

Potential
Ariel Schrag
SLG Publishing: 2000

Ok this review is a little bit backwards, because Potential is actually the 3rd book in the series, which begins with Awkward , continues with Definition , and then we get to Potential. I haven't read the first 2 yet though, and I really wanted to review Potential , so I hope you don't mind.

Some of you may recognise Ariel's name from Hot Topic
by Le Tigre...you know that bit at the end where they're listing off
names, and they say WHOO! ARIEL SCHRAG!... I can totally get why they
included her in that song.

Ariel did her comics as a
teenager, which must qualify her as some kind of genius or something,
because surely most of the time everyone is too busy running around
high school worrying about dumb things like mufti day to actually sit
down and document their lives in a comic book!

The art style is mostly cartoonish...she has this interesting technique
where whenever a character gets drunk or angry or depressed, their
actual features will distort, and it visually sucks you in, so as the
reader you kinda feel all drunk and angry and depressed too!

Ariel is not confined to this cartoon style though - whenever her
characters dream the art becomes beautifully realistic, adding a whole
new dimension to the comic: why is the dream world more "real" than the
real world?

Her comics are autobiographical, and this one is about her Junior year
of high school, where she says goodbye to bi, and heeello to dykedom.
One of the cool things about this book is the way Potential often references Ariel's last book Definition ,
because some friend at school has just finished reading it, or is
talking about it or something. This is when you fully understand the
fact that she was writing this as she was living it...

As you can imagine, Ariel's Junior year was rather confusing and heart breaking at times, but her year of Potential was also the year of her first love, and there are many hilarious moments and scenes that you will totally identify with.

Potential is one of the defining books of Cherry Bomb Comics....so read it!! WHOO! ARIEL SCHRAG!
MS 15/8/04