Shuck Comics #1 & #2

Posted: Tuesday, March 5, 2002
By: Darren Schroeder

Cover of Shuck Comics #1 & #2 Writer(s): Rick Smith
Artist(s): Tania Menesse
Publishers: Headless Shakespeare Press
From: USA
Price: $2.95 (US)

The visual style of these comics reminds me of some of my favourite creators, such as Seth and James Kochalka. It has lots of fluid black lines with sparing use of solid black that depict Characters that inhabit a recognizable world suburban world of tree lined street and pleasant looking houses. The covers are very well designed with clean and bold artwork in pleasing colour schemes. The interior artwork matched this quality, though the use of buff paper in # 1 gives the book a rather murky quality.

The writing reveals a distinctive piece of work. Shuck lives in a nice quite neighborhood somewhere in middle America. This is surprising, because he has a head like a goat and appears to have once worked in hell as a soul collector.. He spends his days raking leaves and making meals for dead people. He is friendly with a little girl from across the street and they look out for each other.

The stories are full of ghosts and other unpleasant occurrences, but everything is kept whimsical. The ghosts don't scare people, they just drift around making small talk at the party Shuck hosts, and the little girl keeps a level head throughout it all. The writing has a quirky pace to it, with lots of silent pauses as characters think about things. The constant use of awkward syntax and misspelled words to suggest accents for the characters is quite distracting, it took a real effort to read each issue and I found myself skimming over some of the longer passages in annoyance. That's a shame because the stories are amusing.

This is an attractive comic that could win an audience if readers are prepared to put some effort into deciphering the dialogue, but I not so sure I could on a regular basis.

P.S. Rick has contacted us to advise that Shuck Comics are going to be published under the 'Shuck Comics' imprint in the future.

In a Word: Cryptic.



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