One Step Beyond

Posted: Tuesday, April 30, 2002
By: Darren Schroeder

Cover of One Step Beyond Writer(s): Michael David Sims
Artist(s): Jeff Zwirek
Publishers: Kitty Litter Comics (Self Published)
From: USA
Price: Free

Bunny rabbits are cute little critters, usually. Sure they might be impolite (Thumper) of wise acres (Bugs), but with their fluffy tales and cute ears who can't help liking them. Even so, life is hard for the rabbits in this story. They live under the constant threat from humans. At the start of the book two rabbits are having fun chasing each other in the road. An uncaring driver puts a messy end to the fun, and to the life of fluffy bunny. The driver thinks no more of his careless, settling in for a few beers and a night in front of the television. The surviving bunny can't forget so quickly and soon starts telling the other off what has happened. Soon the driver has to face the consequences for his actions.

As is the usual structure for a short story this is quick and to the point. 12 pages with no dialogue and a dramatic ending don't leave much room for character development, but things move along at just a good pace. Jeff illustrates the tale with a minimum of fuss, building the tension with a gradual increase in the tempo of the "cuts" as we switch between the driver in his house and the going on outside. The artwork is marred by some nasty computer goings on. It appears to have been scanned into a computer at a low resolution then printed out again for the final production, as it has a blocky pixilated effect everywhere. I'd like to see what the original artwork looked like, as I suspect it wasn't too bad.

Cover from a later issue shown.

In a Word: Vengeful.



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