Fistfull of Ink

Posted: Wednesday, February 8, 2006
By: Steve Saville

Cover of Fistfull of Ink Creator(s): Erik Weems
Publishers: Self Published
From: USA
Price: $3 pp(US)

Erik proudly promotes this comic as “36 pages of black, white and grey ink.” Which links in with the title and the opening one page strip featuring a "Phantom" type of character tasting the substance he is surrounded by and pronouncing that it is, in fact•ink. So Erik is well aware of the tools of his trade and I must say he masters them pretty well.

A nice little collection here 11 self- contained amusing stories [well nine actually plus two adverts]. The art- work is confident and has a nice rough feel about it. The well- managed use of grey tone adds depth to the frames and gives each page a feeling of "fullness". In the same way Weems is confident in his lettering [often big and bold], in fact he is pretty confident in his use of cross hatching as well. It would be fair to say that our Erik presents himself as a pretty confident creator in this comic.

My favourite tale is the Dracula one where the main character wakes up to find that overnight he has turned into Count Dracula. It is an amusing spin on the Franz Kafka short story Metamorphosis, but where Kafka is bleak Weems is funny.

The second story features Alligator Man, a neat character and very well drawn but I felt that the actual story was a little disappointing.

Where Weems excels however is in the stories that deal with jealousy. A woman who is jealous of the looks her Robot boyfriend is giving the computer and the one legged ex lover of a sword wielding barbarian woman [called Inga] who unwillingly sets her up with his robotic friend are the two examples elaborated on in this collection.

The final two comics centre round Batman. In one a bearded Batman is hounded by zombie like pre- approved credit- card monsters, while in the final strip Weems turns full cycle with a short tale about Batman being mistakenly identified as Dracula.

Fistfull of Ink [Weems’ spelling] is a delightful light – hearted romp guaranteed to make you smile. Weems manages to give his very non "real" characters very "real" emotions and frailties. The combination works and accounts for much of the charm present in this comic. Oh and as I have said previously it’s pretty well drawn too.

In a Word: Lively.



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