]This zine by high school teacher Lee F. Sheppard has all the makings of a Steven Spielberg movie: spooky dreams, romance, time travel, and adventure-all with a heavy dose of solid friendship and good old fashioned family values. Sort of. The plot twists and turns like the proverbial roller coaster and threw me off a few times. I would like to see more consistency in the illustration style, too. The artist, Bryan J. Belanger, excels at creating lasting imagery with simple line drawings, but his talents get a bit lost in the computer enhanced collages used in “I Want to Be…” Those images are weak, in comparison to the others in the zine. Perhaps it is simply the reproduction process that has not been kind to Belanger and his art: surely anyone who can turn Kensington Market into a Kafka-esque Venice has got to be a creative force to be reckoned with, right? Sheppard’s surreal tales made me smirk. As a former Market resident, I felt at home in the story-for a second I even thought I might know the narrator’s grandfather-but then I wasn’t really sure as to who the narrator really was. In a perfect world, I would like to see this story reworked, and the images redone so that everything fits together a little bit more snugly. “I Want to Be in That Number” borders on greatness, but is not quite there yet. (Andrée Lachapelle)
Literature, 50 pgs, $10 (includes postage) Written by Lee F. Sheppard, Illustrated by Bryan J. Belanger, 801 King Street W., 1225, Toronto, ON, Canada M5V 3C9, [email protected]