Visions of Verse/ Tales From Purgatory

This “zine series that joins comic art and poetry” is a very bizarre effort and I’m not sure if that’s intentional. I have received a whole series of these art comic things in the mail, and they’re quite a marvelous find. It feels sort of like Sunday mornings when you’re a kid and you get out your old stack of comics and read them with your feet up on the wall and get lost for what seems like years. I enjoyed the “Waves no Particles” poem by Yvonne Rivers and accompanying art by Denny Linger – the girls have male genitalia, which I guess is supposed to be scary when placed in the context of the rest of the strip, which features the Grim Reaper, fetuses and gravestones. Some of the other art is not as good as Linger’s, some of the writing could be less leaf-devoted. The trouble with this zine is that it takes Conan the Barbarian and mixes it with Oscar Wilde. I mean can we take poetry or violent cartoons seriously when they are pitted against their aesthetic opposite? It’s hard to criticize something which has obviously taken a lot of effort to put together. “Tales From Purgatory” is the easiest comic to follow because it follows known etiquette, and the art is solid. I recommend TFP#25. (Nathaniel G. Moore)

comic-poetry, a stack of issues, $2.50, Randy Smallman, 10506 96 Ave. #304, Edmonton, AB T5K OA8

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