Phil Barrett
A5 format, card cover, black and white interior
Available from There goes Tokyo...
This is a small, very personal title. You can't quite escape the feeling Barretts opening up a little here, you feel more like a drinking buddy than a fly on the wall in this "tale-of-one-night-in-the-pub-type-strip".
Okay this isn't the newest of choices for indie comic material but what makes this stand out isn't its artwork or fancy panel layouts, it's Barretts use of incredibly evocative cinematic flashes,you read this comic fast, you practically flip through it, you're being led from page to page by almost subliminal freezeframes of events.
The art,(though good)becomes almost throw away, you need a few reads to give it the credit it deserves.Each panel is utterly still, almost like a polaroid of an event and the overall effect is of a strip sitting happily on the fence between snapshot freezeframe character P.O.V. (storyboard style) and the hazy, cigarette smoke blurred recollections of a hungover guy trying to piece together the night before.
7/10
Review: Andy Smith