You’ve gotta say this much for Eric Haven — he may wear his influences clearly, obviously, perhaps even proudly on his sleeve (Jack Kirby, Winsor McCay, Charles Burns, Fletcher Hanks especially), but he filters them all through a singular lens that first blends, then morphs and metastasizes them into a “sort of work” that can well and truly be called his own. Omnipotent otherworldly forces, ancient terrors, Walter Mitty-esque dream lives, mutant super-creatures, high-flying adventuresses, and present-day ennui may seem, at first glance, to be incongruous (to say the least) storytelling tropes when presented in relation to each other, but the sporadically-active cartoonist finds a way to make them all not only work together, but to do so in such a naturalistic fashion that you can’t see them not functioning as precisely-placed elements in a kind of “slow-burn” absurdist crescendo.

That requires a deft touch and a singular commitment to…