Talk about an eye-opener!

To date, my only exposure to the work of Edie Fake has been via his Gaylord Phoenix comic, which certainly doesn’t fit anyone’s definition of “conventional,” but which nevertheless is structured, albeit perhaps tenuously, along standard-issue linear narrative lines.

Not so with the book under our metaphorical microscope here today, Little Stranger, a multi-faceted, deeply emotive collection of short-form strips published a few months ago by Secret Acres that presents work culled from  Fake’s own ‘zines self- published between 2002 and 2017. Simply put — and I say this with utmost respect — most of these strips are just plain weird. Delightfully so, in most cases, but you have to come into this book prepared to do some serious interpretive work yourself, as many of them discard with the concept of “narrative” altogether, and those that don’t adhere to it very loosely.

From the “Clowns”…