Idrizovic, Amir – The House

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The House

You know, I liked this book a whole lot better before the last page. Here’s your list of descriptive words: creepy, gothic, disturbing, surreal, haunting. How’s that? It’s a skewed retelling of Little Red Riding Hood and I’m not going to give away any more than that, even though that’s exactly what the author does on the last page. In stories like this, where it’s the case of a traditional fairy tale being retold, you can get away with a lot that doesn’t have to be explained. Up until that last page I was fairly perplexed and was about to start reading it again just to try and get a better understanding of it, then he spelled everything out. I kind of like having the ability to fill in the blanks in stories like this for myself, or at least I do when the author spends the rest of the book making me figure out everything for myself. That being said, there’s still plenty of stuff that I’m mulling over about it right now, so it’s not like it’s terrible by any stretch of the imagination. My personal preference is that I would have liked it better without a tacked-on explanation at the end. Still, the art is good (reminds me of Charles Vess and Barry Windsor-Smith) and I’d love to see anything else this guy has done. E-mail him to see what else he has laying around.

Chris Staros over at Top Shelf told me that although the Mini Burger set isn’t available on the web page, you can still order it through their online catalog. Just go to the ordering page, click on #4 at the bottom (additional comments) and write in that you want the Mini Burger set for $19.95. They have it in stock, they just haven’t updated the site in a while. From what I’ve read, it’s worth it. There might be two bad ones in this bunch and a couple of mediocre ones, but the good ones are good in ways that you don’t usually see in this country.