Publisher: Titan Comics
Writer, Artist, Colourist, Letterer and probably other stuff also: Roman Dirge
Release Date: 4th February, 2015

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For those of you unfamiliar with Lenore and her escapades – and also, hi! Welcome to our site that you’ve clearly never visited before! – I’ve Googled it for you, so suck this:

No relation to the fabric softener (note the additional E), Lenore is in fact a Cute Little Dead Girl – she lives in the town of Nevermore (but of course she does!) with her friends Pooty, an ex-bounty hunter with a bucket head, and Ragamuffin, a vampire who spends most of his time in the form of a ragdoll with worms for hair.

Herein are their continued, collected misadventures, and honestly, there’s something rather delightful about the whole thing. A fundamental part of its charm is that it’s not a ‘first glance’ thing: it’s not the finest art you’ll see this year, the pages are occasionally swamped with Dirge’s scratchy lettering, the layouts are a tad on the basic side, and generally boundaries remain firmly unshoved.

Except when you actually start reading it, and Dirge’s deliciously dark humour starts to bleed through. If I’ve counted correctly – and I’ll hold my hands up and say I lost track about half-way through – there’s a decent laugh to be had at least every two pages, if not more. From literal angry bird flipping, to our heroin forgetting that not seconds previously she’d been doing the ‘stabba dance’, you’ll find yourself helplessly chuckling with incredibly satisfying regularity. To sum it up pithily, it’s like Tim Burton made an episode of Happy Tree Friends. It’s wonderful.

And much as I may have appeared to be dismissing the quality of the art two paragraphs ago, that’s a bit harsh to say the least. It’s not going to put Nick Dragota in his place any time soon, but at the same time, given the irreverent humour and the particular nature of the subject matter, it’s extremely appropriate, and there’s a lovely sense of motion between panels, each one drawn afresh with not a smidgen of copy-pasta in sight.

Overall, this is a terrific trade, particularly if you’ve not jumped on to the Lenore bandwagon previously. The humour is an oddball combination of macabre and silly, so if neither are your thing, you’ll perhaps find it difficult to engage with. But if one or t’other floats your boat, you’ll really enjoy the time you spend with this book. Well worth picking up.

Rating: 4/5.

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The Writer of this piece was: Ross Sweeney
Ross tweets from @Rostopher24

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