Jeff Lemire is a unique comic book artist. Excuse me, I meant writer. Ahem, actually he is both; in a word, the man is an auteur. Just like some of the great comic book creators that preceded him (Terry Moore, Hugo Pratt, etc), the man both writes and illustrates his comics. That is a unique feat, and a talent worth noting.
His post apocalyptic series, Sweet Tooth, is some sort of a hybrid story (much like its lead) of an old world gone by and the new one yet to come. The characters who inhabit it, like the people in similarly themed movies such as The Road, The Survivalist and the long running series The Walking Dead, are themselves the future species of the extinct, mere ghosts walking around the creation that has long ago given up on them and any other living thing. There is no society anymore, only scavengers and ruthless humans looking to destroy anyone and everything they come across for their own personal gain. The hero at the story's center, Gus, a.k.a. Sweet Tooth, is a naive hybrid of a deer and a human nine-year old boy, and following his father's death, he ventures out of the deep woods where he was raised, much against the advice of his late dad.
Sweet Tooth: Out of the Deep Woods is an effective intro to this comic book series, which some have already described as "Bambi meets Mad Max". Lemire does a nice job of immediately hooking us into his tale, as there is very little text, since his characters don't talk very much. Lemire the writer, at least so far, seems to be more of a talent than Lemire the artist, but that's is no knock against the man, simply an observation that his artistic style is rather simple, but still clear and easy to follow. When Jeppard, the mysterious hunter/assassin who rescues Gus from a couple of no-good hunters early on, ultimately betrays him and turns him to some strange men at a peculiar experimental station, we are left to stare at the heartbroken eyes of Gus, an innocent living in a world of sin and anarchy, who just can't catch a break. Lemire captures this moment rather well, and at the end of this first volume, definitely leaves us wanting more.
Sweet Tooth may not be the most fascinating comic out there, nor does it feature some of the best artwork available, but what it lacks in its graphic design, it more than makes up in creepiness and sheer unpredictability. I have no idea what will happen to Gus next, and I can't wait to find out. I suppose one could say I'm in my early stage of developing a Sweet Tooth for Sweet Tooth.
B+
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