Synopses & Reviews
In Scarper Leeandrsquo;s world, parents donandrsquo;t make childrenandmdash;children make parents. Scarperandrsquo;s father is his pride and joy, a wind-powered brass construction with a billowing sail. His mother is a Bakelite hairdryer. In this world it rains knives, and household appliances have souls. There are also no birthdaysandmdash;only deathdays. Scarperandrsquo;s deathday is just three weeks away, and he clings to the mundane repetition of his life at home and high school for comfort. Rob Davisandrsquo;s dark graphic novel is an odyssey through a bizarre, distorted teenage landscape. When Scarperandrsquo;s father mysteriously disappears, he sets off with Vera Pike (the new girl at school) and Castro Smith (the weirdest kid in town) to find him. Facing home truths and knife storms at every turn, will Scarper even survive until his deathday?
Review
andldquo;A graphic novel of incredible resonance and absolute, inscrutable beauty, at once a coming-of-age and coming-to-terms tale.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Picking up the mantle of the defiant weirdness of underground comix.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Three unemployed slackers find themselves embroiled in an unusual dispute with their new neighbors: Carole and her weeping mother. When the shabby Carlisle intervenes, he incurs the wrath of their landlordandmdash;the silent, grinning embodiment of evil, Mr. Stapletonandmdash;and his mute minion son, Craig. As Mr. Stapletonandrsquo;s malign influence spreads to his housemates, Carlisle takes the fight to his enemy and realizes he must sacrifice his life to save the world. Owing more to William Blake than to Stephen King, this brooding, unnerving, and absurdist graphic novel deliberately shuns the conventional genre of blood and gore in favor of freak falls of licorice candy, cherubim in cowboy suits, and narcotic cavity-wall insulation.
About the Author
Rob Davis is best known for reinventing Roy of the Rovers and for drawing Judge Dredd. He has written and illustrated
Doctor Who and adapted H. P. Lovecraftandrsquo;s andldquo;The Dunwich Horrorandrdquo; for
The Lovecraft Anthology, Volume 1 (SelfMadeHero, Spring 2012). The first volume of his graphic-novel adaptation of Don Quixote was shortlisted in the Best Book category at the British Comic Awards. He lives in Blandford Forum, UK.
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