In a truly wild development, Brian Blomerth has made a comic appropriate for a child’s eyes. It does not seem like a deliberate move, but rather a byproduct of a continued upping the focus on visual and design elements, as a result of other people paying for printing. The consequent downplaying of his normally totally-fucked narratives has wrought something parents walking their kids around the zine fair don’t have to be warned about before the little ones’ fingers make contact with the pages.

This would be more disconcerting if the book itself weren’t such a beautiful thing to behold. Two-page spreads depict a surfin’ dog, on the Trashmen tip, gone Lisa-Frank-ified, as the images feature little creatures that seem almost stickered in helping to coalesce the vibe of something more painterly or gallery-like in its composition. The effect is comparable to Victor Moscoso or Paper Rad, a pleasantly visually overpowering effect that creates a space to dwell in. The 4-color risograph printing is well-done in itself but also basically dictates the book’s existence so it almost doesn’t need to be mentioned as a separate element. The printing really only highlights the primacy of the visual appeal: Blomerth makes images that constitute a whole world in themselves, and so his comics aren’t just for people who like comics, but rather anyone willing to cut into their allocated monthly pill budget. Making work that parents can make a conscious decision to pay for, rather than just through the trust funds set up for art school students, seems like a smart move, though this is probably a one-off occasion. Once you’ve got the thing in your hands, discovering the way the covers, inside and outside, hide harmonic patterns when you consider them as spreads, is an additional reading-adjacent pleasure.