GloomCookie

(Slave Labor, 1999-2005)
™ and ©1999 Serena Valentino and Ted Naifeh
Black and white series.

The Goth-tinged GloomCookie follows a group of characters in the course of their sad, wonderful lives. Lex and Max are sometime lovers. Lex loves Max, but Max has eyes only for Queen Isabella, who holds court at the local club (where the music sucks, but the social hijinks are simply grand) with her game-playing cohort Sir Damien. And then there’s Sebastian, a pleasant enough young man who grew up believing Vincent Price was his long-lost father, and who has made friends with the monster under his bed. Now, if only that pesky monster would stop eating the girls Sebastian brings home! The series is an interesting mix of fairy tale, court intrigue and urban soap opera. If you don’t mind all the character self-absorption and pre-occupation with the darker aspects of love and life, it’s really quite a charming piece of work from writer Serena Valentino and artist Ted Naifeh (Dhampire, The Machine).

Jump to issue: