Fervor

    (Rorschach, 2005)
™ and © Sean Dietrich

Does a comic book have to be coherent to be any good? Absolutely! Does Fervor #1 make any sense whatsoever? Absolutely not! OK, that’s being a little unfair, because there is a vaguely discernible plot. Or at least something of substance is happening. I think.

As far as I can tell, the three-part story is about: a corporate bigwig getting ready to go out on the town, a stripper with a drug addiction and worse, and a morbidly obese woman who somehow brings a certain convergence to the various happenings. The entirety of the dialogue consists of a single spoken phrase: “… in there…?” The rest of the text is narration, some of which has a poetic and impressionistic ring, most of which is pretentious and/or confused. It’s also unclear at times exactly who is doing the narrating.

Here’s a typical sentence: “My thoughts blend quickly together into a mush of something wrong overtones encasing a false reality of happiness.” Huh?

The dark, mood-enhancing art evokes Sam Kieth and Bill Sienkiewicz but without the storytelling savvy.

— Brett Weiss
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