Scream Queen (Fantagraphics)

(Fantagraphics, 2005)
™ and © 2005 Ho Che Anderson

To be honest, Ho Che Anderson’s Scream Queen is more of a character portrait than a story. There’s obviously a lot more to tell about each of the people in this book, but it’s a short story, and Hemingway always liked most of a tale to rest below its surface, so there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.

In this Fantagraphics book, a woman gives a lift to a stranded motorist. While the audience waits for one of them to turn out to be some sort of moral or physical monster, they actually reveal themselves as two decent, interesting persons. Then the Samaritan moves on to her night job, and the horizontal goes wonky on reality. The art’s raw, but that’s plainly deliberate. Just know that you’re looking at a day in the life of the protagonist rather than a narrative where everything comes around and you’ll have no complaints.

— Brendan McGinley

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