Rabbithead

(Alternative, 2004)
™ and © Rebecca Dart

Rabbithead is a woman with (yes) a rabbit’s head. She rides into town on her worm-headed horse and receives an ugly reception. This plot is immaterial. The magic of Rabbithead is in its concurrency. As things are eaten by or carried away by other things, the story diverges into three, then five, then seven parallel stories.

Divergence is relatively easy. Convergence is harder. But Rebecca Dart seamlessly folds the seven threads back into five, then three, then one.

And she does it all sans dialogue.

As noted, the story is not the thing. The medium is the message, as Dart plays with the conventions of the comics page and turns them on their ears (which turn out to be rabbit ears). Scott McCloud has posited that online comics need not conform to the constraints of their hard–copy predecessors. Dart shows here that hard copies don’t, either. Fans of other experimental styles will appreciate what Dart has done here. It’s not going to tickle the fancy of people with no taste for the different.

— Jack Abramowitz

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#1

July, 2004
Cover Price: $4.95
1 copy available for $5.70

Rebecca Dart