5 out of 5

This is some indie, indie stuff.  It’s also fabulous.  But a glance through the book – at our chest-tattooed author, at his artistic tributes to people of whom I’ve never heard and I have to believe most of you won’t either, at the seemingly random imagery dispersed throughout – your indie b.s. goggles might go on and have you on guard.  Feel free.  I wore mine too and felt similarly skeptical, only to have those protective measures stripped clear by the conclusion of the first ‘story,’ War World.  Now its true that I’m a sucker for structure, so I dig how Closser bookends his story with the key cube talisman around which much of this centers and the phrase “With this I will live forever,” then goes after the emotions swirling about whatever that cube may represent, bit by bit, style by style.  I also love that we dart away from too much indulgence with an odd and dark sense of humor, many of the tale’s threats dispatched via cartoonish beheading with a knife, and a final treatise on loneliness dismissed with the two main characters rocketing into the sky, one asking “What do you say we head on home and bake us a cake?,” all smiles.

And regardless of the inspirations of the art maybe being fringe stuff, the panels and pages are a marvel to study.  from dense, cut-up style pages to hatched simplicity to almost wood carving looking pages, the change-up keeps things fresh but also helps to hint at that Something More mythology Closser wends into this, all focusing around that cube.  These stories of revolt, or transformation, or fear.  And a black rat, who is a part of every tale, as instigator or enabler.

Is it the accomplishment of the book that will enable Closser to live forever?  Who knows.  But at the very least he’s made an impact on one reader, given me reasons to contemplate ‘Black Rat,’ for all its potential meaning or meaninglessness, and despite that chest tattoo, I’m eager to see what charming obliqueness the creator will deliver in the future.