4 out of 5

A couple of oddball narratives separated by character sketches, done up in black and white and grey ink washes on zine-sized paper, via Ryan Alves’ loose but detailed and imaginative style.

You really get a nice run of Alves’ abilities and styles in this mini collection, going from the surreality of a cyclical examination of the innards of a ghost, to different approaches on the pinups – heavily inked, or highly-detailed and scratchy takes on manga, comic, and horror characters – to a long form “epic” of sorts, drawn in a thin-lined sketch that belies Alves’ drawing skills to an extent, which is where the other examples serve as “better” evidence. I put that in quotes, though, because I’m always impressed by how much Ryan is able to communicate with these quicker looking efforts, even if – and here’s the docked star – his preference for impressionistic storytelling can lead to some confusing paneling / geometry, acceptable in the surreal stuff but distracting when there’s a story.

Still, I think the aforementioned epic is worth checking this out alone, as a holiday home invasion just ends up going bonkers in ways that even the more cracked imagineers out there would have trouble predicting, mixing in influences that make sense of the mix of character sketches as well.