Review by Frank Plowright

Jules and Vincent are petty thieves, intimidating enough to instil fear, but bottom feeders overall who carry out their robberies in daylight wearing mouse masks. They mug a man for his briefcase and deliver it to local crime boss Mr. Pussy. That’s the almost straightforward opening section of a tale that takes a wild turn into a succession of supernatural possessions with author Lukas Verstraete intruding to question readers on what should happen. Mr. Pussy consorts with a demon, while the man from whom the briefcase was stolen isn’t done with yet, and his sort of recovery is when the real strangeness begins.

Imagination is hardly in short supply as Verstraete drags readers on a long shaggy dog story that’s really a vehicle for his kinetic underground-style cartooning, leading the reader into ever stranger locations. Vividly bright pages, instant shifts of scenery and ever more remarkable events characterise a narrative that can read as if created in short manic bursts, left to fester for a few days, then picked up again with Verstraete only looking at the last panel he’d previously drawn. If there’s something he wants to draw in the moment it’s no problem as the story will accommodate a naked demon woman in a lift with an assortment of characters from nightmares. There is a quest, though. A couple, actually. The first is to reunite man and briefcase, and the second is to restore a relationship that’s in decline.

Verstraete is a creator who’d be a source of wonder submitting a short story to an anthology, especially if they included one of his disturbing montage pages, the type of thing to give Bosch nightmares. However, for most readers the creative cartooning is unlikely to be enough to sustain interest over two hundred pages of a lavishly produced and very expensive book. That’s not to deny Verstraete is one hell of a talent, and somewhere along the line he’s going to connect with the right project.