Review by Ian Keogh

Mark Russell is known for his intelligent satirical comics, but Shannon Wheeler’s introduction to Cereal highlights what follows as a different side of his talents. The suspicion is that satirising the traditional horror archetypes would be just too easy at this stage of Russell’s career, so instead he looks at what it must be like to live life as a vampire or as an intelligent person trapped within a patchwork body.

What at first seems to be unconnected other than by theme, gradually pulls together as something more ambitious, set in the 1800s and a meditation on power and conquest. It involves nods to the Hammer horror movie versions of Dracula and Frankenstein, but these are more rounded individuals, given an understanding, and the comedy is restrained, largely to the inclusion of a supporting cast sourced from cereal packaging.

Peter Snejbjerg takes this concoction and delivers a cast with pathos and tortured nobility, eventually settling on Peter Cushing as the model for the appalling General Post. Any comic ever drawn by Snejbjerg is a rich experience, and these pages feature exquisite storytelling and mood that almost belies the comedy undertones.

Yes, this a comedy. One sophisticated enough that many readers could take it at face value and barely realise until General Post begins pontificating on the pre-eminence of breakfast. It’s a bleak, dark comedy, though. Ultimately despite all the initial understanding there’s little sympathy from Russell. The cast are there to serve a joke, quite a slim one when all is said and done, yet from the hands of two masterful creators it transcends the origins to become a haunting meditation.