Review by Frank Plowright

A world of decay and deprivation is reaching the end of days, which seem to have arrived in the depressing prologue sequence showing the protagonist humanoid rat in a truly hellish urban environment. It’s sometime before he’s given the name Nibbles, although that could just be an affectionate nickname, but it’s about the only hint of charm in a carefully created desolate world.

Perhaps reflecting the rat’s distant relatives on Earth, sordid is the default state for both the rat and those he interacts with in this chaptered noir drama. Jack Monnaf keeps the dialogue taut and evocative, while at the same time exploring a lawless wasteland. The rat is like a game player, each chapter entering a new set of unpleasant circumstances and drifting through them, commenting all the while. He mourns a past relationship as those he meets drop hints of the rat being something more than we see. Or is it all a fantasy to distract from the dismal life?

Artist Drekas brings a grubby world to life, the few touches of glamour and civilisation not destined to survive for long. Extremely good use is made of colour, which can be so bright it’s unsettling, and so an artificial neon intrusion into dark reality, and its absence resonates in a key sequence of single page illustrations. As drawn by Drekas, Nibbles is satisfyingly grubby in either incarnation, a largely silent wanderer.

Nibbles knows where he’s going, but readers never learn beyond a few moments of reality puncturing the fantasy. Some readers may find the lack of clarity and resolution unsatisfying, while others will be happy to take the journey into the unknown, and for those readers Hard Cheese will hit a sweet spot.

This isn’t available via online booksellers, so if you’re interested try contacting the artist online at drekas.art.