Review by Frank Plowright

As the title informs, a couple are on a honeymoon safari, but not on Earth. Their once in a lifetime experience is on an alien planet populated by wondrous life forms devised by creator Jesse Jacobs, although they’re admittedly not quite as wonderful after being slaughtered by the honeymooning couple.

Jacobs takes a satirical approach to his lead characters, whose expectations are of the finest food and luxury tents as they go about their slaughter, and he supplies them with amusingly banal dialogue as they explore the alien environment. The exploration is key. Jacobs is more concerned with the infusion of ideas than a conventional plot, so Safari Honeymoon is episodic as he explores different ideas of life and their requirements. A repeated joke is that whatever the circumstances and effect, any creature the couple come across will be shot by their guide for their own safety.

Although dialogue and humour are integral, Jacobs occupies a creative sphere not far distant from Jim Woodring in supplying nightmares in almost friendly fashion. It’s consistently inventive, whether supplying bliss or danger, but you wouldn’t want Jacobs’ creations crawling around your mind. His visual conception becomes ever more audacious as the story continues when effects of areas of the planet are explored along with even stranger forms of life. After the information supplied in the first half of Safari Honeymoon there’s an inevitability as to how things play out that would disappoint in a more conventional narrative. However, as the fate of the cast is never an emotional hook, or indeed a priority, everything continues very satisfactorily as Jacobs’ imagination never runs dry.

Sadly, Safari Honeymoon is long out of print, in English at least, and used copies are expensive. It’s a shame for a such a playfully inventive book capable of appealing to a relatively wide audience.