Review by Ian Keogh

This anarchic love letter to skateboarding culture has been developed online and in self-published zines by D. Bradford Gambles over a number of years during which he’s built up a fair body of work and a fair following. They’ll surely be delighted to see the full epic collected into a single volume.

Accept Claris Hill being the US centre of skateboarding culture, as that’s where Sam has ended up, and at the local skate park she meets Glasses and Squee. An opening tale of supermarket chaos, ability rankings, an overzealous but incompetent security guard, and an annoying little brother introduces both the tone and the brightly coloured kinetic cartooning carrying readers all the way through to the end.

That art is a major plus, having an attractively goofy animated gloss from the start, and becoming ever more ambitious and creative. The skateboard routes Gambles devises are ingeniously imaginative and exceptionally well choreographed, such as the building site test seen on the sample art. There’s the diligence of a Super Mario Kart designer applied to the assorted venues. Because Shred or Dead was completed over a number of years, refinement of style is natural, yet this begins strongly and the development is toward greater clarity. The energy, though, is present from the start.

The abiding plot concerns the kids attempting to level themselves up to the point where they can legitimately stake a claim to the skate park occupied by the bigger kids. Don’t become too carried away with that, though, as it’s just the peg onto which Gambles hangs any kind of lunacy that occurs. For example, just when you figure how things are going, Gambles drops in the invader from another dimension.

Go with the absurdity and there’s a lot of fun to be had here, but far more will be had by the intended young adult audience.