cover image Emily the Strange Vol. 1

Emily the Strange Vol. 1

, . . Dark Horse, $19.95 (160pp) ISBN 978-1-59307-573-6

Equal parts Edward Gorey and MTV's Daria , Emily, an icon to the Hot Topic crowd, is a walking brew of teenage ennui filtered through a Halloweenish, macabre sensibility and tons of red and black ink. Now she conquers the comics with a collection of brief but mordant episodes. The first deals with Emily's extreme boredom and her failed attempts at defeating it, like stitching the head of a rooster onto the body of a kangaroo, creating, of course, the world's first kangarooster, or interviewing punk legends the Damned in a cemetery. In "The Lost Issue," she visits Oz only to find Ozzy Osbourne in the ruler's throne and loses herself in a warehouse store—Lostco—where the free food samples ("Goat Pockets," or tandoori lint) turn shoppers into zombies. Much of the pleasure comes from the writing team's acumen for pun-craft : "Lost in Space" is a veritable cauldron of semi-bad puns referencing everything from Super Mario Brothers and The Matrix to Alice in Wonderland . Visually, the book is a feast of shadow and Lovecraftian nastiness while remaining just a bit cute. Disaffected teens who have already embraced the Emily empire to their sorrowful bosoms should like this fine. (Nov.)