Secretimes

Cartoon violence electrifies every page of this madcap journey through societal imbalance. Two forest-dwelling hobos—a nattily dressed pigeon and elephant—are scapegoated when the obnoxious Mr. Mouse Mouser is accidentally slain. Sixty pages of hallucinatory bloodshed ensue, ensnaring celebrities, civilians, and officials of justice within a Technicolor tangle of good and evil. Every page is a study in contrasts: the rounded, funnies-page characters are spattered with gore, surrounded by crude sexuality, and sunk deep into the corruption lurking in every corner of their world. Their enthusiastic, monosyllabic dialogue circumscribes a story in which the powerful are unassailable and the powerless subject to their whims. Canadian artist Jones, who gained notice as an experimental cartoonist with his previous Catland Empire, supplies delirious art and fancifully grotesque twists and turns. While the shock of it all grows dull in the last few pages, a gruesome little jewel of a tale remains. (May)