Too Negative #2

Posted: Tuesday, May 11, 2004
By: Darren Schroeder

Creator(s): Jenny Gonzalez
Publishers: (Self Published)
Address: PO Box 22477, Brooklyn, New York 11202-2477, USA.
Price: $1(US)

Evil Dahlia is an evil demon trying to improve her writing skills. She turns up in a few of stories here trying to deal with putting pen to paper and dealing with her psychological problems, here weird friends who seem to enjoy putting her down, as well as trying to cope with some strange voices.

Plot development is rather haphazard with the main drive being the conversations between Dahlia and here friends: Kill Baby the demon and Aaron the strange half man half octopus. Dahlia has wild mood swings so sometimes she's happy teasing Kill Baby about his sexual orientation, and sometimes she's depressed and finds relief in self mutilation.

I can't figure out weather Jenny is aiming for humour or a serious tone - the illustration style is very Harvey "Hot Stuff/Wendy" influenced but the mature content would scare most kinds witless. It is serious stuff underneath the surface.

There's a few extra shorts here - a funny expose on how Bert from Sesame Street really ended up getting photographed with Bin Ladin. Also a funky short look at a rock'n'roll rat party with music by Jenny's band Mz Pakman.

With its seemingly random mix of content and strange subject matter and energetic, cute artwork, this little collection challenges the readers to keep an open mind.

In a Word: Perplexing..

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