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A Feast for the Eyes: A Review of Becky Cloonan's "Wolves"

Many artists' readiness to insult their audience's intelligence has long been one of my pet peeves. It is good to leave a little to the imagination - to make your audience wonder and ask questions of the work and of each other. I think that's why I have so much admiration for Becky Cloonan's "Wolves." Cloonan reveals enough of this horror story/romance to make us feel the narrator's anguish and the imminent doom, yet has left enough unsaid that we must draw our own conclusions about the tale.

This short story has been available since 2011, but I just now got ahold of it through Graphicly, where it can now be downloaded for a mere $0.99. It was worth every penny and more - the glaring black and white illustrations are stunning, and Cloonan has laid the story out in such a way that anyone who was interested in making this into a short film would find most of the work completed for them. I like to think the art in a comic is effective when I can feel what temperature it is supposed to be - or at least what the weather is like - the moment I look at a frame. I'm no expert, but I feel there ought to be a very clear, very deliberate sense of environment in each frame. Or at least, I enjoy a comic more when there is. By the first page of "Wolves," I already feel cold, hungry, and dirt-smudged. Shadowy forests and warm breezes, shame and doom - I know these intangible things are difficult to convey, but Cloonan makes it look easy.

Feast your eyes on "Wolves" from Graphicly, right now! See what I did there? I know, I am great with puns. :)


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