HEAVEN NO HELL - MICHEAL DEFORGE

I am glad the Seattle Public Library system like DeForge as much as I do and keep his books in stock as soon as they’re published. I’ve been interested in DeForge and his comics for maybe 5 years now and I’ve read most of them. He hasn’t made a bad one yet and this one might be my favorite. It’s a series of short comics, a few pages a piece, that manage to do something quite unique: change style story-by-story but still keep an overall vibe. Some of the illustrations are remarkable ornate and flowy and detailed, other stories feature spare and muted illustrations. He even messes with the format, some of them are typical comics, with panels that you read sequentially, others are drawings with captions underneath(like The Family Circus), or consist only of large splash-pages that are crammed with text. Some of them are technicolor bright, others are dark and unsaturated. Through, there is not one panel or drawing that you wouldn’t immediately know is a DeForge drawing. His style is so unique and now so versatile that I don’t think he has comics peers in terms of illustration. On the story front, DeForge has made major progress. Before, I was not checking him for plot. His comics usually have a silly, quasi-spiritual, far-out plot (like a cult leader in the forest) which seem to basically act as means to the god-level illustrations he does. This book had some great plots. There’s a story about a team of kid detectives and a teacher trying to solve a murder which is campy and fun. A story about someone who’s parents are large insects. A story told through photos of the narrator’s mom. A story about a TV show version of THE PURGE which has humorous, quasi-anarchist results. I really enjoyed the whole thing, I’d recommend it as a first DeForge. The man is only getting better. 18 Purges.