Little Death

By Thomas Kriebaum
Publisher: Soaring Penguin Press
ISBN: 9781908030047

Spotted this one on sale at the Lakes International Comics Art Festival, and it’s a good one. A simple premise, where Death is represented in the form of a small but dapper businessman complete with briefcase.

The set up is almost always the same with Little Death approaching an angled front door and the consequences of what happens next. For example, one woman answers the door in a bathrobe with her hair wrapped in a towel. Not wishing to leave this mortal coil in that manner she asks for a moment and dashes back indoors. The rest of the strip has Little Death growing more and more inpatient upon the doorstep until he gives up and leaves, with the strip’s final panel featuring the now glamorous looking woman – now much later – looking somewhat bewildered.

All of the short stories are told without words too, and certainly wouldn’t have been out of place in the likes of Mad. Thomas Kriebaum’s artwork is particularly lovely, using a single colour background and building his illustrations on top using black and white. He creates some incredible effects with it, not least the occasional larger illustration of a street scene or close up of architecture.

Rather lovely.

And if you liked that: See Monsters by Duarte!