Mister Morgan

Croatian poster artist Hofbauer’s series of interlocking, nightmarish short stories is set a bizarre and cruel authoritarian world reminiscent of the Eastern Bloc. Readers are lured in by mysterious setups, then barraged with horrifying violence. A man with barnacle-like facial features works at a zoo in which one of the imprisoned creatures is a former television star. Three men with wolf heads try to form a punk band but are chased by the police and caged by Animal Control. A man weak with hunger waits in a bread line and is given a bloody package of flesh from two butchers slowly carving up a baleen whale. A man going door to door checking electrical meters interrupts a murder and barely escapes with his life. Two factory workers have frantic sex in a restroom, filmed by an unknown voyeur. The art is stark, graphic, and elegant, with clear influences of both Soviet propaganda and film noir. Most pages are drawn in black, white, and grey, with slashes of red used only to heighten moments of extreme danger and tension. This propaganda-stabbing spectacle will hold appeal for fans of literary horror comics who can stomach the gross-out scenes. [em](Sept.) [/em]