I forgot how melancholy the vibe of this novel is. Enid, cloying and sardonic to a fault, wasn’t too far afield from some of the lost Gen X kids many of us knew/had been when this book was first published in the 90s. Makes me wonder where she might be now.
Picked this up for a song at my favorite used bookshop in Providence. The art is gorgeous, detailed, and lush, the polar opposite of so much of the soulless/featureless illustration glutting the market. The story seems compelling as well.
In traditional maritime lore, mermaids were fearful creatures who bewitched sailors with their siren songs, leading many a man to a watery grave. Douek and Cornmack’s horrifying Sea of Sorrows, cut from this same salty cloth, sets the action just after the first Great War aboard a rusty salvage ship that’s searching for a sunken, German Uboat. The art is gorgeous, claustrophobic, and unsettling, mimicking the sensation of what salvage diving must have been like in the 1920s. The narrative, which skips back and forth between WWI and the present day, is a bit challenging to follow but makes a kind of mythic sense if you go with it. A great read for fans of horror and tales of the sea.
Got turned onto this gorgeous book after reading By Chance or Providence.
The dynamism of the authors’ differing illustration styles - Cloonan’s in the school of Mazzuchelli/Rosenberg and Lotay’s a bit more Sienkiewicz - perfectly balance the story’s shifting dream and waking states. Thanks to those on this thread for recommending this one.
I took a chance on this one and was just blown away by her work. The third story, Demeter, is a masterpiece.