Kim Deitch's The Stuff of Dreams #2

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Kim Deitch's The Stuff of Dreams #2
By LJ Douresseau
September 30, 2004 - 15:41

Fantagraphics Books
Writer(s): Kim Deitch
Penciller(s): Kim Deitch
Cover Artist(s): Kim Deitch

The air of doom and gloom has been around the comics "industry" a lot longer than many people are aware. The decades-long malaise is actually not due to a lack of challenging and skillfully crafted comics. Case in point is Kim Deitch's work. On the surface, his comics would appear to be out of the norm; in truth, his comics capture the raw simplicity of the form while expertly going places, in terms of narrative, that few comics creators and cartoonists want to go.

In THE STUFF OF DREAMS #2, Deitch treats us to a tale of his fictional self's search for memorabilia and artifacts surrounding an early 20th century filmmaker and his best known creation, "Alias the Cat." Here, truth and fiction uncomfortably merge into intriguing melodrama with tragic consequences for some, but it's hard to take the eyes away from this tale.

Kim Deitch, underground and alternative legend, writes the kind of stories that straddle the boundary of genre and straight drama; something film and prose fiction often do so well. Comics tend go whole hog on genre, whether it distorts the basic narrative or not, but Deitch finds a balance. Comics needs more quality cartoonists like Deitch, using the form for dramatic purposes, with a quirky style that doesn't skewer the show (like superhero comics). Too bad it'll be another year before issue three of this series appears. A