Darkly humorous and very British satire, Kartoon Cuts is an accomplished debut from Richard Cowdry.
At times reminiscent of early Peter Bagge, there's a lot of Neat Stuff style mini-stories and strips that together form a consistent whole .The themes are familiar enough - student life, kidult culture and nostalgia fads, the post-student bedsit experience and accompanying alienation and poverty. If it all sounds too depressing for words, it actually isn't. Whilst Cowdry makes fun of a lot of stuff, it's backed up with a generosity of spirit and a genuine empathy, which as a reader, you can't help but warm to.
And also it's funny, which helps a lot! The short strips and pieces that make up the bulk of the comic are cut with a few longer stories (How to Live in a Bedsit and No Way Out) provide room for reflection and even instruction.
Altogether Kartoon Cuts is smart, stylish and very re-readable. Art work influences seem to be very old school, Robert Crumb, George Herriman, Raw. Whilst there are lots of different styles in evidence, there's a pleasing fluidity to most of the comics here. Managing to bypass the stiffness usually prevalent in debut comics, Cowdry seems comfortable using the style that best suits the tone of the tale or joke he's telling. Though it's hard to say which of these styles, if any, Cowdry will really make his own, its always fun and engaging.
You get a sense that the artist has really enjoyed putting this work together (even if under damp bedsit conditions). Dig? Dug.
Mardou