CELEBRATING BCZF!
If you picked up the latest issue of free street press anthology Off Life then you will be no stranger to the distinctively hued work of Ellice Weaver. Should you be in the Bristol or London areas you will probably still be able to hunt down copies of that publication but it’s also available for free online here as well for those wanting to take a gander. Weaver will be at Bristol Comic and Zine Fair on October 3rd providing potential punters with a welcome opportunity to pick up some physical copies of the Berlin-based artist’s offerings.
Collector Cabinet is her new A6 minicomic debuting at BCZF. If you read her poignant slice-of-lifer ‘Fish Bowl’ in Off Life then you should be prepared for a very different piece of storytelling here. Collector Cabinet focuses on a young woman who has taken on a position for a mysterious government department; one that uses its female operatives to seduce inherently unpleasant men for its own experimental agenda…
Reminiscent of the complete short stories that used to run in the pages of British weekly Misty or any number of DC Comics “mystery comics” anthologies of yesteryear, Collector Cabinet is like an EC Comic without the verbosity. It’s a chilling suspense short with a twist that evokes a similar feeling of a protagonist who is never really in control of their Kafka-esque destiny, and a cyclical sense of inescapable fate bound up in a morbidly poetic justice. That slightly old school structure (whether it’s intentional or not) is also underlined by the central character appearing at the story’s beginning as narrator in a manner that hearkens back to the “horror hosts” of yesteryear.
Weaver’s delicate application of varying shades of the same colour in each panel gives Collector Cabinet a haunting, dreamlike quality. It’s an approach, of course, that is almost a trademark of her work to date but here it also ensures there’s an eerily atmospheric vibe to a narrative that already feels like it’s a sidestep to the left of reality. The immediate focus of many of her tightly packed panels, with characters often dominating the foreground, also adds to that sense of claustrophobic tension. While readers versed in the traditions of the form may see the story’s final turn coming long in advance this is still a playful piece of dark drama that is all the more effective for adopting subtly nuanced visuals rather than the lurid and overstated artistic style that such stories usually embrace.
Placing the everyday frailties of human beings within a context that is both bizarre and off-kilter, Collector Cabinet fuses the prosaic and the weird with a deeply black humour. If you’re attending BCZF on October 3rd then I would suggest Ellice Weaver’s table is a vital stop on your tour around the fair…
For more on Ellice Weaver check out her site here and follow her on Twitter here. You can buy copies of Collector Cabinet at BCZF on Saturday October 3rd priced £6.00.
For regular updates on all things small press follow Andy Oliver on Twitter here.
