Reading the sleekly illustrated mini kuš! #136 (‘Rain in Tears’) directly after its predecessor, #135’s loose and meandering ‘The Boy and the Worm’ only serves to underline just how much the line has positioned itself as one of the premier showcases of the breadth and wide-ranging potential of comics narrative.
Mao’s ‘Rain in Tears’ is, in some ways, one of the more traditional uses of the form to be seen in the format in terms of page structure and panel-to-panel storytelling. And yet it retains an experimental approach at the same time. The plot centres on a group of scientists bioengineering octopuses and repositions familiar science fiction tropes of built-in obsolescence (as in the replicants of Blade Runner) into a perspective-altering narrative.
What if evolution itself was considered to be confining and imprisoning? What would be the repercussions for both test subjects, environment, and those who put the process into motion? As the group monitors its work in adapting the creatures’ biology the inevitable consequences of their arrogance begin to manifest.
Mao wraps up philosophical discourse in a recognisable parable of human folly in these pages with a story that integrates the digital world of the scientists’ research into the real world reality of their actions. Mood is kept tense and tautly atmospheric with a use of colour coding that contrasts a clinical aesthetic with an organic one. A creepily thought-provoking short.
Mao (W/A) • kuš! comics, $7.95
Review by Andy Oliver
