It’s been a little while since we had the opportunity to review an Alice Urbino comic here at BF but we can today as one of our original 2015 Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ artists has new material debuting at TCAF this coming weekend. Green Thumbs is an amalgamation of all the best elements of her body of work to date, bringing haunting imagery, the finest line in the grotesque, and that trademark Urbino body horror to the page. It’s a reminder of how much we’ve missed her singular ability to unsettle and disturb the reader while still enticing and captivating them.
Green Thumbs presents the supernatural story (concept by Delon Fim) of a strange, almost cross-species ménage à trois. A jealous husband becomes obsessed with his wife’s love for a barren tree situated just outside their home. For her part she perceives any damage to it as pain she too experiences. But as her fixation grows so too does her husband’s envious rage, leading to a disastrous decision with horrifying consequences for both.
Green Thumbs is not over-elaborate in plot but it doesn’t have to be. This is a comic that’s about the visual experience far more than it is about narrative structure. In terms of atmosphere, build-up and denouement it feels like an EC Comic but without all the heavy exposition. Instead Urbino communicates the horror of events in a far more intuitive way, projecting the tension rather than explaining it.
In that regard Urbino’s playful touches are vital tools in ramping up the moodiness and atmosphere of Green Thumbs. The hypnotic use of light and shade is a huge part of the comic’s success in establishing its eerie environment while pacing and changing page structures invite us variously to dwell on single images or be swept away by moments of terror. Scenes of order inside as opposed to the wild chaos of the exposed outdoors also give a feeling of something “other” just waiting to intrude on the characters’ domestic world, and the repeated use the tree’s branches as organic panels is pure language of comics magic.
Readers lucky enough to be at TCAF this weekend can pick up a copy there while the rest of us can rest assured that it will be available via her online store thereafter.
Alice Urbino (W/A) from a concept by Delon Fim • Flesh Press, £10.00
Available at TCAF this weekend and from Alice Urbino’s online store thereafter
Review by Andy Oliver
