Cover: Jeff Lemire
Illustrated and Colored by Matt Kindt
Lettered by Carlos M. Mangual
Edited by Mark Doyle
Jeff Lemire remains one of the most innovative creators in comics today. Sweet Tooth is his masterpiece. The art is haunting, a glimpse into a fractured post-apocalyptic world. Each panel is as distorted as the setting itself, the world of Sweet Tooth is filled with survivalists, vigilantes, extreme violence, and the first steps of a new form of humanity. The children in this new world are all born an animal/human hybrid, and Gus the main character is their messiah. The plot is to some extent dense and complicated, Lemire shows remarkable restraint in terms of disclosing the origins of this evolution. The current arc is a flashback, and appears to be a window into Gus's pilgrimage to Alaska among other important plot points.
Some issues of Sweet Tooth can be read in less than 5 minutes, and this is a conservative figure unfortunately. Issues 27 and 26 do not fall into this category. The text developing the back story is written in the form of journal entries, and the art is drawn in some panels as old family photographs. The exciting part is that next issue promises to deliver all of the answers we have been so eagerly anticipating. The tribalistic spiritual overtones are the icing on the comic cake coming in the month of December. Although a lot of books these days seem to deal with mutants and an apocalypse caused by a plague, Sweet Tooth manages to keep me engaged every single moment. Lemire mentioned somewhere (I can't remember) that the series would be wrapping up around issue ninety, and the thought of this wonderful contribution to comicdom ending fills me with an indescribable sadness. I can only hope that all of the loose ends are neatly (not cheaply) tied up when issue ninety hits the shelves. Each issue that is sparse in terms of text finds me annoyed to slightly angry considering this book already has an expiration date. The art is always great. I never feel it is a waste of money and I own every single issue. Pick up this book today if you appreciate creativity. We all know that it is something that is in short supply these days.
By: William R. Davis Jr.
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