Top of the Pile 1/9/13

Sweet Tooth #40
by Jeff Lemire

This is the final issue of Sweet Tooth. The coda to a wonderful work. In it we find out what happens to Gus and his friends after 39 issues of running and fighting as humanity descends into further degradation. And this is a bittersweet recapitulation of the rest of the events of Gus’ life.

To recap. Hybrids, half human-half animal, are being born as regular humans are dying of a plague. And in this dystopian society, militaristic groups of men are trying to find cures for the plague by experimenting on hybrids. Gus, the original hybrid, is first found by Jeppard to be brought to a camp. But instead rescues Gus and other hybrids and tries to save them from being hunted.

Jeff Lemire’s story telling style for this book is as mythology. Each character seems to have a purpose and it’s as if the original stories of a society are created from the events told in the book. So Jeppard “The Big Man”, who helped Gus survive, becomes a savior of the society. And as Gus tells stories to first his two sons and then later to his grandchildren, we learn what happened. It is a clever narrative Lemire does which makes the Sweet Tooth book have more impact. It makes it seem, like I mentioned, more mythic. And Lemire’s art is great. Rough and thick, the images are full of energy and emotion. The flashback stories are done in watercolor to give them an ethereal look.

I am going to recommend to my colleague that we get the collected volumes of Sweet Tooth for the library. It’s not for young children or even early teens. But for people 16 and older, I would not hesitate to recommend this.