Kemble, Joshua – Numb

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Numb

Is “Xeric grant award winner” enough to get you to buy something? If so, this won the award for Spring of ’06. If not, well, lucky for you there’s enough good about this comic to make it worth a look either way. It’s the story of as aspiring novelist with a bad case of writer’s block. He feels like he’s lost his muse, so he decides to fall back on an old, bad relationship to give him material. Naturally, it turns out that things aren’t that easy. It’s an interesting story, with a few odd choices for panel structure and pacing thrown in, more than enough to keep you waiting to see what happens. If it was left there, it would be fine. Unfortunately the conclusion to this dilemna is, well, silly and more than a little bit too “and they all live happily ever after”. Maybe I’m taking too much out of it, as it’s not like his discovery solved all his problems (the story ends there, so we don’t see what happens next), but sudden finales where everything seems to get wrapped up in a hurry never sit well with me. Either way, this is worth checking out if you see it around. Could be I’m the only person in the world bothered by that ending… $3.95