Lapp, Dave – Window #12

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Window #12

For any imaginary reader out there who’s a fan of Dave’s work but hates all that times he spends detailing the most fascinating parts of his teaching experience, you’re in luck! This issue of Window wanders outside of the school and into a strange and rewarding place. It starts and ends with sketches from both Dave waiting for a bus sketching people and Dave sketching trees. Then there are the two stories in between, the first of which is called “Other Things” and should be seen by more people than is possible with this book currently out of print (Secret Acres, Top Shelf, whoever, publish a collected edition of this comic already!). It tells the story of (probably) Dave and a friend after death, with everything hazy, imaginary or undefined. Entertainment and food and based on their imaginings, as nothing is real in this limbo world, and Dave repeatedly regrets never having any of “those things” (floating ethereal babies). There’s no beginning or end, just the two of them wandering around and commenting on the events as they happen, but you’re given the impression that anything that does happen is temporary. Oh, and everybody is a walking skeleton, with skeleton dogs wandering the streets. It’s a fantastic story and I hope it at least made it into an anthology somewhere along the line. The second story is solid too, as it’s back in the real world with a few kids who find caterpillars and decide to capture them to watch for what happens next. That event doesn’t go down like you would think, but good luck not having least a small childhood flashback while reading it. Only two more issues to go in this series and everybody reading this should bug a small press publisher to get a collected edition together. Think of it as your good deed for the day, for which you may be rewarded with the existence of a truly remarkable book.