Lusts of the flesh, hungers of the soul, Shakespeare's immortal language and Cold War-era fear of "the other" merge in this gruesome, literate, wacky and charming graphic novel from Portland artist and writer Jonathan Case. A love story between a flesh-craving sea mutant and a fragile agoraphobe, Dear Creature combines sci-fi horror with wit and whimsy. Creepily original yet nicely evocative of both the themes of atomic-era America as well as its comics, Case's debut is a perfect marriage of storytelling and art.
Case depicts a California coastal town in the era of beehive hairdos and skinny ties, where Grue, a humanoid sea creature--created by atomic accident, natch--feasts upon the amorous teens always so plentiful at the water's edge. Bits of Shakespeare stuffed into floating soda bottles lead Grue to Giulietta, a post-war Italian immigrant trapped by anxiety on her family's docked boat. Strange, beautiful love ensues and Grue swears off the teen-eating, but the townsfolk are raising a ruckus about the murders and Grue must save Giulietta's scapegoated family to be worthy of her love.
Case's art employs a black-and-white realistic style that harkens back to classic romance and superhero comics but also to David Lapham's hyper-violent Stray Bullets. Likewise, the themes of predation and sex panic resonate with the story's time period but its wry, ironic tone and homicidal anti-hero are wholeheartedly modern. The love story of Grue and Giulietta is funny and horrible, sweet and repulsive, brilliantly drawn and told: an amazing debut. --Cherie Ann Parker, freelance journalist and book critic