This is bit of a mixed bag actually.'Silent' cartoons by Reinder Dijkhuis, the book improves as you get farther into it. The first strip here is the weakest (and luckily the oldest), as we follow Reinder (at least I assume it's him) going through a typical day with everything going wrong around him. 'Camera angles' are good, and you can see the first gropings towards an appealing style, but there's no real pace to the thing, skritchy-skratchy linework, and no real ending, just a kind of stop.
Happily things improve almost immediately. When we had tails... is a retelling of the Eden story that works well, with much improved art, that doesn't overstay it's welcome. Sponge is also pretty good, with a real style developing. Seedy Sunset, next , is a real odd one about Reinder's trip to a nudist beach, and an encounter with a flasher, that stopped me in my tracks a little bit ( Hey, British sexual repression! C'mon in! ). The best thing here is the last piece, Crossroads an excellent fable about the journey through life that's witty, pithy, and not at all preachy, as well as being brilliantly drawn.
Silent strips are probably the hardest thing to do, (I say 'probably' as I've never had the guts to try it) as you really have to get your body language and facial expressions spot on. Reinder manages it here, and although I'd like to see heavier linework which would bring out his extremely appealing style better, that's really just nitpicking. A good artist developing in the right way.
Pete Doreé