Sweet Tooth #26 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Matt Kindt (artist & paints), Pat Brosseau (letters) & Mark Doyle (editor)

The Story: A flashback to 1911-era Alaska and a possible glimpse of what triggered the plague that has wiped out much of humanity in the present day Sweet Tooth story.

What’s Good: Matt Kindt is probably the perfect artist to illustrate a few issues of Sweet Tooth.  I’ve wondered for a while if we’re seeing some of the last monthly art from Jeff Lemire who usually writes and draws this series.  Now that he has duties to writer Animal Man and Frankenstein over in the new 52 at DC, it has to be hard finding time to also draw a 20-page comic every month.  That’s not to say it’s impossible, but it has to be difficult.

Kindt is really an inspired choice to do an arc of Sweet Tooth.  I think of Kindt as more of a watercolorist, but even his linework is pretty different than Lemire’s.  However, both Kindt and Lemire live in that same emotional area in terms of what their art says.  It’s very somber, measured and thoughtful art in both cases and perfect for the mood of Sweet Tooth.  There are a few panels in here that are beyond wonderful such as a double-pager of the team dogsledding with the Northern Lights in the background. That would be a hard scene for digital colorists to capture, but Kindt nails it with watercolors.  Also love Kindt’s sound effects.  There’s a particular scene where a guy get’s grossed out and barfs and the word “BLURRG” is mixed in with the vomit coming out of the guy’s mouth.  Great stuff!

The script is pretty interesting too.  In the main ongoing story of the series, the characters have decided that they need to reach Alaska because they think there is an answer for the plague that killed most of humanity frozen up there.  This issues’s story seems to be filling in some of those blanks as we follow a new character in the year 1911 as he searches for a lost missionary expedition in frontier Alaska.  The whole thing has a creepy vibe because you just know that something bad has befallen the expedition and Kindt really sells the “alone in the wilderness” atmosphere.  It’s really just an alien concept to today’s reader: Being so totally out of touch that no one would know what happened to you for months/years.