Matthew Thurber’s epic comic book series is back with its finest issue yet. An anthropological study of the imaginary city of Volcano Park, with a soap-opera-styled fractured narrative and a cast of thousands, Thurber’s work is sure to delight fans of ambitious comic book narratives, as well as those of screwball comedy and Oz-style fantasy.
To summarize this episode: Following a prelude in which a skywriting propagandist falls to his death, Groomfiend the Mouse, claiming depression, infiltrates the office of Dr. Vial, and leaves with a prescription to the mysterious drug, Creosote.
Meanwhile, we return to Officer Nabb’s identity confusion, as he watches a documentary about the persecuted Dapper Chaps on a wooden VHS tape. The origins of the talking trees of Volcano Park are explained. Tom Chief, leader of the Dapper Chaps, attempts to persuade a cynical Nabb to join his cause against Aunty Lakeford, a supernatural being.
The action returns to Peace Punk who narrowly escapes his Sushi Chef assassins by crawling into a bagpipe and being exhaled as pure sound, crossing the water to Scotland, where Aunty Lakeford herself lies in wait.
