Chris Gooch

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss.)

-- 4.5 stars --

IN UTERO opens with a bang - literally. A fire triggers a gas explosion that levels twenty Australian city blocks. A very pregnant woman named Liz and her young son Eli watch from their glass-walled apartment in the sky.

Twelve years later, Liz drops her daughter Hailey off at a holiday program hosted in a run-down old shopping mall. Older than the other kids and annoyed that she even needs a babysitter, it doesn't take much convincing for Hailey to sneak off with an older girl named Jen.

As the kids make a series of gruesome discoveries, it quickly becomes apparent that this "dead mall" is actually teeming with life. Whether it's alien or supernatural is anyone's guess. Enter: the government goons. (The head goon's mask placement? *chef's kiss*)

IN UTERO is creepy good fun. The artwork is definitely a vibe: by turns dreamlike and macabre (or both at once), some of the pages are simply spectacular (Jen's mom, wow). I enjoyed the plot, even if I wasn't always sure what was going on. (Are the creatures from another planet? Dimension? A Hellmouth?) Usually I don't love uncertainty but it feels appropriate here and definitely adds to the sense of dread and foreboding. IN UTERO delivers atmosphere and chills in spades.

I also really enjoyed the relationship between Hailey and Jen, and wanted more of a back story between Linda and John. There's definitely something going on there. Crossing my fingers for a sequel.… (meer)

Five graphic stories from a talented Australian comics artist. Gooch covers the quiet desperation of the suburban protagonists; from a mother finding a used condom and not knowing if it's from her teenage daughter or her husband; to a young man at the end of a relationship dealing with a potential suicide; another finding out his girlfriend's father is cheating. There are a couple more spooky stories to round out the collection, which add some creepy suburban horror elements. Nicely drawn and very well written.… (meer)

I absolutely loved Gooch's Bottled, and how he perfectly portrayed the raw and ugly emotions with both his writing and his gloomy palette. Well, that gloomy palette is back (with highlights of yellow), but the depth of emotion isn't there.

We follow two stories: a pair of thieves, desperate to hold on to each other and escape, because there's nothing else, and a giant of a prisoner, solitary and under-the-radar. They both run afoul of the bespectacled man who runs the prison, and eventually end up working together (kind of) to achieve his demise.

It's violent and unflinching about the horrors of living in an underground inescapable prison, without being too gratuitous, but the themes of friendship and family don't rise above. It's such a harsh environment, and those human emotions are necessary, but aside from one touching moment where one inmate betrays another, is in turn betrayed, and then they both forgive each other, it feels flat.… (meer)

While reading, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Gooch's style reminded me of Tillie Walden's (who wrote On a Sunbeam, one of my recent favorites), both the art and the intensity of the relationships. Gooch struggles a little with closeups of his characters, exaggerating their features almost to the point of (unintentional, I believe) grotesqueness, but with time that will improve (or has improved? It's been two years...). They both use atmospheric, muted color palettes but know how to make a panel pop, both emotionally and artistically (the two scenes reproduced on the cover are perfect examples).

Jane is living a dead-end life, suffering from money troubles, her parent's relationship falling apart, and her relationship stagnating. She can't wait to make a change, even if it's just moving out of her parent's house to somewhere she can barely afford (to which I can relate). When her high-school friend Natalie comes home from Japan, where she's made a life for herself as a model, Jane's desperation and bitterness reach a boiling point.

High-school relationships are always fraught after graduation, especially when lives diverge so wildly. While Jane has been stagnating back in Australia, Natalie has been lonely and alienated in Japan, aching to return to the familiar.

The betrayals do truly sting, partly for how mundane and unavoidable they are. Jane doesn't really care about Ben anymore, so when Natalie unburdens her secret, it's nothing for Jane to manipulate him and cut him out of her life. When Jane sees her opportunity and takes it (with a beautiful panel by Gooch of her taking a photo with her eyes shaded), you know she's making everything more difficult for herself but you understand every reason why.

And, just like in life, there are no happy endings or tied up threads. Ben is abandoned and not a threat, Natalie is even more alienated than before, and Jane understand she has won a Pyrrhic victory. But there is, hopefully, the smallest possibility of change, and I hope she jumps on it.… (meer)