By Piotr Nowacki
www.magazynkarton.pl
Shit, this has an ISBN? Should I even be reviewing this? Well whatever, let's get to it.
OM is a comic from Poland, but it's told entirely without dialogue, so not understanding Polish isn't actually a problem. (Well, the back page is in Polish, but it's unrelated to the story inside.)
Nowacki has created a story about a weird dinosaur/lizard type creature and his best bud who is a giant egg. The dinosaur guy eats pretty much everything except the egg, which is pretty amazing. Alarm clock? Eaten. Toothbrush? Eaten. Chess set? Eaten. A pirate's hand? Eaten! In fact, the "eat everything" aspect of the story continues throughout the story with the main character actually getting eaten in the second half of the comic.
One day the lizard guy wakes up and his egg buddy is missing! He quickly puts on his detective outfit and sets out on a mission to find the egg. His quest takes him through many lands (and under the sea!), and he encounters many other creatures like ninja and fishmen. The story isn't anything super original, but the way it's told is pretty cute and there's some nice humour. The ending is kind of sad and bittersweet, and I wish that it wasn't.
The art is pretty simple, but Nowacki manages to get a surprising amount of emotion out of his wide-eyed lizard guy. Most of the pages are laid out in a simple six-panel grid, but some of them break from this, and when they do you know it's for a reason, something big is happening!
Overall I liked this, and could definitely see myself reading more adventures of this silent lizard guy. Though hopefully they'd end happier than this one does.
