Trout: Bits & Bobs

A dream, or nightmare, set in some fantasy realm where a little boy or large baby named Trout is cared for by an old man named Giuseppe Lint, head of the Lint Brothers’ Turnip Works.  Trout doesn’t speak but in the first story he has a repressed memory that comes to life and starts eating up an entire town. In the second story a traveling puppet-show monster steals the souls of all the town’s children and turns them into tadpoles.

I didn’t know what to make of the story. It really wasn’t my thing. I did like the art though (Troy Nixey both wrote and illustrated, so he takes praise and blame). There’s a spiral motif worked throughout, from the long sleeves of Trout’s pyjamas to Giuseppe’s handlebar moustache. The faces and figures of people and monsters (there’s no clear dividing line between them) are quite original and there’s no denying the unique world Nixey has conjured up, but it all feels a bit like an elaborate doodle. I gather Nixey really had his heart set on making movies anyway. I’m not sure how many more Trout comics he did but while I could appreciate some of this, there was enough of it here for me.

Graphicalex