Lose #7 Paperback – September 15, 2015

A full-color beaut with two shorts* and a long centerpiece called "Movie Star". DeForge is reaching new levels of design and storytelling. It's wild to see how far he has come since his work just five years ago. Lose is a series that started good and just keeps getting better. "Movie Star" has got the strange surreal vibe DeForge is great at pulling off but has a more poignant and serious tone than previous work.*The two shorts (Adults and Boy) were previously available digitally to subscribers of DeForge's Patreon.com page

The line and color work in this issue of Lose are incredible, some of the stories...not so much. I could stare at these pages for hours either way, and the longer story about a pair of long lost brothers who are reunited through a father and daughters viewing of cheesy action films really s quite fun to read. Deforge really shows his mastery over the comic form here; the pacing is impeccable, he hits each beat, and his simple figures carry so much expression. His limited pallete, as always, is beautiful, and adds an atmosphere that services the tone of the strip, without just turning it into eye candy. Great read, glad to have it on my shelf.

I thought this was Deforge's weakest work so far. Maybe he's putting out too much stuff, but the drawings weren't as detailed and inventive as some of his earlier stuff, and the narratives lacked the stunning weirdness of the earlier issues of lose. Nothing to compete with the Canadian Royal Family or Spotting Deer in this one, but still reasonably decent work.

Three short colour stories from late DeForge, exploring new interesting graphic modes paired with his usual over-the-top narrative quality