3 Review(s)

Following the internationally acclaimed publication of Stitches, David Small emerged as a storied figure in graphic literature, eliciting comparisons to Stan Lee and Alfred Hitchcock. Werewolf at Dusk, appearing fifteen years later, is his homage to ageing-gracefully or otherwise. The three stories in this collection are linked, Small writes, "by the dread of things internal". In the title story, an adaptation of Lincoln Michel's much-loved short, the dread is that of a man who has reached old age with something repellant-even bestial-in his nature. The spectre of old age also haunts the semi-autobiographical story "A Walk in the Old City", with its looming spiders and cascading brain-matter-a dreamscape that gives way to the ominous environs of 1930s Berlin in the final story, a reinterpretation of Jean Ferry's "The Tiger in Vogue". As fluid as manga and rife with unsettling imagery, Werewolf at Dusk affirms Small's place as a modern master of graphic fiction.