Hwy. 115

The strange, cartoony front cover stared out at me from the shelf of the library. I picked it up and had a flick through. Black and white shadowy figures looked out. Grotesque faces and exaggerated bodies. It was a scratchboard book in the style of Thomas Ott and Frans Masereel but seemed cruder, more contemporary. Kinda like Ren and Stimpy done labouriously using scratchboard. Compelling. The book follows two detectives on the trail of a serial killer. The story is one long mental road trip across hellish cities and jungle like countryside, meeting crazier and crazier souls. Though the repetitiveness of the story began to grate a bit (the same pattern kept occurring) I didn't mind. The pictures are so gorgeous to look at and, when you think about the scratchboard technique, it must've taken Lehmann years to achieve this level of detail. It's a great read though. Looks very indie, very different, though produced to a high standard by Fantragraphics with an excellent hardback cover and high quality paper. Very noir, very cool, very good read. Highly recommended.