As the first to a new series, it is only proper that I introduce how zine reviews work at Late Comeback. This is not a place where we tell you if something is good or bad, where something needs to be improved or had a stellar use of imagery. Zine reviews give you a sense of what someone created, and what we felt needed to be shared with you. CONTAINS SPOILERS.
gg’s “DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE” begins like a seemingly innocent story about a girl who loves comics and gets bullied at school. The comic has a blue tone, a sense of slice-of-life sadness as we discover more about her. The girl comes from an immigrant family that can’t afford much; when at the grocery store, she excitedly picks up the next copy of Silver Surfer, but upon realizing that it costs $19.99, she places it back on the shelf. Her father pays for her soft serve in coins and after taking one bite from her cone, pretends to be full.
As they drive home at night, stars fully out and glimmering in the sky, the girl sits upside down in the backseat. “Dad, I think we’re alone in the universe,” she says. The father asks about aliens, but what she means is much smaller in scope. The girl does not discuss humanity; she means her family. Her. No friends at school, just comics and her dad. An overwhelming sense of blue.
Suddenly, we have a panel with a cop siren. The father pulls over, with panels thereafter alternating red and blue. All panels prior were black and white. “Dad! Are we going to jail?” the girl asks.
“No worry, okay? Probably is nothing,” he replies.
The girl hides behind her backpack in the backseat as the father is asked to step out of the vehicle. The cop beats her father with a police baton, the girl watching from the window. She runs out of the Cutlass and runs into the woods. The officer sees her and chases.
The girl trips and tumbles in the air, landing safely in a river. In red panels, the officer stumbles, falls, and lands on a pile of rocks under a waterfall. The girl climbs out and returns to her father, lying on the ground. “Don’t leave me alone,” she pleads.
Read the original copy of “DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE” here.