When I am asked what I look for when selecting artists for our annual Broken Frontier ‘Six Creators to Watch’ initiative the answers I could give would be multitudinous. But if I had to boil it down to just two factors it would, firstly, be people who get the things that comics and only comics can do. And, secondly, those who look at the comics page as a blank canvas of infinite possibilities and not as something that has rigid boundaries and definitions. Rein Lee, one of this year’s Six, fits into both of those categories, as evidenced by their graphic novella My Taxidermy Angel.
To begin with, this is material that will reward at least a second reading. Lee isn’t afraid to make the reader work to invest themselves in the nuances of the characters’ lives, and in gradually revealing layers in this stirring tale. It’s the story of the religiously committed Amodeus who is determined to reconnect with their spirituality by fabricating an angel through taxidermy. The relationship between Amodeus and that angelic creation Ael proves to be a complicated one, though, and when it comes to a crucial turning point revelations about Amodeus’s past prove to have a great bearing on the present.
My Taxidermy Angel covers a number of themes in its near-60 pages. It’s a story where multiple thematic elements eventually converge into a whole, interweaving and eventually coalescing into a satisfying narrative whole. This is in many ways a long-form allegory about queerness, identity and self-acceptance, filtered through a lens of religious pain. It’s hypnotically haunting and it’s a comic that strikes with an emotional immediacy that is nonetheless delicate and fragile in composition, especially in its use of colour.
Much of that, it will come as no surprise to hear, is due to the breathtaking lyricism of Lee’s art. Images don’t so much follow each other sequentially as flow into each other. There’s something almost potentially frangible about their illustrative style; an exquisite delicacy that is both ethereal and graceful and yet imbued with a potent melancholy too. With a subtly powerful ending My Taxidermy Angel is incredibly confident early work from a new voice destined to make a huge mark on the medium.
Rein Lee (W/A) • Self-published, £13.00
Review by Andy Oliver
Excellent review beautifully & delicately expressed. Far better than my clumsy mitts could convey.