chthonic_cassandra

Go read Pinky & Pepper Forever! Fondly pressing my UIR tag to its forehead like a produce sticker.


Title: The Confessional
Author: Paige Hender
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2025
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 562,355
Text Number: 2122
Read Because: reading the publisher, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library via Hoopla
Review: A young vampire struggling to adapt to her new life begins a questionable romance with a vigilante priest. This is solid, polished, and satisfying: consistent art that has a lot of fun with background details and monster design, a distinct historical setting, and a combo of dark, manipulative romance and vampire found family. I like it! And it's effectively a first novel, with the subsequent limitations that I'd expect, particularly in heavy-handed resolutions to the interpersonal elements, that kept me from doing more than liking it.


Title: Pinky & Pepper Forever
Author: Eddy Atoms
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2025 (2018)
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 135
Total Page Count: 562,490
Text Number: 2123
Read Because: reading the publisher, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library via Hoopla
Review: Puppygirl art school girlfriends break up when Pinky commits suicide, and get back together when Pepper follows her to hell. This (furry, cartoony, of a certain age and angst) isn't my style; it grew on me, anyway. The metaphor of inhabiting, owning, & enjoying societal (expectations of) suffering is effective and, better, a lot of fun. Distinctive, vibrant, strongly figured; dynamic character/relationship arcs without ever compromising on codependent lesbian pups.

The comic is 80 pages; the 2025 special edition has a bunch of bonus material. Great bonus material, too; the mixed-media style and development of OCs who began as fashion dolls enriches the reading experience.


Title: Cry Wolf Girl
Author: Ariel Slamet Ries
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2019
Rating: N/A
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 562,540
Text Number: 2124
Read Because: reading the publisher, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library via Hoopla
Review: I don't get on with narratives that are just about mental illness. Vibrant, effective art; read it, it works; but I bounced off it like a rubber ball.

Title: A Short Stay in Hell
Author: Steven L. Peck
Published: Strange Violin Editions, 2012 (2011)
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 110
Total Page Count: 558,895
Text Number: 2104
Read Because: saw this requested in a fic exchange, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Not to be glib, but just read Borges. That said, this is short, and less campy than the opening lets on. What it does best is extrapolate scale—massive, horrifying, existential scale, banal yet cosmic. The social element feels written by a straight white man, gestures made at murder cults and the rise of ritual, at the transitory-or-not role of sexual relationships, pretty underwhelming takes, all less successful than the premise itself.