February 10, 2009 | New Illustration | by Nikki Savvides
I’ve been a big fan of illustrator Roman Dirge’s work since I first spotted his comic, Lenore, on the shelves of Sydney’s Kings Comics in 1996. Dirge hails from L.A. but his work is decidedly more devilish than you would expect from the City of Angels. While Lenore tells darkly humorous tales about a little dead girl and her murderous exploits, Dirge gets even blacker in his book Something at the Window is Scratching, a short volume of poems guaranteed to give children nightmares and adults fits of criminally insane laughter. My favourite poem, entitled Boodini and Choobie, is about a ‘rotting magician’ and his ‘decomposing hare’. Every time I read it I giggle like an escaped mental patient, which works well when I want the bus seat all to myself. This year Dirge has a ‘best of’ volume coming out called Taxidermied, as well as a full-length Lenore book entitled Wedgies.
