Comic Info
Comic Name: Sweet Tooth
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Jeff Lemire
# of Issues: 8
Release Date: 2012
Sweet Tooth #19
Reprints Sweet Tooth #18-25 (April 2011-November 2011). Gus, Jepperd, Wendy, Becky, Dr. Singh, Buddy, Johnny, and Lucy are headed to Alaska to seek out the origin of Gus and hopefully the plague. When Wendy, Becky, and Lucy encounter a man named Walter Fish, they find hope in an abandoned dam where it feels a real home could be created. Jepperd, Singh, and Gus still have their sights set on Alaska and the adventure could be over before it begins…and in the post-plague world, danger is around every corner.
Written and illustrated by Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth Volume 4: Endangered Species is released by DC Comics under the Vertigo imprint. Following Sweet Tooth Volume 3: Animal Armies, the issues were also collected in Sweet Tooth: The Deluxe Edition—Book 2.
The more I read Sweet Tooth, the more familiar it feels. The comic really does feel like issues of The Walking Dead (here it feels like the prison storyline) but it also feels very much like Y: The Last Man with the characters trying to seek out the origin of the plague through the mysterious story of Gus.
Sweet Tooth #23
Lemire keeps increasing the danger with each volume of Sweet Tooth. Gus frequently has prophetic dreams which could mean doom for the character and each dream has had dangerous consequences. The interesting thing about the story arc in Sweet Tooth 4: Endangered Species is that a lot of the questions are left unanswered despite feeling like a complete story. We still don’t know what Walter is playing at, what Project Evergreen is about, and what the return of Abbot will mean for the storyline. The mysteries keep building up for future volumes.
Lemire’s art continues to grow on me the more I see it. It is simplistic and sometimes very abstract. I will admit that I sometimes do have a difficulty distinguishing some of his human characters between each other, but it is generally remedied in a panel or two. I particularly like the dream sequences and trying to determine what they mean.
Sweet Tooth continues to evolve and get better. I will admit that a lot of Sweet Tooth feels derivative of storylines in other popular comics, but Lemire manages to put his own spin on the story, and it feels really personal since it is also his own art. Sweet Tooth 4: Endangered Species is followed by Sweet Tooth 5: Unnatural Habitats.
Related Links:
Sweet Tooth 1: Out of the Deep Woods
