Riceboy by Evan Dahm 2008

            Despite how quickly it reads, rice boy was actually a pretty epic tale. A lot of the structure was pretty run-of-the-mill though; the hero’s call to action, his initial refusal and later acceptance, a quest with goals, save the world type of deal. The illustrations were also very simple in the way the drawing is handled but the characterizations and personalities were strong which contrasted the typical structure and gave it some uniqueness. Rice boy was the simplest drawing of them all, made of only a circle head and organic rectangular body, no arms or legs, or mouth even. His humility made him very easy to follow as a protagonist and gave the story a pleasant quaintness. He always greets people, and sometimes monsters politely. There was also another protagonist called The One Electronic, who was quite original. His face was a circular tv screen and in each panel that showed his face, a different black ad white still from movie or cartoon was depicted on the screen. I enjoyed following rice boy through all these imaginative environments. With each stop on his quest he would meet an equally imaginative character. At one point he meets a “woman” or female humanoid creature, who grows a tiny tree in the palm of her hand that dies and bursts into flames, which she uses to light her pipe. This type of innovation on the characters and environments (such as the matchstick woods) made the simplicity engaging. Apparently its available digitally and is part of a larger world with more stories, short ones and epics. I’ll have to check out the others at rice-boy.com to see if they’re as good or better.