Poopsheet Foundation

Priced at $2, Pancakes is an attractive book with a unique and enticing cover. As a mini-comic, it leans a little too far toward stereotypical navel-gazing for my taste, with non-sequitur strips abruptly ending, bearing no discernible point. Instead of any attempt at a sustained narrative or even a theme connecting most of the pieces, they sometimes unfortunately feel like they’re just filling space. There’s also an illustrated dream. In my experience, illustrated dreams are a rookie pitfall that’s done when all else fails and a creator is fresh out of original ideas. Creators can sometimes feel that their dream will be as interesting to others as it was to them, and that’s sadly just not the case. Despite those observations, there were some things I really enjoyed about Barnett’s style and voice. The introductory “Dear You…” text is charming as hell and provides a really eclectic overview of what you’re about to encounter in the book. The pencils appear as photocopied pages whose reproduction quality isn’t as high as a more professional printing job would be, and the washed out inks which might have been in color originally appear as monochromatic grayscale here. While Barnett’s full human figures are a little stilted, the close-ups of human hands done in a pen and ink style, along with her renditions of birds and horses are fantastic. I’d encourage her to attempt a full length story incorporating some of these stronger elements. I can picture sort of a children’s book starring these animals on some grand adventure, but I digress. More information can be found at: www.melikesyou.blogspot.com Grade B-.