Sweet Tooth Deluxe Edition #1

Sweet Tooth Deluxe Edition #1

Sweet Tooth is written and illustrated by Jeff Lemire, colours by Jose Villarrubia, letters by Pat Brosseau and published by Vertigo. The deluxe edition #1 of Sweet Tooth contains issues 1-12 and like most omnibus or deluxe editions contains original sketches and a word from the author which can be interesting tidbits for anyone interested in the process of making a comic or the development from Idea to published comic. Sweet Tooth is a post apocalyptic story with a difference so even if you read other series like The Walking Dead or Spread, Sweet Tooth will not feel like you are reading the same story with different characters.

Sweet Tooth begins with our main character Gus, a small antlered boy, narrating how his father speaks to god who he says warns him to never leave their forest home or fire and sin will consume them. 7 Years previously a mysterious disease hit that wiped out a massive percent of the population, but even the surviving population will eventually succumb to the disease. The only people not affected by the disease are the children born after the disease originally struck. The strange thing is all the children born afterwards are a strange hybrid of human and animals with fur, tails or like Gus, antlers. Gus's father slowly succumbs to the sickness that took so many others, leaving Gus all alone in the forest. As he is burying his father Gus is attacked by two strange men saying that he will fetch a good price. Gus is saved from the hunters by the cold and mysterious Mr. Jepperd who violently slaughters them. At first Gus runs from Jepperd but after promising to take him to "The Sanctuary" where hybrid children are safe, Gus decides that he doesn't want to be alone anymore and decides to take his chances with The Sanctuary.

In the deluxe edition we do meet more characters than just Gus and Jepperd but to keep the spoilers to a minimum I'm only going to talk about those two. Gus I find written incredibly well exactly how you would expect a frightened child to act, he has been told his entire life that the outside world is evil and is therefore frightened of everything yet has an innocence about him that makes him have complete faith in those that promise to care for him. Jepperd is like the complete opposite of Gus in almost every way, Jepperd is cold, violent, bitter and cynical about everything seeing no good in the world. Despite Jepperd's nature he does still have some tender moments with Gus and some others they meet along the way, so no matter how suspicious you are of Jeppered's motives you are still crossing your fingers for a happy ending for him.

You can really see the innocence or lack of in their eyes

The art of Sweet Tooth I find really hard to classify as it can be both beautiful, grotesque and horrifying all at the same time and uses a lot of thick line work, flat colours and shading to make things look eerie and sick. One of the best things about the deluxe edition is having the textless covers of the single issues, which are just beautiful, at the beginning of each issue.

I actually really love this panel

After seeing the cover of Sweet Tooth on the shelf I couldn't leave the store without it and after I opened it I didn't put it down until I was finished. The characters are great, the story completely draws you in and the art is truly something different. Sweet Tooth is great for seasoned readers and could be an easy introduction for new readers if they have an open mind about different art styles.

I give Sweet Tooth Deluxe Edition #1 4 out of 5 hybrid babies.

Find out more about Sweet Tooth here.