12 August, 2003
Petshop of Horrors, Vol. 1, Matsuri Akino (194 pp, PB, 2003).
A short comic-book interlude before going on to the next Brust novel.
It is unlikely that I'd have picked this book up on my own initiative, but a friend lent it to me, so I figured I'd give it a look-see. It's a strange little book.
"Count D." is a mysterious, effeminate man who runs a pet shop in the Chinatown of some as-yet unspecified city. Count D.'s is no ordinary pet shop, naturally. The jacket copy sums it up succinctly:
Welcome to Chinatown! During your visit, be sure to stop by Count D.'s pet shop, where love and dreams are sold in the form of mythical creatures-- but not without a catch. The buyer must adhere to a set of rules, which if broken, may result in death... or worse.
What that blurb fails to do is give a hint as to the somewhat unsavory nature of D's business. The animals which people buy from him may give them "love and dreams" for a while, but they also carry the seeds of the owners' destruction. It's not clear whether D deliberately sets his customers on the road to despair and ruin, or whether the unfortunate events are simply inevitable consequences of people pursuing unrealistic dreams.
The book contains four "episodes," each of which focuses on a single pet purchase, most of which play out as tragedy. There is also an overall plot arc, about a police detective who realizes that a string of bizarre deaths all connect to this Chinatown pet shop, and who is determined to figure out what's really going on.
It's an interesting series, and I'll borrow the next book if my friend gets it. I'm not sure I'd buy it, especially since I am already invested in three long comic series, and Trigun is coming out from Dark Horse this fall.