Gobbledygeek

Does a bear kill in the woods? That’s the question Patrick Horvath sets out to answer in his “Richard Scarry meets Dexter” opus Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, the subject of this year’s very first Four-Color Flashback. The 2024 IDW series takes place in an idyllic world of anthropomorphic animals where not all is as it seems–the local hardware store owner, Samantha Strong, has a nasty habit of heading out to the city and slaughtering random passersby. That is, until another serial killer comes to her small town of Woodbrook, threatening the life she has carefully maintained for decades. Paul, Arlo, and Special Guest™ Eric Sipple discuss Horvath’s deceptively simple cartooning, his brilliant use of panel layouts, the limits of the book’s suburban satire, Hassane Otsmane-Elhaou’s visionary lettering, and so much more. Plus, Arlo raves about Best Picture nominee Nickel Boys.   NEXT: we’ll be back, someway, somehow.   BREAKDOWN 00:00:28  -  Intro / Guest 00:02:48  -  Banter and generally wasting time 00:08: