Rice Boy

Evan Dahm, Iron Circus Comics (DECEMBER) Softcover $30 (460pp), 978-1-945820-10-6

Mythic, surreal, whimsical, colorful, and masterful, Evan Dahm’s webcomic classic Rice Boy has been conveniently collected in a print edition.

Rice Boy follows the title character on a winding quest to satisfy an ancient prophecy, a mission that brings him into contact with a seemingly endless stream of creations from Dahm’s fertile imagination. Dahm’s inventiveness is expressed through a myriad of landscapes, and creatures that often transform their appearance.

One of Rice Boy’s allies is T-O-E, short for “The One Electronic,” a machine man whose face is a screen showing an ever-changing series of expressive black-and-white photographic images. Another group of creatures speaks in a pictorial language, and throughout the book, limbs are amputated, taking on life of their own or revealing hidden secrets inside.

Strange as it may be, there’s more than just surface-level experimentation here—dahm knows how to convey emotion from his cast, particularly the innocent but surprisingly cagey Rice Boy. Dahm’s deceptively simple-looking artwork utilizes a varied and brilliant palette, and it’s just plain fun to look at.

Rice Boy features adventure-story elements reminiscent of classics like The Hobbit and Alice in Wonderland, but with frogs as the only traditionally recognizable characters (the villains, no less), this is Dahm’s world: bizarre, unique, and most importantly, enjoyable. This graphic-novel version of Rice Boy provides the opportunity to sit back and relax with the complete story, and to experience full immersion into Dahm’s land of unlimited possibilities.