In Review: DTHRTL (Death Rattle) – Book 1 of 3

By John Freeman on May 1, 2015

Created by Bob Turner

The Story: This is the wordless and psychedelic adventure of a cyclops like creature who falls through incident to incident in a crazy and colourful landscape. With the figure of Death following him around and haunting his non stop motion. He encounters creatures of all shapes and trippy sizes in this book – the first in a three comic series.

The Review: A little crazy is good? It is right? Every great creator in any area has had a little bit of the crazy about him or her. We know this, right? Well, as I read these brightly maniacal methamphetamine dreamlike pages, I realise that this is some great and wonderful Kool-Aid, and I am gulping it down, addicted and eager for my next dose.

DTHRTL (Death Rattle) flows like an indie animation at a back street film festival. It creeps up into the air above your head and hits you with a rainbow coloured frying pan. It is both edgy and cool – but remains a little bit innocent in its one-eyed central character. The hocus-pocus of the Terrapin Station-like visuals has me wondering what exactly is going on, but immediately also has me saying ‘F*** it, I don’t care’ – and just relaxing back into the visuals.

It’s a book that boggles the mind as to how Bob came to create each and every panel. Saying this though, I am hungry for more of the same and found myself really loving this book. It makes a contrary, strange sense, with its own logic set. It is exactly composed in moments of seemingly mathematical precision with an eye for free forming design and angular beauty this is a triumph. I read this on an iPad and it looks excellent with the tablet’s back lighting.

Follow its adventures in that inhibition free area of your brain and buy yourself a copy.

You can find Bob on Twitter @castlerockcomic and buy yourself a copy at www.castlerockcomic.bigcartel.com

Many thanks for reading.

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.