Kayla E. is a ferociously inventive and blisteringly effective comix maker with an incredibly focused, original vision. Something of Chris Ware’s laser-honed visual sense and brutally tragicomic writing is in her artistic DNA, but melded with a rawer, bodily expression not unlike Lynda Barry or Phoebe Gloeckner’s. Precious Rubbish almost violently morphs and subverts the bubblegum slapstick of Nancy, Little Lulu, et al, and subverts the candy shine surfaces of 20th C. commercial illustrations, to make a universe of pain, sorrow, and black humor go down like a Coke and a smile mixed with acid and lye. Utterly brilliant.
Precious Rubbish by Kayla E., (List Price: $29.99, Fantagraphics, 9781683969280, April 2025)
Reviewed by Jonathan Hawpe, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky