Buried Veins and Enough
by Molly Barker

Molly Barker is another Brooklyn-based artist with handmade books at this year's MoCCA Festival. I was unfamiliar with Barker's work, but I was intrigued enough to pick up two of her smaller books, Buried Veins and Enough. "Veins" is dated 1992 and "Enough" is dated 1995, suggesting three things: 1) Barker has been at this game for at least 13 years, 2) I'm not very good at spotting an artist's most recent work and 3)

I don't know every long-time cartoonist working, despite my Mr. Smartypants pretensions.

Well, my Smartypants weren't keeping up with my newfound girth anyway. Actually, the truly unfortunate thing is that this review will be the ninth item that comes up on a Google search of "Molly Barker Tigertooth Press," because the artist's web presence is seemingly nonexistant. Her sixteen—SIXTEEN—books can be ordered from her, just email her at tigertoothpress@yahoo.com

The two books I purchased were both covered in heavy black construction paper with 16 interior pages printed on a glossy cardstock. The covers also had their title images glued on, making for very attractive little books (standard minicomic size).

The cover image of "Buried Veins" is a somewhat lurid scratchboard rendering of the title printed on red paper. It's a bit goth looking, but it's not inapropriate considering the title, subject matter and Edward Gorey-esque imagery inside.

Each page features a single, heavily hatched image with a caption below it. All together, the captions seem to be a sort of poem, its exact meaning a bit unclear, but seemingly from the thoughts of someone with a fondness for Gorey and Poe. In fact, Buried Veins almost suggest the Tell-Tale Heart as they won't leave the main character alone. She sees them everywhere and they seem to drive her a bit mad. The imagery is all fairly attractrive, and there is the suggestion that there is more to be unlocked beneath the surface, but I'm not entirely convinced that there is enough in either the words or the illustrations to promt a reader to dig deeper. There aren't any hidden clues or interesting turns of phrase, there is just a suggestion that the artist would like there to be some hidden meaning to it all.

"Enough," produced three years later carries on in much the same—ehem—vein. This time the cover seems to feature an old peasant woman smiling, depite the fact that she's standing in an open grave. "I was sitting in my grave/when I had a grave" is how the book opens. It all has the feel of the sort of ninth-grade poetry I and many others were susceptible to writing when we were trying to express our depression/eccentricity/creativity. In a lot of way, the writing suggests a step down from "Buried Veins" in that it doesn't appear evovative of anything interseting. It suggests someone who feels alone and misunderstood, who's only outlet is to find pleasure in being weird for no reason at all. A perfectly reasonable way to go about being a young teenager, but not all that interesting to an adult.

I think that if I had found these books back in '92–''95 (I was 16 in '92), they might have struck a more resonant nerve. The way finding a kindred spirit one or two steps ahead of you while you're still trying to figure out just who you are can seem exhilerating and freeing. If anyone out there is still trying to find someone who just 'gets it', then you would probably do well to seek these books out. For me though, I have a similar problem with these as I did finally reading "The Catcher in the Rye" at the ripe old age of 22—I didn't have it when I could have used it, and now it seems too late.

—Justin J. Fox