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Friedrich lives!

I have to come clean straight away. I was already a huge fan of Friedrich when he first appeared online - and I still am in book form.

To simply consider the plot of Lucy Pepper's frankly bonkers story of a wronged mouse who takes to Quentin Tarantino levels of violence to extract his revenge (this is not a cartoon for pre-teens) is to find something entertaining, but nothing special. (I ought to say for any biologists that Friedrich has a rat grandmother, hence the tail.) However, Friedrich is so much more. 

The reason for this is artist Pepper's bewitching use of a whole range of different styles and techniques that sees characters in the cartoon sometimes drawn in pen, sometimes colour washed, sometimes 3D. Arguably Friedrich is a stunning serial doodle where Pepper uses whatever comes to hand to continue the increasingly gripping story. (At one point this features a plaster cast in a hospital, and at another an unexpected outdoor scene.) The outcome is totally unique. 
It is really difficult to describe this visual treat with its mix of time travel, German-style beer Kellers and evil hench-animals. But all I can really say is that I love it.

If I have one criticism it's that these miniature works of art deserve to be bigger - I'd have liked a square format with one image per page, but I appreciate that would probably have made the cost of the paper version astronomical.

Friedrich is available as a Kindle book from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com, but despite being significantly more expensive, I would recommend going for the paper version to get the full impact of the images. (Definitely don't go for Kindle unless you have a proper colour graphics reader, such as a Kindle Fire or iPad - it would be pointless on an e-ink reader.) You can find the paper version at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
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