I am Fire

Early on last year, I picked up House Party from Rachael Smith and now, after reading it, still consider it to be in my top five small press comics which I have ever read (my full thoughts on it are somewhere in the past).

Flash forward to earlier this year and, encountering Smith at True Believes, I discovered that she had another book on the way called Artifical Flowers, starring not only one of the House Party characters, but also a character from one of her other books, I am Fire.

Therefore, to prepare getting that new release (which I suspect will be old by the time I do get it) I picked up I am Fire and now, only six months after purchasing it, I finally gotten around to reading it.

Well, I've now read it and I must say that I am Fire is a rather funny book. About two work experience workers, one of whom is a pyromaniac during a fire drill at a department store, if it seems like I find that surprising then that's because I do given that House Party was such a different kind of tale.

However, unlike House Party, I thought I am Fire was hilarious to the point of absurdity with many of the characters being so over the top and every scenario confirming to me that the story obviously doesn't take itself too seriously.

(In fact, I do wonder if this is based on a 'real life event' that the creator experienced because can you make this stuff up?)

Of course, some of the characters are a bit one dimensional, especially the two apparent leads who I didn't like all that much, but given this is a one shot that's to be expected and, besides, they all did the job of adding humour to the mad chain of events.

In fact, while before I wrote this post, I wasn't sure what to think of this comic, I now realise that I really enjoyed I am Fire, even if House Party is still the better between them. Reading it also makes me me very curious as to how Artifical Flowers will read, something I'll have to wait until the next True Believers to find out.