It was published by Titan Comics, but it's not a comic. It's an illustrated collection of poems that don't scan in the format of a children's book, with an evil, offbeat sense of humour. I thought it was great and I've since bought more of Roman Dirge's work.

His art is creepy, strange and primitive. His art teachers said his crude style meant he'd never make it as an artist, so for a while he became a full-time magician. He later returned to art. Tim Burton has called Dirge's style "beautiful" and "timeless", which I can believe since there's a similarity with the signature look of some of Burton's work. For what it's worth, my favourite illustration in this book is the creepy fanged Mr Seephis on a pile of teddy bears, about to be clawed by BoBo the killer bear... although, on reflection, the little terrified victims in Critter Pie are also cute. It's the teeth. Also, I'm mesmerised by the wonderfully unnaturalistic spiders in The Ghost In The Spider.

The text generally features death, horror, bereavement, metamorphosis and the killing and eating of the current protagonist. One of the latter, I think, is named after Edgar Allen Poe. (It wouldn't be the first Poe reference in Dirge's work.) Sometimes they're merely surreal. They're always, though, presented in those clumsy little kiddie poems.

I enjoyed it. It's wacky. Dirge is like a modern Edward Gorey. (I prefer Dirge's art style, but there's more to Gorey's text. I like both, though.) Also, this book contains a twist version of Stephen King's Pet Sematary. She doesn't appear in this book, but Dirge's best-known character is Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl (another Poe reference) and after reading this I bought four Lenore collections. She's an undead ten-year-old girl who keeps killing people by accident, because she's dead and generally unaware of her surroundings. Sounds great. Roman Dirge appears to be a weirdo, but definitely the right kind of weirdo.