Graphic novel review
Written by Adam Rapp
Art by George O’Connor
First Second paperback
Release date 29 September 2009

In a post-apocalyptic future, an unnamed city has become a hive of disease, depravity and decay. A few survivors attempt to eke out an existence inside dank apartments…

Adam Rapp may have made a name for himself with young adult novels, including The Buffalo Tree and Missing the Piano, but the deliberately provocative Ball Peen Hammer sure ain’t for kids.

Over the course of this grim story, children are murdered, diseased characters sit around in fetid rooms waiting to die, and bodily fluids virtually drip off the page. Outside the apartment blocks we see that things are even bleaker, as acid-rain drips down on the gas-masked, starving hordes.

The stark artwork from George O’Connor succeeds in creating an atmosphere of despair and moral poverty, while the lurid dialogue (“If it ain’t a lungpuddle it’s some kinda crotch rot smolderin’ between his legs”) suggests just how far from humanity these characters have sunk. But this is a difficult book to love. The characters are so crass and unpleasant that it’s a struggle to find anyone to root for, and there’s little in the way of wit or heart to alleviate the depression.

We do get a protagonist of sorts in the form of aspiring actress Exley (inevitably clad in a sexy little black dress rather than anything that would be realistic in this environment), but Horlick, the child that Exley forms a bond with, is deeply unlikable. And like a bad torture porn movie, there’s a tendency to substitute narrative for unpleasantness at times.

Unusual it may be; enjoyable it isn’t. James Skipp

VERDICT: 5/10
If you like your graphic novels both lurid and depressing, then this one's for you.