While I've read some of Lilli Carre's work before, I wasn't quite prepared for this one - it's clever, melancholy, humorous, and highly original. Each of the short pieces in Nine Ways to Disappear is unique, and the small size of the pages fits Carre's style perfectly, since her technique is simple yet artfully executed, with each page image beautifully centered in a decorated border, just like a picture frame. Definitely my favorite so far from the Lillie Carre oeuvre. ( )

I first saw some of Lilli Carre's work on the cover of The Best American Comics 2006 and reading an excerpt of her book Tales of Woodsman Pete within its pages. I went on to read Tales of Woodsman Pete in its entirety and I think it is my favorite of her full length pieces. Last year I read The Lagoon and never shared my thoughts on it because I'm not sure I completely understood it. So I was excited to see what Carre had come up with in Nine Ways to Disappear and I'm pleased to say it's pretty great!

Nine Ways to Disappear is an assortment of long and short stories told frame by frame, some with words others without. I loved that they all carried the theme of disappearing but it completely different ways. One of my favorite stories was Wide Eyes, about a man that ends up hiding between his girlfriend's eyes to get a break from her. I also liked The Pearl, which is about the journey of the pearl and who finds it, takes it, becomes one with it...

Let's talk about the format, the book is a little square that is pretty thick with pages. Because of that and the way it's bound it's pretty hard to keep those tiny little pages open so I had to fight the book to keep it open since I wasn't about to try and crack the spine.

Overall these are some clever little stories with a strangely awesome sense of humor! ( )