Frogcatchers by Jeff Lemire Review

A man awakens in an obvious nightmare/metaphor for dying where he’ll meet his younger self, frog monsters and the inevitable sentimentality that comes with looking back upon one’s life. Serious! Feels! Scroogecatchers!

Jeff Lemire’s latest falls into the best category of his books: da indie roots (the second best being his experimental Image stuff and dead last being his almost-always-abominable work for hire at Marvel/DC/Valiant). So this one’s thankfully for fans like me who loved Essex County and Roughneck – though I wouldn’t say Frogcatchers is anywhere near as good as those modern masterpieces.

It was very easy to clock straight away that this was a coma dream-esque setup from the transitions and, if you’re familiar with those kinds of stories, it plays out fairly predictably. The story never really grabbed me and the Christmas Carol-type ending, rather than make me all gooey and warm inside, felt like a cop-out that undermined the poignancy of everything that came before it when you felt that this was a guy about to enter the abyss once and for all. 

Still, I found the premise intriguing – a man waking up alone in a mysteriously empty hotel on the seaside with no memory of how he got there - and I liked how Lemire developed it with the kid and the enigmatic frog people. There’s an appealingly mild sense of menace and doom hanging over everything that I enjoyed.

And Lemire’s artwork is as excellent as ever – it looks deceptively sketchy during most of the time the man is in the dreamscape (for wont of a better word) but it’s undoubtedly skilful and appropriately reflective of the ambiguous environment he’s in; the parts where he’s awake in the real world, in his hospital bed, the lines are crystal clear and the colours really pop amidst all the intentionally drab, predominantly colourless pages.

The lettering is done in pencils that might seem sloppy to some but I kinda liked that rough style and it’s not so bad that you can’t read and understand it. I’ve read books with elaborate cursive lettering that looks like it took much longer to put together than this and hated it because it’s too flowery to read properly; there’s no issue like that here, despite the rushed look.

I liked parts of Frogcatchers but the rather underwhelming story didn’t do much for me, particularly as I know Jeff Lemire’s capable of more complex and powerful work. I’d say it’s worth a look anyway for those of us who wish he’d produce more original books like Essex County and Roughneck instead of the dross he churns out by the bucket load elsewhere.