The first story, "Supply Chains", begins with the relatively simple process of how trees produce paper before flying off the rails into the anything but simple process by which people form relationships and sometimes produce other people, often with all sorts of setbacks, confusions, deceptions and betrayals.

After this comes the return of Saltz and Pepz in "Saltz and Pepz and the Eternal Sea", a short, wordless and dreamlike vignette with an urban legend punchline.

The third story, "Omegaville", is my favorite, in which the Eddie Constantine-Lemmy Caution character from Alphaville (as well as some much lesser known movies) leads us Virgil-like through an inferno of mid-century science-fiction movies, fipping the scripts quite literally on such classics as Them! and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Old movies are a touchstone for the Hoeys, and a beautiful and kaleidoscopic two-page spread celebrating Ida Lupino acts as something of an intermission before launching into "Served Cold", a dazzling and dizzying challenge to the reader issued from the comics medium itself. How to read it? How to process the information and in what sequence? These are the fundamental questions of all comics even if the presentation rarely suggests a range of options.

Finally they close with an ode to producer Val Lewton, ever to be remembered for RKO thrillers such as Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie et al. (Jacques Tourneur and Nicholas Musuraca will always be linked to some of these films, and with good reason, and they are duly included by the Hoeys.)

My only worry is that Peter and Maria Hoey are not as well known as they deserve to be. If you're curious, check out Coin-Op Books.