Web Comics Gone Print

To Catch a Tooth (self-published, 2013, $2.99)
This 16-page minicomic was written, drawn, and published by Dylan Campbell, whom I met at Pulp Fiction in early December. He started making comics after taking a class several years ago and now publishes a Web comic, Scared by the Bell. This is his first mini.

Drawn in a slightly cartoony style that reminds me a little of Ariel Schrag by way of Mark Crilley, this brief comic tells the tale of a boy who conspires to rob the tooth fairy. it is a gently clever family comic that reads at the pace of a cartoon or TV sitcom. At the end, it's a story about love and looking out for the ones you love.



Campbell's artwork is friendly and his writing conversational, which works well for the story. The lettering is uneven, using a computer typeface and inexplicably switching from uppercase to lowercase on page 4. Lastly, Campbell's panel and page design offer room for improvement. The structure of the pages don't always serve the narrative, and the panel arrangement and composition occasionally feel arbitrary. A stronger sense of unity and direction will serve his work well. That said, this is a great first effort. All first minis should be this good, and the formal issues are small in light of the art and ideas.