Now, Endsville and Other Stories #[nn]

Carol Lay's singular cartooning voice fills every inch of this 1993 Kitchen Sink Press collection, whose cover lays out a lively grid of vignettes — a wide-eyed woman in a flowing white dress commands the center, surrounded by scenes featuring a coiled snake, a tumbling figure in freefall, a grinning man in a pith helmet, a cool-shaded character flashing a smirk, a stylized silhouette chasing a tiny figure, an alarmed man confronted by a horse-headed figure, and a bold yellow panel declaring "Shut up you little heathens before I ram a plunger down your throats!" It's a wonderfully chaotic sampler that signals exactly the kind of sharp, witty, and warmly offbeat storytelling waiting inside. Lay's clean linework and confident color choices give the whole cover an energy that feels both playful and unmistakably her own.