"Good-bye, Chuncky Rice" + "Hellboy: Strange Places"

Craig Thompson went rather free-form with this story, and I only half understood what was going on. There's one stubbled guy with very interesting speech patterns. ('I promise-ted I'd care up for him downwise till the tail-end of time.') 

Mike Mignola's line drawing has great elegance, which comes as a surprise after the movie. This turned out to be a good book to stand in line at the post-office with. Elements of African mythology are deployed in the first story: haunted bananas, bat with a basket of darkness.