When I read My Friend Dahmer last year, one line really stuck with me: "it's not as if Dahmer was the only f***ed up kid at school." In A Friendly Game, we get to meet a few more truly messed up pre-teens just as their personalities begin to turn more violent.

It's a simple story that follows its plot well: the "game" is to kill animals, first mice, then later bigger things. And when others find out and threaten to ruin the game, there's a pretty easy remedy for that ("No more small stuff"). But when Kevin, the kid who actually started the game, wants to back out, he finds he's in a little too deep.

But I like stories with a solid ending, and that's where this one fails. The story does come to a terrifying but mostly predictable climax, but there's no real resolution for these characters. We really never find out why Todd, the ultra-psychotic best friend, becomes so violent -- which, in a way, is very realistic, but that would have made for a better storyline than just panels of unmitigated gore (thankfully, it's a black and white graphic novel).

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LT Haiku:

A friendly game turns
Into something evil and
Maybe unending. ( )