SPOILER WARNING: While this digest-sized graphic novel was first available in 1999, we should warn those interested in reading CAVE-IN for the first time that the following review covers the entire story from beginning to end. You've been warned.
In CAVE-IN, Brian Ralph allows us to share a day in the life of a small, solitary, monkey-like caveman with a joie de vivre and a well-balanced psychological make-up rarely seen. His day, replete with moments of happiness and tragedy, is accepted by the little caveman as just a part of his glorious existence.
Brian Ralph weaves an intriguing tale through visuals only, not a word of narration or dialogue. Once you turn the title page, you are thrust into a world without words, a silent movie without music or captions. Through Ralph's visual representation you experience movement, action and fine detail that draws you into the little caveman's adventures. The artwork is presented in a primitive woodcut appearance with each scene displayed in a solitary color scene changes are noted simply by a change in color.
From the moment you flip the cover, you are immediately drawn in by the meanderings of a rat-like creature who leads you to the little caveman asleep in his hammock about to wake up and begin his day. After a delicious breakfast of maggots, he is swallowed whole by a huge slug-like creature wherein there are skin and bones humanoids whom he saves from the belly of the beast as he himself escapes. Oddly enough, the humanoids choose to return, most likely because it's home.
The little caveman moves on to a luxurious swim and bath in a grotto. Soon he meets a community of creatures much smaller than himself and takes childlike mischievous pleasure in tormenting them to the point of rolling on the ground in guilty glee.
Later, the little caveman enters a huge tomb, befriends a mummy who saves him from the jaws of a cobra and together they spend the day exploring the treasures of the tomb. The happiness is cut short by the tragedy of the disintegrating mummy being crushed in a cave-in of enormous magnitude. The little caveman escapes, grieves a moment for the loss of his friend, whom he tried to save, and moves on. He returns home, following the footprints of the rat-like creature now asleep in his hammock.
It's a day in the life, a clean, clear-cut circle from here to there and back again. Through the wonderment and magic of Brian Ralph's work, we are privileged to experience the little caveman's day as it is to him happiness, sadness but at the end of the day, just a day, as CAVE-IN is just a joy.
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