Tiny Horrors
W
e were first introduced to the amazing Rina Piccolo when she submitted the illustrated story, ‘The Power of Centipedes’. We were delighted to publish it in our Summer 2015 issue, and since then have brought you three more short comics by Rina, in issues 16, 26, and most recently in Spring 2025, Issue 46. Take a peek at the first few pages below …
The Power of Centipedes
A Graphic Short Story
Rina Piccolo
Centipedes have a special power, at least over me.
Yesterday I moved into a fifth-floor apartment with the belief that five stories was a safe distance above the earthy cellars and dank dinginess where ’pedes like to hang out.
’Pedes. That’s what I call them for short. Perhaps it’s an unconscious attempt to shorten the length of their legs, or truncate the span of their long, segmented trunks, at least in my mind.
It turns out that I was wrong about the five floors. The ’pedes found me where I live. I bet those antennae are nature’s GPS for insects.
It’s noon. I’m in the shower. Not sure which of us is startled more — me, or it — but when I spot its striped sternites between the shampoo bottle and the anti-frizz hair serum, I scream so loud it sends the ’pede scuttling off with a ruptured antenna.
Find out what happens next in Pulp Literature Issue 7, Summer 2015, on sale till the end of August.
Rina Piccolo’s cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker, Barron’s Business Magazine, The Reader’s Digest, Parade Magazine, and more. Her daily comic strip, Tina’s Groove (tinasgroove.com), is syndicated in newspapers and websites worldwide. When she’s not drawing comics, she’s making up short stories and flash fiction, which have appeared in Narrative Magazine in print, and on the web. Rina lives in Toronto, where she was born and raised. For more of her wickedly funny comics, check out her substack here >>
The Rina Piccolo Collection
Want to collect all the issues with Rina’s work? Pick up the Rina Piccolo Collection and get four full issues in print or ebook for less than the price of three!
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