Buster Monster and the Roughage of July
Holy crap, it’s THAT Chris Davis! Long time readers may remember Chris and the many comics he sent my way in 2004-2005, plenty of which are still available in the online store here. I don’t think I’ve heard a thing from him since, but it looks like he’s spent that time honing his craft. This is a collection of daily strips from July 2010, as Chris saw a copy of “Ten Thousand Things To Do” by Jesse Reklaw and got inspired to try and do a strip a day. He made it a month and, honestly, he might have hit the perfect amount of time for one of these books. A year can drag in major ways (seriously, nobody’s life is that interesting), but confining it to a month lets the reader see the basic beats of the average month while also getting a pile of great comics. Well, that’s what happens if the comics are great, anyway, and these rise to right up around that level. The panels themselves can be pulled apart aesthetically, as he makes the reader follow the words on a journey through each page (it’ll make more sense when you see it). The stories themselves are a mix between dreams, happenings from his catering job/regular course of the day and oddities he sees while swimming. As it’s a journal comic there are also plenty of ruminations on various subjects, with me particularly enjoying him cutting himself off during a political conversation when he realized that there was no point to it. If you’re read his older comics and wondered what happened to the guy (assuming that you lost track of him too) I think you’ll be pleased with his current work. If you never heard of him, well, if this is the kind of work he’s putting out there days I think maybe you should get on the ball about that, don’t you? No price, but it’s hefty… $6?
