April 12, 2016
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Eyez
How soon exactly will it be until our every waking moment is under surveillance? Hell, why not our every sleeping moment too? Or is it already happening and we just don’t know it yet? If you relate to that sort of paranoid (but all too realistic mindset), do I have a comic for you! This is the story of a human who is just trying to sunbathe naked on their roof. As they’re relaxing they notice the whir of a drone and retreat back into their apartment, but even there the drone can peek in through the windows. Once this person is secure they transform back into their real self… but surveillance can come from unlikely places, and it’s difficult to be sure if you’re ever really alone. This is a wordless book that is creepy as can be, especially if you’d prefer not to be watched all the time and feel increasingly helpless about stopping it. For example, do you have a camera on your laptop? Do you know that creeps can tap into that even when it’s not powered on? Or maybe I watch too many spy shows and am getting my information wrong, but you don’t really know, do you? Damn it, like I needed to be more paranoid. Thanks, Eyez! Seriously though, give this a look. The art and coloring are both gorgeous, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to be creeped out. $6
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Posted by Kevin
March 31, 2016
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Unwell
If there’s a better use for dogshit, I’ve certainly never seen it. Getting ahead of myself a bit with this review, but that’s definitely the standout image of this mini comic. This is the story of a young woman going about an average (probably) day in her life. It’s wordless and starts off with this woman waking up to what appears to be a strange man. She does everything possible to avoid waking him up, anyway, which certainly implies “stranger” to me. From there we see her triumphant escape and her journey home to a waiting dog that is clearly overjoyed to see her, as is the custom of dogs with all returning owners, no matter how long they’ve been away. The rest of her day consists of her taking a shower, going through a bunch of outfits before finally picking one out, taking her dog on a walk (this is where the dog shit bit comes in, but I’m not going to spoil the context) and finally stopping to get some liquor. The art is gorgeous throughout and Tara really nails the most important aspect of a silent comic: emotive facial expressions. This is fantastic tale of a day in the life, warts and all.
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Mini Kus, Tara Booth, Unwell | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 9, 2016
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Future Shock #0
Before I get into any of the content, I just want to point out that this is one of the most beautifully colored books that I’ve ever seen. Granted, a lot of small press anthologies are in black and white, but every story in this collection is colored beautifully, up to and including the collages by Josh Burggraf. So hey, what about the content? This is a collection of science fiction stories on a variety of different themes. Some (but by no means all) of my favorites included Vincent Giard’s tale on perspective in movement and meaning, Jason Murphy’s conceptual struggle, Lala Albert’s piece on mutations caused by a certain type of water and what people do with said mutations, a lengthy wordless piece by Alex Degen about virtual reality and the consequences of dreaming, William Cardini’s depiction of the death of a planet and the aftermath, Pat Aulisio playing around in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with mad dogs and killer lizards, Aleks Sennwald and Pete Toms showing the lingering effect of ads on the environment (even long after humanity is gone), and Anuj Shreshta’s story on the increasing ease of blocking out all bad thoughts and opinions and the consequences of those actions. Aside from being just damned pretty, this is also one of the more thoughtful science fiction comics I’ve read in ages. The last two stories I mentioned alone had several comments and images in each of them that made me stop and think or examine an assumption I’d had from a different angle, which is always welcome. No anthology is ever going to be perfect for everybody, but if you can’t find several stories in here to love then maybe the fault is on your end. $18
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Aleks Sennwald, Alex Degen, Anuj Shreshta, Ben Urkowitz, Future Shock, Jason Murphy, Jordan Speer, Josh Burggraf, Keren Katz, Lala Albert, Marine Blandin, Pat Aulisio, Pete Toms, Sophia Foster-Dimino, Sungyoon Choi, Tory Sica, Victor Kerlow, Vincent Giard, William Cardini | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 7, 2016
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Run Boys Run
Quick, judge a book by its cover. Put together what you think this book is about in your head based on that cover before I say anything about it. Ready? This is a comic about three friends who run to and from school every day. One is a cyborg of some indeterminate origin, one is the displaced prince of a strange realm who can also transform into a giant wolf, and one is the magical descendant of a powerful witch who is also bad at running. Right around what you had in your head, right? Michiru does a fantastic job of setting these characters up right away, then delves more into their origins and how they met with shorter stories later in the comic. To start things off we get the explanation of why these kids never ride the bus (although their classmates remain in the dark): because they’re hunting shadow monsters. That the wolf prince can detect by smell, so he’s the one leading them around. That’s the only area where I wish I had gotten more information out of this comic, as I don’t get the motivation for the monsters or what their overall deal is. Then again, it’s perfectly acceptable for the motivation of a monster to be “being a monster,” so maybe I’m overthinking things here. A confrontation is had with this monster, battle ensues, and we get to see how all three of them handle themselves in a crisis situation. And like I said at the top, there’s a lot more to this comic than one measly monster fight, as we even get detailed bios for some of the side characters, which implies to me that there’s more coming with this crew/artist. Here’s hoping, as that was an intriguing first issue and I’d like to see more. If this is all there is ever, well, it is self-contained, so no worries about a lingering cliffhanger or anything like that. $5
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Michiru Morikawa, Run Boys Run | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 29, 2016
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Mixmen Hyperworld #1
I should make one thing clear early on in this review: this comic series is more or less intended to be an origin story of sorts for characters and settings that are going to be used in a tabletop game that the creators of this comic is putting together. I’m still going to judge the comic on its merits, but it should be noted that the people responsible for this have big plans and show every sign of having their act together enough to make this happen. That being said, this is a #1 of a series and there’s still no #2 listed on the website. Let’s just say that I’ve learned to take this sort of thing with a grain of salt over the years until I see tangible proof that things are progressing. Anyway! This is the story of a planet that was terraformed (for lack of a better word; giant aliens put this planet together seemingly from scratch) for the purpose of being used as a prison planet. There were three zones and one warden (i.e. character with super powers) was put in charge of each zone. As time went on the population exploded, necessitating several more wardens, and after many years pass the place seems to be clearly broken down into three groups: the dominant group, the “police,” and the scholars. All this information is neatly laid out before we meet the hero of the story, or at least our introduction to this world: Takota, a “recycled” former warden. We also get to see him trying to figure out his powers, which was handled about as well as I’ve seen in comics. The guy was delightfully out of his league in testing his limits and it was nice to see our hero being fallible right off the bat. Yes, I may have seen one too many “instant savior” science fiction movies over the years. I still have lots of questions after reading this, but the creators seem very aware of potential questions and sure seem like they know what they’re doing. I’m hoping for the best, as this series intrigues me, but one issue isn’t really enough to judge a series one way or the other. I think it’s worth a look, although $7.50 for a comic seems a little expensive to me. At least you can get it for $5 from a convention, so try to find them there.
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Alister Blackthorn, Bob McHenry, Mixmen Hyperworld, Molly McHenry | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 24, 2016
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Men’s Feelings
Ha! I just started writing the review for this issue, checked back to my website to make sure I had already reviewed the first issue (yes, I do sometimes use my own website as a resource), and realized that I had started writing the review exactly the same way that I started writing that review. I wonder how often that happens? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Anyway, this is a new comic by Ted May, which is always a good thing. All of these stories refer back to Men’s Feelings in some way or another, sometimes obliquely, sometimes straight up. Subjects include a man going on a walk with the son of the woman he’s dating and trying to win him over, what goes through your head on a flight in regards to the person sitting next to you, the efficacy of wake-up calls in hotels, a bad pick-up line, the option of going towards the light, technically following mom’s order with eggs, football, and praying. The story of the man trying to connect with the son of his girlfriend was my favorite, mostly because that’s as hilarious of an ending to that scenario as there is in the world. I also laughed several times, which is always welcome in the realm of comic books. It’s a great book, that’s what I’m saying, which you should already know if you’ve read Ted’s other comics. If you haven’t, there’s still time to rectify your terrible error in judgment! $5
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Men's Feelings, Ted May | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 23, 2016
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30 Miles of Crazy: Another Round
If there’s one rule about autobio comics, whether they’re daily strips or regular old comics, that everybody should stick to, it’s this: have something to talk about. That’s it! The “something” could be deeply personal, or absurd, or just observances of the people around you. I’m happy to report that Karl nailed that last one, as this is a collection of stories told (usually) at bars, or at least dealing with drunken people. And, if you’ve ever been to more than a few bars, you know that that is where the best stories often come from. These were originally single page strips that were published on a weekly basis on his website (and he’s still keeping up with them as of late February 2016), so there’s no greater narrative arc here, but who needs it? Some of these stories are funny, some baffling, and some are downright sad. Subjects include the various ways that people get kicked out of bars (as a recurring theme in these strips it’s hilarious), what counts as an ID, eating a sandwich that was left at a bus stop, getting lectured by a bum about forgetting the lesson of Super Size Me, drunken acrobatics, drunkenly hitting on ladies on a bus, picking the appropriate area to vomit in, finding his people at a comic convention, and the troubles with a language barrier while trying to find a little person prostitute. That covers about half the book anyway; the other half is up to you to discover. Unless you just read them all for free at his website, you cheapskate you. Overall this is a fantastic collection of stories and overheard conversations and I defy anybody not to enjoy reading this. As for me, I don’t go to bars much lately, but this comic actually has me missing them, which is no small feat. $15
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: 30 Miles of Crazy, Karl Christian Krumpholz | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 19, 2016
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You Don’t Get There From Here #35
Hey daily diary comics artists, you think you have it rough? You think it’s tough to stick to a daily drawing schedule? Well, Carrie sprained BOTH of her wrists and still didn’t miss a day. Good luck topping that! Granted, for all I know she went back and finished the strips when she was healed, but I didn’t get that impression while reading the book. She did sometimes go more minimal with her images, but only slightly, and not missing a beat after having that happen is incredibly impressive. If you have no idea what this series is you have some serious catching up to do, as very few small press comics outside of King Cat can boast about getting up to 35 issues in a series. Basically these are diary strips about Carrie, and she’s a master of the format and could teach some young cartoonists a few things. A lot of her strips are regular three panel stories, but when she goes on vacation or has a lot to talk about she seamlessly switches over to using between a few and several pages to cover the events of that day. She even puts the date and the concept of the comic at the start of each issue (this one covers October-December of 2014), so anybody who does stumble across this will know quickly what they’re picking up. Subjects in here include spending time with her cats, babysitting the kids of her friends (I think; the danger of missing a few issues of a daily diary comic is that some of the specifics fly out of my head), taking a trip to Oaxaca (and then reading the Steve Lafler comic set in that area), and dealing with menopause (mostly the hot/cold flashes and what she calls her “menopause belly”). It’s a great comic by a great artist, and if you have any sense you’re already following her series. If not, now’s your chance to get caught up! You can buy most of her books through Spit and a Half (from John Porcellino) or she has plenty of samples up at her website.
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Carrie McNinch, You Don't Get There From Here | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 18, 2016
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Macro Groan #6
Right off the bat, I have to commend Sara on her use of panels. Yeah, that’s not something I usually notice/make note of, but her characters (and words) flit in and out of them so regularly that it’s impossible not to notice. You could say that they’re just the usual rushed strip comics, and the mess with the panels is actually sloppiness, but I don’t think that’s the case. What it actually means I’ll leave to the fine folks at The Comics Journal or some other suitably erudite operation, but I liked the effect that it had on her strips. On the other hand, some of these strips come from sources that don’t come across very well in a comic form (usually lined graph paper or sometimes maybe just bad copies), but that’s an occupational hazard whenever you make mini comics. Enough about the margins, how about the content? These are mostly single page strips about Sara’s life and whatever is going through her head at the time. This book covers the end of her 20’s, to give you some idea of where her head is at, but subjects include how The Simpsons never fails to center her (I can relate there), how Portlandia is barely even satire, shouting “buffet style!” everywhere she goes, enjoying being an adult on Halloween (and not enjoying the day after), the embarrassment of giant yogurt containers, swimming, bonding with her plants, and incest. And that’s just (roughly) the first half of the book! It’s a solid collection of strips, and since this is #6 it’s clearly something that she’s been doing for awhile. My only remotely negative comment would be that a few of the strips get awfully dark (literally, not in terms of subject matter), but it was very few strips and I could still read them all. Overall I’d recommend this highly to whoever still loves mini comics out there. $5
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Macro Groan, Sara Lautman | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 12, 2016
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Nothing Whatsoever All Out In The Open
Ah right, this is the part where I have to boil this comic down for you. I was sitting here and absorbing what I read when I remembered that that won’t be enough for a review. The theme of this comic seems to be the moments when you’re almost out of reach of a feeling or event, but still consciously aware that it might be a real thing. Too vague? OK, how about “stories about surreal happenings that are more real to the person that what is actually happening around them”? That’s closer, maybe. Anyway, this one contains three stories, and after the first one you have to flip the book over and read the remaining stories like manga (i.e. right to left). First up is Metamorfosa, in which we see a young woman cleaning her apartment for a date. While she’s doing this something hard and round falls from her eye, which leads to her entering this thing with her mind, leading to some problems with reality when her date shows up. I probably missed some of the nuance from the other stories because my American brain isn’t trained to handle reading right to left (either that or the sideways text blocks threw me off), but other stories include this young woman interacting with her child and an enticing black hole, and a feeling she has right before sleep that someone is trying to drag her away. This someone starts off as a child and becomes more menacing as the story goes on, but I won’t ruin the ending for you. After reading these stories I’m mostly left with a vague sense of unease, that I’m missing things out of the corner of my eye while I’m concentrating on writing this. After all, for all I know there’s somebody behind me too, waiting for me to drift off just a little bit so they too can drag me away into a cabinet. In other words, read this and enjoy! $6
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Akino Kondoh, Nothing Whatsoever All Out In The Open | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 10, 2016
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Ryokan
People who have been reading this website for a long time have probably figured out by now that comics based on poems are usually not my favorite thing. Not always, as very few rules are universal, but mostly that’s the case. Oddly, that rule does not apply to zen Buddhist poets. Who knew? This is a collection of five poems from Ryokan, a man who studied under zen Buddhism but then spent the second half of his life living in a hut, happily interacting with the people around him and, by all accounts, leading a pretty damned great life. It’s great that Graeme went to such trouble to include details about the life of that man, as that information really helped flesh out what would otherwise have been an ephemeral collection of stories. He even includes a self-portrait that the monk did, most likely in the early 1800’s; that smile alone helps show why Graeme was fascinated by the man. Anyway, it’s difficult to review five illustrated poems without telling you exactly what they’re about, so I’ll just say that he wrote about what he knew: life in his hut, his surroundings, and fleeting memories of his past. It’s all very minimalistic, the brief sentences and the imagery, and they go well together. For everybody who wants to go live in a hut by themselves but doesn’t want to be cut off from society completely, check this out and see what it’s like! For everybody else who likes the idea of uninterrupted contemplation time, you’d also enjoy this.
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Graeme McNee, Ryokan | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 8, 2016
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Palefire
Hey wait a minute, I thought that title looked familiar! MK wrote and drew this story years ago, probably with a few changes, under a series of mini comics called Pale Fire. Now it’s drawn by Farel Dalrymple and called Palefire. In case you hang out at the oddest/best bar in the world, there’s a trivia question answered for you. I looked back at a few pages I posted in older reviews and the dialogue is almost identical. So if this is basically a remake of a comic that’s already out there (if out of print), is it worth checking out? Assuming you’re one of the dozens (or hundreds; I’m just going with the average mini comic audience size) of people who have the entire original story, yes it is. Because Farel Dalrymple is the artist, and he can do amazing things with facial expressions. And MK writes some of the most realistic dialogue in comics. Put those two things together and you have a hell of a powerful comic. Oh right, I haven’t even told you what it’s about yet. It’s about a high school girl named Alison who has a crush on a kid who is known around school as a firebug, as a kid who blew up the hand of his own brother with fireworks. Naturally, her mom doesn’t care for this idea, but instead of stating that fact as a stereotypical parent who finally gives an ultimatum before being ignored completely, MK is able to write all of these people as humans with recognizable motivations. That doesn’t sound like a strange thing, but as somebody who reads a whole bunch of comics/books, the teenage kid/parent/sibling dynamic is difficult to get sounding natural, and MK nails it. Anyway, Alison meets up with this firebug at a party (along with three other potential suitors who each underwhelm her in different ways), we get to see various interactions with these people, and finally we get to the image from the cover: Alison in a secluded spot with the firebug, with him going off into the woods with a can of gasoline. That’s about as close to a spoiler as I care to get, but this is one of those comics that just makes me happy. Mostly because it’s a great comic by itself and needs no other qualifications, but also because I’ve been reading minis from MK for over a decade now and this reads like a natural evolution of her talents, and the high point of her work. For now, I should add, because I only see bigger and better things in her future. Especially if she’s sticking to just writing these days, as that’s bound to cut down on production time. That’s how all that works, right? Never any issues with artists not getting the pages in on time? Yep, that’s what I thought. $12
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Farel Dalrymple, MK Reed, Pale Fire, Palefire | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 4, 2016
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Big Planet Comics Anthology
This is an anthology with mostly artists from the area around Big Planet Comics, meaning mostly the Washington D.C. area. I’ll start this review with a complaint about anthologies in general and this one in particular, and this is a complaint I’ll be putting in all anthology reviews until comics society as a whole fixes it. For an anthology you have three ways to let readers know who did each story. You can list the title and author at the bottom or top of each page (still my preferred method), list a table of contents with the page numbers clearly listed there and on each page (that last bit trips up more people than you would think) or you could have the writer/artist clearly take credit for each story either at the beginning or the end of it. This anthology went with the second option, mostly, choosing instead to include a table of contents with page numbers listed… and no page numbers listed on each page. It’s not the worst thing in the world for a 48 page anthology, but it’s still annoying. Anyway! This was still a solid anthology overall, and a nice sampler of the work of some of these artists. Highlights for me included the Horse Story by Jensine Eckwall, a Mark Burrier comic that I hadn’t seen (check the archives, the man has been around for ages), Saman Bemel-Benrud’s tale of internet culture mixing with real life, Robin Ha and the horror of The French Cows, Box Brown’s horrifying tale of what magic is, Angelica Hatke’s story of a hen laying a football egg and what comes after, and Jared Morgan’s harrowing tale of life inside the first level of a video game. I didn’t actively hate any of the stories here, always a plus, and it was a nice mix of talent. Just maybe make it easier to find each individual story next time? Comicland, maybe we can get together and make a law on this. $5
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Andy K, Angelica Hatke, Ben Sears, Big Planet Comics, Box Brown, Brooke A Allen, Jared Morgan, Jensine Eckwall, Kendall Goode, Kevin Panetta, Mark Burrier, Matt Baker, Nick K Liappis, Robin Ha, Saman Bemel-Benrud, SUPERWAXX | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 2, 2016
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Making Jamie
Man, talk about a comic that takes you on a journey. Or me, anyway; I have no idea what journey you’ll have on reading this book. I should point out that I’m single and childless, meaning that a book full of diary strips detailing a pregnancy and the early days of a baby wasn’t something that I was really looking forward to reading. Those negative thoughts were confirmed by the early strips which, frankly, looked like garbage. Lousy images, text that spilled all over the place, they were just a mess. An obvious hazard of doing a daily strip, where quantity always wins out over quality, but I almost stopped reading this about a dozen pages in. And yet, by the time it was all said and done, I’ll really glad I stuck with it. The art improved, for one thing. It was a gradual change, but it was also obvious that Kyle was taking more time on it, and that gradual improvement of the quality continued all the way through the end of the strip. I would have understood if it hadn’t, as I expected it to stop altogether once the baby was born, but instead it kept getting better all the way up to the end. Oh right, I should give you a synopsis of the book that I’m reviewing. Kyle and his wife Jenny are about halfway through her pregnancy when this book starts up. We see lots of different happenings, their uncertainties about what they’re in for, picking out a baby name (although naming the book after the baby took a bit of the drama out of those strips), planning out future work obligations, finding a doctor, etc. Then the baby is born, and we get to see roughly a month of life with a new baby. Kyle even wraps it up with a six page afterward, detailing why he did the comic, how he got into comics at all, and what he has planned now, if anything. He even mentions that he read American Elf (the daily strip by James Kochalka) AFTER he finished his series, which is kind of hilarious. I go back and forth on the value of daily strips all the time, as is evidenced by even a quick search through the archives here of my reviews of other daily strip collections. Sometimes they seem to go on for years past when they make any sense, sometimes I never see the point of them to begin with, and sometimes they’re perfect little sections of time with a fascinating story to tell. I wasn’t expecting this book to fall into the latter category, but it completely won me over by the end. And if you’re having a kid or planning to have a kid, I have to imagine there’s plenty for you to learn from this book. And if Kyle is stuck on a comics project to start next, he could always tell the story of how he became religious in his mid 30’s. That was a throwaway fact from a few strips, but it’s the kind of thing that always makes me curious. $10
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Kyle Bravo, Making Jamie | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 1, 2016
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Amiculus: A Secret History Volume 1
A word of warning before I move onto the comic: Travis’ website seems to be down at the moment, which can be a worrying sign for a young comic series. Maybe it’s fine, in which case I’ll cut this line out of the review before I post it. If it it still here, that’s probably a bad sign, especially for a series that has me hooked after only one volume. If you’re not a fan of ancient Roman history and/or speculative historical fiction, it’s possible that you won’t get much out of this series. Still tough to say for sure, as this volume is very much about getting all the ducks in a row for future volumes. But for those of us with an interest in the history, this first volume is fascinating. The gist of it is (and Travis helpfully lays this out in the introduction) that the western Roman empire ended in 476 AD, while the eastern Roman empire survived for much longer. This story details what happens with Romulus, the last emperor on the western side and somebody who ended up as a footnote in the history books. Which, as Travis is happy to point out, means that he has plenty of room to tell the story of Romulus, how he eventually lost power and the players involved. This book is broken down into three sections: the historian who leaves a large battle 60 years after the fall of the western Roman empire to learn the real history of Romulus, Romulus as a child ruler who was given strict rules to follow, and the start of that final battle. Along the way we meet a few characters of various levels of mysteriousness, all of whom I’m going to leave out of this for now until we learn more. But the point is that the mysteries are compelling and I’m very curious to see what happens next, which is all you really want out of a first volume. As for the basics, the writing is solid and compelling, the art does remarkable work depicting the chaos of battle scenes after the fact and more subtle moments of character expressions, even the colorist does great work. Like I said, the only way you’d have a problem with this is if you were against historical fiction, which I don’t think describes a lot of humans. But I could be wrong! $15, give the man some money so he can finish this saga and it doesn’t end of being one of those series where I always just have to wonder what would have happened next.
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Amiculus, Giancarlo Caracuzzo, Travis Horseman | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 27, 2016
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Dumb 1 & 2
What would you do if speaking caused you physical pain? Suddenly, today, you woke up and found out that it hurt to talk? I’d imagine that most of you would do what Georgia did for quite a while: tell yourself that you were going to take it easy on the speaking, only to find that it really wasn’t possible in daily life. She was still going out to (loud) bars, still working her job at the (loud) cafe, and the problem kept getting worse. Finally she was able to make an appointment to see a doctor, but she even had to wait more than a month for that, meaning that by the time she finally saw somebody she had been dealing with this problem for about six months. It turned out to not be all that serious (relatively speaking, meaning no cancer), but the therapy needed for her to get better basically meant she had to completely change her life. Generally I don’t give out spoilers, which I guess is what you could consider that description, but these are only the first two issues of her series (which is up to #10 according to her website), so you need a little backstory to get started. That was most of the #1 right there, and #2 deals with her taking the steps needed to get better while also making enough money to live, and all the while fighting with herself to change her life as little as possible. I really liked the way she conveyed her thoughts and feelings about what was happening to her with wordless chatter and little expressions of pain while doing normal daily things, and how all of it kept getting gradually worse. This collection is clearly only the first part of her recovery, but I’m curious to see how she handles all these changes over the long run. If this collection is any indication it will be a fascinating read. $8
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Dumb, Georgia Webber | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 25, 2016
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The Amazing Cynicalman Volume 2
For everybody out there who has ever wanted to start a comic or comic strip but has figured that it was impossible because of their lack of artistic talent, I give you Cynicalman! It’s not a completely fair comparison, granted, as it’s clear that Matt could put more detail into his strips if he wanted. But he’s managed to build up a distinctive cast of characters over the years, and they’re all stick figures. This collection covers roughly 2008-2012, so it’s a fun peek pack into how much everything was effected by the presidential election of ’08 and was compelled to comment on it. Other than that Matt’s strips have stayed apolitical as far as I can tell, and even then he didn’t expressly endorse anyone or any particular viewpoint. But in those glorious days, the entire country understood that George W. Bush had messed up on a colossal scale and that it would take a miracle to put everything back together again. And if you think I’M biased, the dude had a 22% approval rating when he left office. That is tough to do! Anyway, mini rant over. What are these strips about? There’s a league of amateur superheroes that doesn’t seem to do much in the way of saving people (or maybe we only see them in their weekly meetings), Stupid Boy and his hilariously stupid happenings, random coffee shop conversations, various assorted jokes about office life, snow hijinx, Maw and Paw Headbanger (about an older couple whose hearing was destroyed by loud rock music in the 70’s), the artiste Marlene Brando and her efforts to get a film career going (and the reactions of the people to those efforts), and countless strips on the foibles of daily life. This is a nicely rounded collection, never sticking with any character long enough for you to get sick of them. These are also all six panel strips and, as is always the case with such strips, some of them are funnier than others, and your opinion on which is which will vary from person to person. If the idea of jumping right into a collection of Matt’s work alarms you, he has plenty of mini comics from his many years in the medium, so you could always start there. But screw it, go for the collection, that’s what I say. The man has been doing mini comics since the early 90’s at the very least and possibly since the 80’s, support his work and get some laughs in the process! $15
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Cynicalman, Matt Feazell | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 22, 2016
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DoubleThink Spring 2015
I have rarely been as divided in my opinion of the contents of an anthology as I am with this one. They’re mixed bags the vast majority of the time; that’s just the nature of putting a bunch of artists in the same comic together. And my problems with this one have nothing to do with the content of any of the stories, which I really enjoyed overall. But roughly half of the stories in here have no resolution, and that’s just a flatly annoying thing to read in an anthology. For example, the first story (by Matt Aucoin and Holly Foltz) is a great tale of empowerment and having a bully finally get what’s coming to him. But it ends with the introduction of a new character and is clearly going to go on in some other venue. Which would be fine if there was any indication that this was meant to be a sampling of work from different artists, or if I could figure that out because all of the stories were “to be continued.” But that’s not the case here, which makes the whole comic a maddening read, as I never know if there’s going to be any resolution until I finish the story. Maybe that was the point? I don’t know, but since I like the content of the stories a bunch I’m just going to comment on that from here on out. Other stories include David Yoder time traveling with himself (in a continuing story that tricked me because it continued later in the anthology), a great piece on Skeleton Girl by Denis St. John (or the first chapter of it), the origin story of a band with a bad name by Ryland Ianelli and Marisa Chapin (or the first chapter of it), a hilarious story on the true mission for a giant space robot that comes to the planet by Joseph Hewitt, Jarod Rosello’s fascinating story of a boy who tries to make friends with a monster and the characters that are egging him on to attack it (all while commenting on the nature of friendship and humanity), and a small piece of a Kevin Kilgore story (along with an interview with the man) that did get me intrigued about his story but couldn’t be called a complete story here. The highlight of the book was Fight Hero Fight by Matt Aucoin, which is probably a lot funnier if you’re familiar with the Zelda lore but works either way. A young adventurer gets his quest, but he has to fend for himself when it comes to gear and money and has no idea of the skill levels of the various enemies he encounters in the wild. Way too many great touches for me to point them all out, but trust me, any gamers will think it’s hilarious, as should most other people with a sense of humor. So overall it would be impossible not to recommend this anthology for that last story alone, but don’t expect everything to be self-contained. It’s not the worst thing in the world if these pieces of larger stories lead to people tracking down these artists, I just wish that had been indicated somewhere in the book. $9
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: David Yoder, Denis St. John, DoubleThink, Holly Foltz, Jarod Rosello, Joseph Hewitt, Kevin Kilgore, Marisa Chapin, Matt Aucoin, Ryland Ianelli | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 21, 2016
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Dump #3
RIP to Dump, as David says in the afterward that this is the last issue. But he is starting off another comics series and is going to put out the collected Berserkotron, so if you’re a fan you have nothing to fear. If you’re not a fan, why hello there, allow me to try to convince you that you’re missing out! This is a collection of stories, all written by David, with roughly 2/3 of them illustrated by David too and the other 1/3 illustrated by other artists. The final chapter of Dump and the experimental story “November” take up about half of this hefty comic, but I’ll get to those in a minute. Subjects of other stories include whether or not you give a fuck, the consequences of spying on people at 3am, an excellent closed loop of a nostalgic time travel story, running into the former most popular kid in high school many years after the fact, an orb, whether or not it is good to feel pain, that thing you sense in your room while you’re sleeping, being attracted to a random stranger on tv, the Bum Monster, dreaming of teeth, making a wish, playing the music festivals, the decline of sales of televisions and wishing to be enveloped by another human. That’s all suitably vague and enticing, right? Nothing to alarm anyone with possible spoilers. I thought the Dump story had a damned fine ending to the overall story, but my memory of continuing stories in comics that only come out every few years can be hazy, so who knows? It worked just fine on its own regardless. Finally there’s November, which is a collection of strips from November (duh) that I really wanted to like more than I did. Oh, I liked the content of them just fine; the one about his old cat, the Garfield parodies, being trapped in a car with a farter, how Do The Right Thing is just as relevant now as when it was released, etc. The problem is that all the strips were done in pencil (undoubtedly to make it easier to meet the requirements of a strip a day), which is just plain old uglier in collected form, especially compared against the other stories in the comic. Still, some slight aesthetic problem I have with it is no reason to scare anyone else away, as if you can get past that the actual strips in that section were thoroughly engaging. It’s a fine end to a fine series, and David really might want to consider giving this series the collected treatment too in a few years. In the meantime, enjoy the finale! $5
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Damon Herd, David Robertson, Donna Law, Dump, Keara Stewart, Ludi Price, Neil Paterson, Pam Wye | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 20, 2016
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An Entity Observes All Things
Who’s up for a good old fashioned science fiction anthology? If that’s not then you’d better move along, although I can’t imagine why you’d rule this out because of that. For one thing it’s Box Brown, who has a hell of a track record with the quality of his comics. Also “science fiction” basically means “any sort of fiction that also has science, real or imagined, in it.” That covers a lot of ground, even though it’s a definition I just made up. Anyway, this is a collection of a bundle of different stories from Box, covering a wide range of topics. The highlight is probably the cover story, because it so nearly wraps itself up by the end, but I can’t dig much more into it without spoiling it. Other subjects include a mysterious pizza tattoo, what happens when you forget your entertainment while piloting a mating giant robot, reliving a painful moment of your life through science, the essence of god on a waffle, being disconnected while taking comfort from the familiar, taking the long view on the effects of social media interactions, a good old fashioned quest, and getting yourself remade after your ego is destroyed. Not a single one of these stories is as simple as I made it appear through that synopsis, so I’ll just retreat to my fallback position of wanting to spoil as little as possible from this comic. Every single story made me either rethink an aspect of my perception of reality of feel all or some of the feelings, sometimes both at the same time. That seems like the best possible recommendation for reading a book, so why not do so? If you’re already familiar with Box’s work then you shouldn’t take much convincing. If you’re not, that’s a situation you need to rectify, and an anthology like this is the perfect place to do it. $12
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Posted by Kevin
