March 26, 2012
Website
The Escapologist #2
For a title that refers back to being a professional escaper of things (I know that’s a made-up word, and this is my own interpretation), Simon seems to delight in focusing on the tiny things in life that we all seem to instinctively know without questioning. This comic is all about those little things, how we don’t even notice them unless we all take a step back and how remarkable they can seem with just a little bit of distance. It’s another fantastically imaginative comic from the man, keeping a streak of such things going. His regular series (Smoo, in case you’re not paying attention to him, and you should be) is where you should go for a heftier dose of his thoughts and ideas, but this other series seems to be where he’s sticking more with this theme of everything and how we perceive it. And comics folks who don’t draw backgrounds out of sheer laziness, take note: there are a few wide open spaces in here, but they’re all in service to the story he’s telling, and he demonstrates plenty of times that it’s not for a lack of talent. Keep reading him if you already are, in other words, and start reading him if you’re not. $3 (?)
Comments Off on Moreton, Simon – The Escapologist #2 | 
Reviews | Tagged: Simon Moreton, The Escapologist | 
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 23, 2012
Website
Window #13
These Window comics just seem to keep hiding themselves in the morass that is my desk. The last few issues in this series (which I last reviewed six months ago) were just found alongside my desk, having fallen there who knows how long ago. Just a little peek into the “professional” set-up I have around here for reviewing comics, and one more reminder for you to nudge me a bit if it’s been a few months and I still haven’t reviewed your comic. Chances are that they’re buried under something or have fallen off my desk entirely. So! It’s the second-to-last issue of Window, and it’s another damned good one. I used the story on the inside front cover as a sample, mostly because anybody who’s lived in a big city has either heard or participated in a conversation something like this one. Up to and including the moment at the end when the people on the street lose interest and the person on their balcony/window/roof continues shouting for a bit until it finally sinks in that their audience is gone. Next up is the meat of the comic, a story about a man remembering his time during the Vietnam war. He was just a local kid at the time, and didn’t know how to handle the casual nature with which dead people were just left lying around. He also detailed several encounters with grenades, claymores, traps and other things that, in hindsight, probably should have killed him. Instead he just played with them with his friends and lucked out in the fact that all of the explosives he found were either duds or he didn’t hit them in just the right way to make them go off. Next there’s a story (told by Dave’s brother or father (?)) of a therapy session between Carl Lapp and a patient who was losing weight rapidly and her various excuses as to why she wouldn’t eat certain meals. Finally there’s a long and fairly heartbreaking story on the back cover of an overheard conversation of a woman on a train talking about her aging cat and how she can’t get it to poop in a litterbox, and how the cat conquers all her efforts to nudge her back in the right direction. Who else is going to put a 20 panel story on the back cover for your amusement? Appreciate that level of dedication when you find it, folks. Anyway, one more issue to go, and I still think that somebody, anybody, should be putting out a collected edition of his work. This is that rare combination of fantastic art along with stories about sections of society that will be priceless to any future historians. No price, because they’re mostly not in print, but ask Dave about them, maybe he still has a few lying around…
Comments Off on Lapp, Dave – Window #13 | Reviews | Tagged: Dave Lapp, Window | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 22, 2012
Website
Exhibition #1 Â Now Available! $3
I’ll be honest. There are times when I read a comic and don’t have the slightest idea what to make of it in terms of writing any sort of review. That can be me having a bad day, a fault with the comic or something in between. Certain comics have also been known to fill me with an “eh, it’s OK” reaction, which also doesn’t leave much to talk about. What I’m trying to get at is that I didn’t understand this comic on a very fundamental level, but just in case that was purely my fault I’m going to read it again. Don’t worry, this won’t add any time to your reading of this review today, linear time being what it is and all. Yeah, that didn’t help. Bits of it made more sense, sort of, but this comic was screaming out for a set-up or prologue of some sort. Gather round, I’m going to try and explain it now despite not understanding it, which is always funny. Things start off with a warlock of some sort escaping from hell. This happens on a page with word balloons and images facing in all sorts of directions for no reason that I could see. Next we see that our hero escaped because he didn’t want to dance for a demon, and maybe all these images turned around are supposed to depict the path out of hell as the warlock keeps changing forms. Maybe. Next we learn that our hero is owed a favor from the moon, but that she can’t help him now. We also get all sorts of symbols and their translations scattered all over the place, usually meaning one word each. Then I thought that we were headed for a bit of a linear story when the demon orgy started, but there’s instantly a two page spread showing four pages of a comic, decapitations and a cry for it all to be animated, which lost me forever. And why would there be no fucking at a demon orgy? Maybe we just missed that part. I did enjoy the art and some of the random images and think that there’s some potential here, but on the whole you’d need a better brain than mine to figure it all out. Here’s hoping that he keeps the series going, as I’m really looking forward to reading a “previously” recap at the start of #2… $3
Comments Off on Jale, Dim – Exhibition #1 | Reviews | Tagged: Dim Jale, Exhibition | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 21, 2012
Website
Toasty Cats #6
Warning: there are no cats in this comic. Not that it needs them, and you probably wouldn’t expect to find any in here after seeing that gorgeous cover, but I thought I’d throw that out there all the same. The main story in this comic deals with a community of… moles? Creatures that burrow underground to sleep at night in small holes, anyway. These creatures are having a nice evening playing with fireflies and sitting around in a circle, and finally they all get tired and go to sleep. A snake comes down and pulls one of the moles out of its hole (but gently, not waking it up) and eats it. From there it veers off into a totally unexpected direction that I’m doing my best not to spoil. Next we get a few illustrations of fantastic creatures (at least I hope they weren’t related to the previous story, as they would have made no sense in that context), then a short story called “Fox & Comet.” I’d say it stole the show if the previous story wasn’t so engaging. The short version is that a fox sees a comet in the sky and thinks that it sees a fox at the head of the comet. This fox then spends all of its nights staring at the sky, hoping to see it again, even as it raises children and time passes. It’s a simple story, but Magda still makes it utterly engrossing. I haven’t seen any past issues of this series so I don’t know if the past issues were as good as this one, but #6 is well worth checking out. It’s a peek into the worlds of these creatures at times when their defenses are totally down and, even in a fantasy setting, it’s not something that we get to see too often. No price, but I’m guessing $6.
Comments Off on Boreysza, Magda – Toasty Cats #6 | Reviews | Tagged: Magda Boreysza, Toasty Cats | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 20, 2012
Website
Jetty #1
Do you still ask questions about the universe and your place in it? It’s OK to say “no,” as it can get exhausting after a while, but Rio is still asking, and we get to read about it. Read and observe, really, as there are a couple of pieces in here with very few words. This comic starts off with Rio asking “What is it that makes my heart narrate?” on the inside front cover. So right away it’s easy to see that this man is searching for meaning in everything he does. The first story deals with a young man who was made king of a realm of giant space insects. Well, cars that fly into space and transform into giant space insects. While still carrying their passengers. And one of those passengers happens to be a bratty kid, who the mom asks to be left with the space bugs (!), so he is. Next up is the heart of the book, called “Masks that grown-ups sell me and the lies they tell me.” This is where Rio really lets loose, and it’s utterly pointless for me to even try to review it. I did use a page from it as a sample to give you some idea of what to expect, but that’s as far as I go. The rest is up to your own interpretations. From there you have a silent piece about some of the giants of the sea, a series of quotes from Jesus from unfathomable space entities, and Rio taking his leave. If you’re looking for a linear story you’re better off going somewhere else, and that’s also true if you’re not big on introspection or asking too many tough questions. For the rest of us there’s a lot to like here, although I’m left with the ridiculous thought that I wish that he had gone deeper. But that’s just me, and that’s probably because I’ve long thought that the answer to everything is out there somewhere, it just needs to be found again. If it exists at all, that is. Yep, this is why I leave it up to the professionals to make comics about such thoughts. $5
Comments Off on Taylor, Rio Aubry – Jetty #1 | Reviews | Tagged: Jetty, Rio Aubry Taylor | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 19, 2012
Website
Ugly People #2
Would it make me an asshole if I put YOU’RE = YOU ARE in the header of my website? I can’t tell you how sick I am of seeing that simple error made over and over again. For some reason it bugs me more than misspellings, more than trouble with “it’s,” more than just about anything else. And Zack! gets it wrong just about every time. Not that he’s alone in that, or even close to it, but it boggles my mind that people can spend countless hours drawing something and then rush through the words that accompany them. Which is a shame, as I thoroughly enjoyed the comic itself. Eh, it’s not like those errors ruined the book, it’s just that they’re so. damned. easy. to fix. Ahem. So how about the content? Three stories in this one. The big one deals with Big Daddy Bacon, who is a muscled-up dude who works at a strip club, as he finally realizes that all the “free food” he’d been eating from his job was actually coming out of his paycheck. I defy you not to laugh at that sex scene in the early pages. Hilarity ensues, and BDB (which is what everybody calls him) eventually settles on being a bounty hunter to earn some quick cash. Which we get to see actually happen in the next issue, I hope. Next is another piece on the lack of motivation suffered by the author (actually the lack of finding a good idea to get a project started), and this time his computer and his “to-do” list team up to try and finish up a comic for him. Which doesn’t go smoothly, naturally, leading to probably the only computer vs. list fight that you’ll ever see. Finally there are a few recipes towards the end about how to make a few simple foods using your coffee maker if your gas gets turned off. Sounds a little horrific to me, but hey, I’ve been unemployed for months now and I may be trying those out myself soon. I just checked the last review I wrote about Zack and I went on and on in that one about his spelling problems there too. Look, his stories are funny, he seems to be producing comics at a pretty good rate and I like his artwork a lot. For all the people that make spelling/grammatical errors, at least he also puts in heavily detailed backgrounds on just about every panel, something that a lot of people skip over or just don’t want to do. It’s worth a look, is what I’m saying. $4
Comments Off on Zack! Empire – Ugly People #2 | Reviews | Tagged: Ugly People, Zack! Empire | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 15, 2012
Website
The City Troll
Three cheers for Kickstarter, as this book most likely would not exist without it. I do have to add that you small press folks should try to get your book published through Top Shelf, or Drawn & Quarterly, or Fantagraphics or whoever is still standing first (as the world would be a crappier place without those three companies in existence), but if they’re not interested, it’s a good thing Kickstarter has become as successful as it has. The book looks gorgeous (outside and inside), which would not have been fully possible at this price without a little bit of help. OK, fine, people helping people is great and all that, but what about the book? This starts off as the story of god getting bored one day and deciding to create the perfect man. But god, being the little insecure bitch that he is, couldn’t take how perfect he made this dude and decides to force him to be friends with a man who is as horrific as the perfect man was perfect. All of this was Aaron’s rather mystical way of starting off a story that’s really about an insecure man, his perfect friend and the way that they both interacted with the ladies. As the main story begins we see that Ian (the perfect one) is “stuck” in a relationship with two beautiful women, neither of whom can bear to leave him. Paul (the troll), on the other hand, is horribly insecure and miserable, which only leads to him being MORE insecure and miserable, and we all know how much the ladies love those personality traits. Things seem to be picking up for Paul when he meets a woman at a grocery store who seems perfect for him, but he lacks the courage to start up a real conversation. She is then coincidentally in the same restaurant where he’s meeting a blind date (even reading a graphic novel, the holy grail of all blind dates), but it turns out that his date is with a different woman, so there goes that shot. Eventually Ian meets this girl and falls for her himself (his two girlfriends thing didn’t work out) and, since Paul had never actually made a move on her, he has no “guy code” to fall back on. This is all against the backdrop of Paul’s mostly missing and formerly abusive mother, his father (who’s dating a woman called “Understanding) slipping away from him, and Ian’s lifetime of watching girls that he liked fall in love with the more obviously handsome Ian instead, despite what seems to be Ian’s best efforts to prevent this from ever happening. Things spiral a bit from there, but most guys can relate to somebody in this story, and I would have to think that most of the ladies will find stuff to relate to in here too. It looks like Aaron has done another mini comic or two in his time, but this seems to be his first graphic novel, which makes it especially impressive. You can practically feel it when the self-loathing threatens to overwhelm Paul, and Aaron wisely resists every temptation along the way to take the easy way out of any situation. My only tiny quibble (as I’m contractually obligated to throw at least one of these into every review) is that he could stand to draw the word bubbles after he knows what his characters are going to say, as too many long word bubbles with only one or two words in them looks awkward to me, but that’s really not even worth a mention. This is a hell of a story and here’s hoping it gets some serious attention in the coming months. $15
Comments Off on Whitaker, Aaron – The City Troll | Reviews | Tagged: Aaron Whitaker, The City Troll | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 13, 2012
Website
The Mystery of the Light Shining Out of That Tower For Some Reason
You know, pseudonyms in small press comics probably aren’t a bad idea these days. It’s easy enough to find way too much information about just about anybody through a simple Google search, so there are bound to be a few things that you put into comics in your 20’s that you might not want people to see when you’re in your 40’s. That’s just my roundabout way of confirming that “Bobby Mono” is not the real name of this man. Or woman, as it isn’t his/her real name. Anyway, that title is one for the ages, and the back cover keeps the illusion going that this is part of a series of books aimed at children aged 10-14, complete with several other fake titles of other volumes. I’m not going to spoil a single one of them here, but there are some real doozies in that pile. Now that we’ve established what this comic is not (and I loved his note on the inside cover apologizing for the deception), what exactly is it? It’s a pile of short comics, most of which are in full color. Stories in here include George Washington and his cherry tree (if his dad had different punishment methods), an utterly unexpected version of Bobby looking for love in all the wrong places, the actual ending of “A Christmas Carol,” the Beard Fairy determining who gets to have a beard, a story about a ninja (which you’ll enjoy for the ending, or not, depending purely on what you find funny), “this is no tunnel,” babies in trouble and some mildly realistic Super Mario Bros. action. There’s also a handy chart on which beards have been deemed acceptable by Bobby, but you may be dismayed to learn that the only two options are a regular moustache or no facial hair at all. This lazy shaver would disagree, but I’m far too lazy about such things to make a fuss. What about the accidental beard? I guess that mostly happens to hobos. Overall this is a pile of funny stuff, and the guy obviously has enough love for the old video games that I couldn’t help but enjoy it. Yes, I am shallow, but the other funny stuff should help the rest of you folks along. $6, unless you see him at a convention or something. Full color books aren’t cheap.
Comments Off on Mono, Bobby – The Mystery of the Light Shining Out of That Tower For Some Reason | Reviews | Tagged: Bobby Mono, The Mystery of the Light Shining Out of That Tower For Some Reason | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 12, 2012
Website
Empanadas
Whatever you were guessing from that cover, you can most likely forget about it. Which is fine, as it wouldn’t have been nearly as entertaining if this was a mini comics purely about empanadas, although I wouldn’t put it past Luis to still make it a damned entertaining comic. The story in this one deals with a man who purchased a house that formerly belonged to a member of the mafioso, which I guess is roughly equivalent to the mafia here. Anyway, this man sees odd shadows, has strange problems with the house, and eventually sees where the shadow seems to be leading him. And that’s the wall I run into as a reviewer, as this book is damned tiny and it’s not possible to say much more without ruining the ending. I will say that my impression of Luis as something of a comics genius continues, at least in part because this is another one of those fold-open books that shows a giant empanada when you finish reading it. It could have been any of a number of things, but throwing an empanada there works beautifully. There’s a sizable and growing pile of his comics to choose from, and maybe you’d like to start with something heftier, but I loved every last bit of this tiny thing and am thinking about hanging that big picture of an empanada on my wall. Which wouldn’t make sense to anybody but me, but it’s still damned tempting. No price listed, but the fact that it’s all in color has me thinking at least $3.
Comments Off on Echavarria, Luis – Empanadas | Reviews | Tagged: Empanadas, Luis Echavarria | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 8, 2012
Website
Jetpack Shark #1
It is very obviously silly to take a comic called “Jetpack Shark” too seriously, but because I’m such a colossal dork I just have to mention something that’s been bugging me. In the page I sampled below our hero is getting his teeth knocked out by the villain of the first piece. Which is all well and good, but on the next page he has a two full rows of teeth (as he’s a shark), no problems at all. I know that this isn’t meant to be taken all that seriously, but silly comic law dictates that the main character has to keep the damage inflicted on him for the duration of a story. Using the same silly comic logic he can have two full rows of teeth in the next story, but failing to remove the teeth for the first story makes it seem like he’s not taking any damage, which makes it seem like he was never in any danger. Which I know he wasn’t, as the comic is named after him and all, but this is the kind of thing that bugs me. Yes, I am aware that that most likely means that I have a problem and not necessarily Max. Oh, and a shark biting the head off somebody wouldn’t result in intestines spilling through the new hole, as there are no intestines up there. Whew! Now I can talk about how much I enjoyed the rest of this comic. Unless all of you readers have already been scared off by my relentless nitpicking, that is. So! Two stories in this one, and the first deals with an angry shark at a bar. Two other gentlemen want the shark to kill an enemy of theirs, and this enemy also happens to be the guy that took Jetpack Shark’s eye. Which would be a huge problem for a shark, as that giant snout of theirs cuts off most peripheral vision… clearly I’ve been thinking through the angles on this a little too much. What can I say, I’ve been watching the new BBC Sherlock Holmes series. Anyway, the first story deals with our shark getting revenge for his missing eye. There are also boobs a’plenty, which removed any idea that I might have had that this was meant for all ages. The next story is the origin story, which I thought was a nice touch, as we got to see him in action for a bit before learning how it all happened. Would you be surprised to learn that there were Nazis involved? More mayhem occurs, and this time it’s some good old-fashioned “let’s kill some Nazis!” fun. The art is amazing and damned near perfect for this type of story (the man can depict a panel zoomed in a shark’s eye just as well as he can a shark flying through a closed window) and the stories themselves were a pile of fun. There’s more to come, so I’m curious to see how this story develops, if at all, or if he’s just going to go with mayhem until he gets sick of it. There are benefits to both paths. No price, so let’s say $4 at a guess.
Comments Off on Young, Max – Jetpack Shark #1 | Reviews | Tagged: Jetpack Shark, Max Young | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 7, 2012
Website
Seething With Hatred #1
Now that is one fantastic title. This comic shows the dealings that Jim (just guessing because he’s the writer) has with the various people who rent apartments from him and/or complain about those apartments. He’s a leasing agent, meaning that he interviews people who are trying to get an apartment and takes complaints from people as they pay their rent bills. Everybody in the office hates each other to varying degrees, and Jim sees the dregs of humanity on a daily basis, which is bound to get somebody, well, exactly what the title up there implies. The first story shows the kind of complaints he gets and details his routine, including the part where his methods of escapism end up with the effect of essentially taking away all his free time and depositing him back at work on Monday. Next up is a story about a couple of kids just out of high school who clearly weren’t ready for a place of their own, but they had the paperwork in order and had stellar credit so they were granted an apartment. Parties and drunken orgies occur, and when they finally have to evict them nobody is even remotely prepared for what they find in the apartment, not to mention all the other illegal activities this scrutiny brings to light from other residents. Finally Jim gets dragged into a Homeland Security (!) sting, in which he has to ignore a man tied up in a trunk but ends up with some nice clout around the property. The story of the life of a leasing agent could theoretically be boring, I suppose, but this one has more than enough fascinating stories to make it worth a look. Dan Strauss also does an excellent job of making these people seem at least mildly human when he could have easily turned them all into caricatures. There’s some genuine humanity on these faces, and that back cover illustration showing a busy day at the pool is hysterical. Seethe on, gentlemen, I’m curious to see how many more of these terrible stories you have in you. $5
Comments Off on Moscater, Jim & Strauss, Dan – Seething With Hatred #1 | Reviews | Tagged: Dan Strauss, Jim Moscater, Seething With Hatred | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 5, 2012
Website
Misanthropic Cavalcade #6
It’s been way too long since I’ve seen one of these comics. It looks like Joe is focusing more on his painting these days and is trying to do a larger and more complex work, so sadly this might be the last issue of this for awhile. Ah, isn’t that always the way, with these talented and funny comics people starting off with the funny stuff and then moving on to more relevant and important work. Phooey! Artistic growth schmartistic schmowth. And if you like that level of maturity (but depicted by somebody who can be pretty effortlessly funny on a regular basis), then you’ll love these comics! Seriously, the past issues have been out there awhile, you probably should have already seen his stuff at some point. If you never have or are very new to the small press comics world, Joe is a guy in Athens, Georgia who does (or did, if he’s changing his ways) mostly one page strips for a local newspaper and then puts them together into a comic when he has enough. And we get to see all the stuff that a newspaper is too cowardly to run on their pages, so hey, more cursing and violence! These strips actually seem a little less manic than his past work, and I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing, but it is still a hilarious thing, which is all that really matters. Strips in this one include the drawbacks of getting texting removed from a monthly bill, a fantastic analogy for attempted drunken sex, trying to do a good deed to a bee, bird romance (and bird break-ups), a drunken elephant and the current trend of tights as pants with the ladies. And that’s just the first half of the book! I’ve loved these books every step of the way (as you could probably guess from that cover message from Joe) and this one is no exception. Maybe if you buy enough of these books it’ll stop Joe’s artistic development in its tracks and he’ll stick to making funny strips forever instead of trying to grow as a person. We can only hope… $3
Comments Off on Havasy, Joe – Misanthropic Cavalcade #6 | Reviews | Tagged: Joe Havasy, Misanthropic Cavalcade | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
March 2, 2012
Website
Sunnyville Stories #5
That page sampled below somehow sums up my wildly different reactions to each issue of this series. I’ll be rolling along, taking note of a good thing here and a bad thing there, and something like that page will come along and throw me completely off track. Max says in the afterward that these stories are based at least partly on his own experience, so if we assume that this is meant to take place in the 90’s (Max was born in 1980, so dances where he was at all interested in girls wouldn’t have happened until then), then were there still really any people who complained about the rock music? And Wang frickin’ Chung, of all things? I’m almost certainly reading way too much into what is essentially an all ages comic (with a clear emphasis on younger readers), but that kind of thing just jumps out at me. Oh right, I probably should have set this up with some kind of synopsis of the comic. I’ll get this blogging thing down eventually! Or whatever it is that I do here. So anyway, Sam and Rusty go off to a shady printer’s shop and run into a friend who lets them know about a dance that’s coming up. Rusty is terrified, as he can’t dance and will be humiliated when the whole town discovers this fact about him. So there’s training, some wisecracks here and there, and the night of the dance finally arrives. I won’t spoil any possible surprises further than that. Overall it’s another OK issue. The crowd reaction shots to some generally awful jokes could be toned back a bit (I doubt that every single person in earshot would find some of these lines funny), and I sometimes get the impression that Max writes to the page count rather than just using what he needs for his stories. Or maybe he’s just establishing his world for future issues, as otherwise the six pages in the printer shop could have been condensed into “hey, there’s a dance coming up!” pretty easily. He did throw in at least one line about the pinball game from issue #2, so he’s clearly keeping track of everything carefully. It looks like he has two more issues planned for 2012, so after #7 I’ll go back and read them again, maybe rank them in order of preference to see if any larger picture has developed. Why? Why not, that’s what I say! $4
Comments Off on West, Max – Sunnyville Stories #5 | Reviews | Tagged: Max West, Sunnyville Stories | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 29, 2012
Website
SF Supplementary File #2C
It occurred to me today that I have only been giving you half of the covers of these books even though the comics are the perfect size for me to scan two pages at once, so this is what the scanner for the final issue of this series should look like. Can you even call it a series? I guess you could more accurately call it an adaptation of the Queen Esmeraldas story from Matsumoto Leiji in 1979 that somehow became known as a supplementary file for an ongoing series from Ryan that doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with that series, but that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. In this issue Esmeraldas follows Boundless Ocean Boy (also known as Boy Zero) down to the planet where she left him at the end of the last issue, but eventually discovers that the entire world is basically one gigantic drop of water that’s surrounding a metallic core. This core has sentience and doesn’t react kindly to being invaded, but Esmeraldas has more than a few tricks up her sleeve and she’s determined to get Boy Zero back. So if you were also worrying about the lack of action in the last issue, it’s all made up for here. The ending was fantastic, including the last line that I desperately want to quote here but won’t because of spoilers. It had the perfect pitch of vaguely nonsensical yet still vastly important verbiage that’s in so many manga comics and was exactly the right way to end things. I also thoroughly enjoyed the way that Ryan alternated colors from page to page, as I’d swear that it added to the feeling that these people were deep in the vastness of space. Probably reading too much into pages of different colors, but that was the impression I got. From here I’m hoping that Ryan keeps this series going, and by that I mean the “SF” series. There are also vast libraries of old manga comics that are crying out for an American adaptation, and an American who’s fluent in Japanese like Ryan would be perfect to adapt them. What I’m basically saying is that the man should keep making comics in whatever form he’d like. Please and thank you. I was listing these individually as $4 each buy Ryan has the set listed at $16 on his website, so I was obviously a little off.
Comments Off on Smith, Ryan Cecil – SF Supplementary Files #2C | Reviews | Tagged: Ryan Cecil Smith, SF Supplementary File | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 28, 2012
Website
SF Supplementary File #2B
I mentioned in the review for the first issue of this series that one of the joys of manga comics was the fact that the action was allowed room to breathe, that the readers never felt all that rushed on their journey through the story. Well, the obvious negative to that is the fact that not a whole lot happens in this issue. Which, in case you need reminding or for some reason aren’t reading this series, is the second of three issues, which Ryan did manage to finish on a monthly publishing schedule. Granted, the ability to maintain a monthly publishing schedule for three issues shouldn’t be considered a huge accomplishment, but in the small press world of today it’s pretty rare. Anyway, this issue deals with the two main characters of Esmereldas and Boundless Ocean Boy. They’re both traveling on her ship and she discovers his I.D. card, which is a wonderful excuse to tell the readers all about him. He declares that he can’t travel with her and wants to make it on his own, she points out that his I.D. card makes that problematic and she eventually finds a suitable planet and drops him off. Well, she thought it was a suitable planet anyway, but that turns out not to be the case, and we have the set-up for the final issue of the series. I skimmed over some of the details of the series here (read my review of the first issue if you’re curious or would like this review to make sense), but I have every confidence that this issue is going to fit in just fine in the long run. In the reviewing scheme of things this is a lousy issue to get if you just want to try this guy out, but it’s pretty much always been a bad idea to buy just the second issue of a three issue limited series. The only real problem with this one was a minor printing error that repeated a few pages. It’s hard enough to overcome a lifetime of habit and read this back to front and right to left instead of the other way around, so something like that printing error can be especially jarring. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll be corrected in the collected edition, because that is happening, right? $4
Comments Off on Smith, Ryan Cecil – SF Supplementary File #2B | Reviews | Tagged: Ryan Cecil Smith, SF Supplementary File | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 27, 2012
Website
Pete Moss Summer 2011
I have no idea if that is the actual name for the writer/artist, but if that is his name then he’s lucked into a fantastic name for a comic guy. Or just about any profession outside of a doctor, really, as nobody wants to think of their doctor as rocking. Random observations aside, how was the comic? Pretty consistently funny, which makes it a winner to me. Moving on to the next comic… oh, you want actual thoughts? Well, this is the story of a young boy (he says he’s between his tween and teen years) who finds out that he’s “terminal.” His parents get the message, it’s brought up to Pete as tactlessly as possible, and he gets shoved into a hospital room to wait to die. His thoughts turn to getting laid before he dies (so I guess puberty has hit the young lad) and he invites his girlfriend over to have that scene that I sampled below. Poor guy couldn’t even get the girl to change her rules when he was near death. From there we get Pete scamming two different “Make a Wish” type places, hiring a horrific prostitute, chancing into a legitimate massage center instead of a shady one that offers “happy endings,” and finally taking drastic action in the hopes of landing near a brothel while parachuting. Along the way he meets another terminal kid with a ridiculous speech impediment (I think I got the gist of most of what he was trying to say, but just barely) and degenerates into a bit of a mess. It’s not easy to make a comic about a terminal 12 (?) year old kid this funny, but Tim has pulled it off. This comic is already a little bit old (as is obvious from the title, which really needs a number instead of a date in it), but here’s hoping that there are more adventures of this kid to come. Which might constitute a minor spoiler, as that tells you that he didn’t die at the end of this issue, but you’ll just have to live with it. $3
Comments Off on Rocks, Tim – Pete Moss Summer 2011 | Reviews | Tagged: Pete Moss, Tim Rocks | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 23, 2012
Website
The Wonder City: The Great Whale of Coney Island
I’ll give them this much: this series sure is ambitious. This is the first volume of the Wonder City saga, although I’m not sure if I can say that because I don’t know how long this is projected to be. As far as I can see from the website they don’t give any indication, and that sort of thing is important to know in a long term project. Combine that with the fact that this graphic novel was kind of dull and it’s hard to work up any serious enthusiasm for it. Probably best to start at the beginning though, right? We start off looking at an average morning in the life of a working class Brooklyn family in 1942. The father is away at war, the young son is trying to be the man of the house, the mother is just trying to get by and the young girl is mostly just an average young girl. A mysterious woman comes along and inquires about a necklace that was handed down through the generations to the young girl (she’s 6, which is a little important later). The girl considers selling it, but hijinx ensue and it doesn’t happen. The mysterious woman overhears them saying where they’ll be the next day so she follows them to Coney Island. There’s an incident with a whale (it’s in both the title and the synopsis on the back cover, so this isn’t spoiling anything yet) and the rest of the graphic novel deals with the fallout from that event. We also get a few more hints about why this mysterious lady is looking for that necklace, how the young boy is dealing with his dreams, and several other general hints of things to come. The trouble is that there’s nothing overly compelling about any of this yet, and that kind of thing really needs to be established in a first graphic novel. What does the charm do? It’s OK to leave that general if it’s early in the story, but the hints given fail to tantalize the reader. The back cover also says that this “re-imagines the entire history of New York City,” which is intriguing, but not a single thing in this book would really imply that. The writing is decent enough, as the characters are reasonably compelling and I’m fine with a glacial pace as long as it’s going somewhere. Same with the art, even if certain panels look more rushed than others. The main problem here is the basic reality of the small press publishing business. They say that Kickstarter helped them get the funding together for this comic, but are people who read this going to still be that excited to donate for a second volume? You really need to hit the ground running these days to have a hope of finishing an extended series like this, and the first volume really didn’t accomplish that. By the way, I’d love to be wrong about this and find out in a few years (and a few volumes) that readers are fine with supporting a slow burn of a story. I really, really would. No price listed, which is also silly (although I could find out if I wanted to post a payment through Amazon, which I do not), but there is a link to get a digital copy on their website if you’re interested in such a thing.
Comments Off on Rivers, Justin & Zell, Courtney – The Wonder City: The Great Whale of Coney Island | Reviews | Tagged: Courtney Zell, Justin Rivers, The Great Whale of Coney Island, The Wonder City | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 22, 2012
Website
Carl Finds Love #2
Wait a minute, this is a comic for little kids? It had honestly never occurred to me before, but Sara puts a few cut-outs towards the back of the book and suggests that kids “ask the closest responsible adult” to help them out. Granted, there’s no cursing, nudity or anything else that would prevent kids from reading this, but it is all about the quest for love of one man, and I’m thinking that pretty much everybody is cleared to use their own scissors before they care about such things. Unless she was kidding, in which case please don’t mind my denseness. Anyway, this time around our hero decides to get some ladies to like him by himself, which leads to the fantastic scene that I sampled with him giving away flowers to random ladies. This page also really showcases Sara’s visual inventiveness, and that along with several background scenes really help the book feel… meatier? Thicker? More substantive, that’s what I was looking for. Any work that you can go back in and pick up several things you missed the first time around is OK in my book. After our hero passes out flowers he gets some advice on this tactic from his friends (who basically tell him that people in cities aren’t used to such things) before getting him to agree to going on a few blind dates. He gets a bit more advice (and a lucky coin) from a pizza man, then the issue wraps up. So apparently there is going to be at least one more issue if that title is going to end up being literally true. I’m enjoying it and am curious to see what happens next, and once you’ve won me over on those two fronts I’m generally good for the long haul. Granted, the haul is rarely very long in small press comics (the Cerebus epic notwithstanding), but I’m still in. Even if the story hits a sour patch there are still all the random “people” populating the landscape to look forward to… $3
Comments Off on Lindo, Sara – Carl Finds Love #2 | Reviews | Tagged: Carl Finds Love, Sara Lindo | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 21, 2012
Website
Battlefield #2
Oh small press comic collaborations, you are adorable. Last time around John was writing and Dru Daily was illustrating, and you’d think that they’d be able to figure out a schedule to make that work for a five issue mini series. Alas, you’d be wrong, as Dru has already become too busy with other things, and now it’s John illustrating and writing. Am I naive in thinking that it would be best to have at least a couple of issues completed before starting a project like this, which I’ll again point out is a small, finite series? It makes no sense, and the shift in art is going to be glaring by the time the collected edition comes out, assuming that John doesn’t also find himself with other obligations. Dru’s work was in more of an anime style, and it seems like John is trying to copy that style a bit (which he admits in his afterword), which probably isn’t the best solution. From samples on his website it looks like John already has his own style and maybe he should stick with that for the rest of the series. In terms of the story things pick up considerably this time around, as we get to learn a lot more about the various characters and their motivations (and the shadowy people behind the whole tournament and THEIR motivations), but I do have to say that it seems like a bad idea to kill off the character that we get to know the best by the end of the book. Surprising, yes, but this is a finite series and that time might have been better spent learning more about the six remaining survivors. As we’ve already learned that only one of these people can survive, this looks to be leading to a bloodbath in the final issues. Still, complaints aside, I am getting interested in the overarching story and exactly what’s going on. What can I say, when I see vaguely nefarious people stealing the eyeballs of the dead tournament contestants, I want to see where that’s leading. So if you liked the first issue this one builds on that nicely, but be prepared for a jarring shift in the artwork. $3
Comments Off on Yeo Jr., John – Battlefield #2 | Reviews | Tagged: Battlefield, John Yeo Jr. | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
February 20, 2012
Website
Epic Tales of the Mundane #8
Since I generally write glowing reviews of Brad’s comics, I thought it best to start this one off with a complaint about mini comics in general and this comic in particular. Yes, this is nit picking, so skip ahead a few lines if you don’t care for such things. Why do some comics folk repeat the cover as the first inside page of the story? Or is it vice versa, where they use first page of the story as the cover? Either way it’s a little ridiculous and seems like a waste of a perfectly good page. I’m talking about the comic now, just in case you skipped ahead, and this issue continues the “origin” story of Brad Dwyer. Is it really considered an origin story if the lead character doesn’t end up with any super powers? The story isn’t over yet, so maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Anyway, the rambling bug clearly has taken me over today, and this comic has two big stories that continue his comics history although, oddly enough, no comics history has been mentioned yet in the actual comics. First up is the story of Brad’s early days in various punk bands and how the lot of them eventually found a place in the desert where they could play without being hassled by the cops. For a while, anyway, as cops do have a tendency to ruin good things like playing music under the stars, far away from the noise of a city. Next is Brad’s slow descent into alcoholism (and almost sleeping pill abuse), as he’s able to marvel from a distance of years at his behavior, both towards himself and towards the ladies he dated. He’s also able to get some comfort from the fact that his friends were even crazier/more destructive than he was, so at least there’s that. I’m eagerly awaiting the first mention of comics in a story called “Get Into Comix!”, but it’s most likely a slow build with some payoff to come. Right? $3
Comments Off on Dwyer, Brad – Epic Tales of the Mundane #8 | Reviews | Tagged: Brad Dwyer, Epic Tales of the Mundane | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
