September 27, 2010
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Monkey Squad One #5
Is Doug secretly Donovan Cater in disguise? Seriously, the similarity in the artwork is uncanny (go ahead and look around at some of the ancient (because he appears to have vanished from comics) Donovan Cater reviews and see if I’m wrong). Well, I’ll go with the theory that it’s a different person, as a close inspection does show that it probably isn’t Donovan. Doug does a smart thing right off the bat: he lets the reader know what happened in the last issue. As this is “#5” that is crucial, but you’d be surprised how many comics creators just don’t bother to keep readers up to date. Anyway, U.N.C.L.E. Doug (leader of Monkey Squad One) is on trial for losing the team, even though they’ve been lost in time and it apparently isn’t his fault. The trial goes badly, Doug has a ridiculously easy time escaping from this supposedly secure facility (he is aided by the fact that gravity apparently doesn’t apply to him), and meets up with some old foes to help him out. They, unsurprisingly, don’t help him out, but it’s a funny conversation that leads them to that conclusion. Things devolve a bit into Star Wars parody from there, and hasn’t the universe as a whole decided that the prequel movies were so awful that people were no longer allowed to parody Star Wars any more? Except for Robot Chicken and Family Guy, but they only get away with it because they’re rich and occasionally have scathing satire. Well, more Robot Chicken than Family Guy on that front, but I’m getting off topic here. The Rancor is played in this comic by Granmonster, who is able to fill that role as well as getting loose in the town and fulfilling the “giant monster on the loose” requirement. The comic as a whole is fairly amusing, even with me being at the point of Star Wars parodies just bugging me. Overall I’ll need another issue to really make up my mind, so it’s a good thing Doug was nice enough to send the next issue along as well. Even with the recap I don’t know if it’s a good idea to start at #5 of a series; if you’re looking to give it a shot maybe see if the guy has earlier issues available. $2.50
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Posted by Kevin
September 26, 2010
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Bachelor Girl’s Mother Goose
If you read an intro for a comic that states that it was conceived while the author was miles away from home, alone and suffering from swine flu, you would probably be right to assume that it would be a little… odd. There may be exceptions, but it seems like a pretty safe bet. This one definitely falls under that category, as Amy takes her Bachelor Girl characters and puts them in situations involving a series of nursery rhymes. I think at least a few of these were original works, but I’m not familiar enough with nursery rhymes to say that for sure; maybe she just plucked a few really obscure rhymes from the void. Anyway, the end result is that pretty much every nursery rhyme you can think of (go ahead, let your mind wander and allow a few to pop into your brain) show up on these pages. Wee Willie Winkle, Georgie Porgie, Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, Little Bo Peep, Peter Piper, Jack Sprat, they’re all here. It’s funnier than you may think if you’re as cynical as I am, and Amy shows remarkable self-restraint at not turning even one of these vaguely pornographic sounding rhymes into anything all that risque. Suggestive, sure, but that just adds to the funny. As a single man somewhere in his 30’s, this isn’t exactly targeted at me, but whoever can’t enjoy a book like this has lost all their sense of fun. Check it out, why don’t you, or get a copy for your single friend or relative. Not your girlfriend/wife/mistress though, as it makes the single life look like way too much fun and they’ll probably dump your ass… $5
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Posted by Kevin
September 25, 2010
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Memory Foam II
Huzzah for Roman numerals! Here’s hoping Toby sticks with it long enough to get to the Roman numerals that confuse people, as why not bring that back? A little bit of history never hurt anybody. That page I sampled below hit home with me, and probably with most of you if you stop to think about it: motorcycles. While all people who ride them are clearly not assholes, it does seem to attract some of the scum of the earth. For example, there’s some asshole who drives down my busy street every morning between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m., revving his damned engine at the stop light and most likely waking everybody up who doesn’t have some form of a white noise machine going. If I could string up piano wire across the road and be guaranteed to just take out him or her, I believe the world would instantly be a better place. Toby does me one better in his story by “inventing” a device that makes all motorcycles self-destruct once their noise output gets over a certain level. His comic self was gripped with remorse, but the headlines on the newspaper the next day were priceless: “Countless Jerks Dead:”, “World Better Place”, and “God: ‘Great Job Toby'””. As with many things, I thought South Park handled motorcycle riders best, and seeing as how they have every episode up at their website for free, you can see for yourself if you’re so inclined. If you’re going to defend the assholes that rev their motors at every stop light, I’m sorry, but you just don’t have a case. As for the rest of the comic, it was a pile of great stuff. There’s Toby wondering what’s going to happen to him in the long run, getting a job at a donut factory (and yes, it’s about as bad as it sounds), trying to make time for all his creative endeavours, standing on principle and not eating a piece of stuffed crust pizza (I agree with his crying girlfriend on that one), phrases he’d love to never hear again, dreaming all day, reading online reviews about himself, not saying “you too” when people say “have a nice day”, and how his younger self would view his older self. For what it’s worth the guy worries too much, as he clearly has a boatload of talent, seems to have a fantastic girlfriend and, despite being broke, has enough free time to work on things like this comic, and he’s only 22. The pessimist would say it’s all downhill from there, the optimist would say things are only going to get better, but screw it, enjoy what you have now. And that is my philosophical thought for the day, the first of a one-part series… $3
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Posted by Kevin
September 24, 2010
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Spaz! #3
Leaky ceiling? That’s my guess. Oh hello, you have no idea what I’m talking about if you haven’t read this issue of Spaz. See, Emi woke up one morning with the top of the blanket wet but the underside dry. So peeing the bed was clearly out as an option. Still, she’s left utterly clueless as to what happened. As her reaction shot upon waking up appears to indicate heavy alcohol consumption, might I suggest something from the previous night as another possibility? Maybe a spilled drink while the blanket was pulled back, which would leave the underside dry when she drunkenly pulled the cover over her? Maybe a cat protest of some kind? If alcohol or a cat are not involved, I’m all out of ideas. And as for the guy who woke up to a locked safe being open, on its side and full of water, that is very clearly a prank by somebody else who knew the combination. How many other people could there be? Unless huge amounts of alcohol were involved there too… Sorry, I’m neglecting a proper review of the comic because this mystery has me fascinated. I think ghosts are utter horseshit, so there must be some logical explanation, but I don’t get it from the facts given. So what’s this comic like, other than that utterly engrossing story? There are a couple of bits called “Shit I Worry About” that is, um, shit she worries about, like various forms of cancer, falling down the stairs, having her cat run away, becoming a spinster, and axe murderers in the back seat. Then there are a couple of bits about unusual deaths taken off Wikipedia, although the second one is more hilarious than unusual. Throw in a couple of strips with her talking about sex and being late with Zygote and a demonstration of her holding out for making comics by hand (at least for a little while) and the mysterious story I loved and voila! It’s a comic! She has a deal right now where you can get all three issues for $5, which sounds like a steal to me, and you’d be guaranteed to get a pile of great comics. Assuming that’s your thing, and if it wasn’t why would you be looking around this site? If you already have the first two issues then I suppose you could get this one for $2.
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Posted by Kevin
September 23, 2010
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Aloha
How exactly does a worm hold an axe? Sorry, my inner comic geek occasionally busts out, much as I would like to keep it down. This simply done comic, which should forever dispel the notion that people who can’t draw can make great comics, deals with three worms having a conversation. Oh, and just so it’s clear, I’m not saying that Desmond CAN’T draw, just that this comic consists of worms, piles of dirt, a flat ground and some darkness. Anyway, these worms are talking, two of them realize (after the third worm has left) that they really don’t like that guy at all and have no interest in meeting him for lunch tomorrow, and they devise a plan to get rid of the worm. With an axe. If you know your science and know what happens to worms when they are cut up the ending will not come as a shock to you, if you don’t know your worm science, well, prepare to be amazed while learning something! Also, if you’re keeping track, that’s two comics by the guy and both of them have been fantastic. Not the fancypants, “discover something new about yourself or the universe as a whole” kind of fantastic, just the “that’s some funny shit that I didn’t necessarily see coming and even if I did it was still pulled off extremely well” kind of fantastic. These things need definition, don’t you know. Desmond is selling his two comics (The Island is the other comic) as a pack for $2. I suppose you could maybe badger him into just getting one or the other, but why? Just buy them both and enjoy.
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Posted by Kevin
September 21, 2010
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Bare Knuckle
I have very few rules on this site, but a big one is not spoiling the end of a comic. I have broken this rule utterly today, as the sampled image is the last page of this absolute blast of a comic. Why would I do such a thing? Just look at that image. If that isn’t the most awesome thing you’ve seen today, you must have had a shockingly awesome day already. There’s also the fact that practically every page of this short mini has something incredible in it, and you understand my feeling of justification here. This is, essentially, a video game told in comics form. The hero (who looks suspiciously like Ultimate Warrior from the old WWF days) starts off punching flunkies, moves on to a bigger boss, lands in a toxic sewer fighting frogmen and an alligator, before finally ending up fighting the boss of the whole thing. The tacos and turkeys laying around made the comic for me, as who hasn’t played a game with oddly placed food items sitting around to restore your health? Again, I hope giving away the ending isn’t too horrible of a thing to have done but, if you don’t use that line below the next time you see a fight, there is something seriously wrong with you. No idea of a price here, but as it’s all in color it’s probably in the $3-5 range…
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Posted by Kevin
September 20, 2010
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Blaster Al Ackerman’s Tales of the Ling Master #3
That “#3 of 3” on the cover worries me. This can’t be the end of the Blaster Al Ackerman tales, can it? There must be more of them out there, or new ones on the way? Frankly, this is a series that is just begging for treatment in an anthology, with a number of different comics writers and artists doing their own take on the character if nothing else. As for the comic, E.J. warned me that this one was a little more “out there” than most, which is a tall order in this series, but she wasn’t wrong. It’s often difficult to review these things without giving too much away, and these stories take that up a notch, but I’ll give it a shot. Stories include a fable about a little boy who teased apples and his eventual meeting with an apple golem, another fable about a canary, a headache and a cigar on a plane, a professional “geek” (the circus kind, not the Bill Gates kind) trying to find out the truth about squid people, and one called “The Blue Catfish.” I don’t want to say a single thing about that one, but due to reviewer obligations I will say that it involves head shrinking, the concept of soul transportation and one of those stores that appear out of nowhere and vanish after you leave. It’s difficult to detail the demented brilliance of these stories, but if you can’t get behind a guy wearing a stained pillowcase as a hood doling out advice at $5 a pop, often in parable form, and generally when there’s at least some veracity to the utterly bizarre questions being posed, I don’t know how to convince you. If you like your comics genuinely different, there are three of these readily available that you should pick up as soon as possible. I’m hoping we can turn it into a cultural phenomena and realize my (five minute old) dream of an anthology with various takes on this character and/or the author. Make it happen America! $3
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Posted by Kevin
September 17, 2010
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The Curse of the Parsimonious Great Aunt
Who else misses the days when scary stories for kids could get a little gruesome? OK, maybe this isn’t strictly for kids, but it reads like it could be. The story here is that a couple of kids are staying with their Great Aunt and she has a plan to sell any candy they get at Halloween to buy potatoes. It’s never explained that this woman is raising these children, but that seems likely considering that they stay there for weeks and nobody seems to notice that they’re missing. These greedy kids wanted to keep the candy and they wanted to steal the candy from all the other kids, so they concocted a plan. They chopped the head off their Great Aunt and dragged her body along (on a sled) behind them to scare kids into dropping all their candy. The plan worked perfectly, but the kids didn’t consider the fact that people who are wrongly killed in stories like these rarely stay dead, even if they were jerks in real life and kind of deserved it. Anyway, it’s a cute and creepy book, and something that I would consider fun for all ages, unless of course the parents in question still somehow think that can shield their kids from all the awfulness of the world. Good luck with that! Anyway, the worst the kid has to see here is a removed head, and they probably have those things on the Disney channel at this point. Check it out, it’s never too early for a good Halloween story. No price listed, I’ll go with $3 at random.
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Posted by Kevin
September 15, 2010
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Derek Hunter is a F**k
I’ve gotten fairly jaded from all the auto-bio comics I’ve read over the years. It takes something genuinely awful or revealing for me to sit up and take notice, which isn’t to say that something falling short of that level can’t still be a great comic. Still, Derek apparently generally sticks to more conventional fare, but he decided after attending a few small cons to try his hand with “A collection of short stories that make me look bad”. Well, he did it. I should get a few disclaimers out of the way before I get started. “Derek Hunter is a F**k” hurts me to type, as I’m all for saying “fuck” whenever possible, but that’s how the man put it on the cover and that’s how I’ll put it here. He is also saved (barely) by the fact that all the incidents in this book happened when he was late high school/early college age, and there are allowances for being a fuck at that time in your life. Finally, the guy lives in Utah. I’ll concede that he probably had to be a fuck at that point just to survive. Still…yeesh. Stories in here include Derek’s foisting off a girl he likes on a friend (then making out with her while the three of them are laying down in the same bed (seriously)), a prank with curdled milk that I understand completely, breaking up with a girlfriend while he was fucking her, insulting a girl he was making out with a party and then his reaction upon seeing her later, and some more or less understandable pranks he played on some tremendously obnoxious college roommates. Hey, the final tally isn’t all that bad: two are inexcusable, two are pranks (but it might be a stretch to call them “harmless”) and one that falls somewhere in the middle. He seems like a nice enough guy now, as he’s married with a kid on the way (depending on when this came out), and he’s as honest as humanly possible with this stuff. He treats making this as a catharsis towards growing up, so more power to him. If you’re one of those people who need a jolt from the auto-bio world or want to see how one of these is done when the author is really willing to let it all hang out, this is required reading. $3
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Posted by Kevin
September 14, 2010
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Misinterpreted Complications #5
Is there a word for something that is wistful, sad and amusing at the same time? Nostalgiaish? Ah well, who says a comic reviewer needs a command of the language. Well, that’s what this comic is all at once. You can tell by the sample that Nick goes for fairly simple drawings accompanied by wise and insightful writing. If you’re of the opinion that this is a bad thing, we clearly can’t relate on this one. Plenty of the strips in this comic are currently up on the main page of his website (along with a couple not included here about the replaceable nature of relationships and the lack of the feeling of self-worth needed to start a new one), so you have no reason to be uninformed about this man. Willful ignorance, that’s one of my least favorite things in the world, so don’t do it! Stories in here include gradually ruining a fried egg as a small child, enjoying solitude (but not being at all sure how to get out of it if desired), being insulted by a stupid name for a charity, limitless possibilities shrinking to few, the flawed basis for Sim City, confusion from thumping, and life as a whole. This is one of those very rare occasions where I actually like the layout of the comics on his website better than the printed layout, as they’re two panels a page here and an organized clump on the site. There’s not a whole lot in these panels screaming out to be made bigger, so why not pack more content into the comics? Granted, that is my complaint for many comics that I enjoy, but it makes a special kind of sense here. Either way it’s an interesting pile of stories, told from a perspective that, even with the general misanthropy of comics readers, isn’t seen often enough.
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Posted by Kevin
September 13, 2010
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Tortilla #1
Ah, the benefit of hindsight. Jaime hopes to get this comic out twice a year, which would be a great thing, as there aren’t enough Jaime Crespo comics in the world. Sadly, this came out in October 2008 and there hasn’t been a #2 yet (at least judging from his website, but at least he’s working on a graphic novel). There’s still time to get two of these out in two years, and that is about average for the small press world, sadly enough. And what’s up with that cover title? The man’s a maestro with the pen and it looks like he wrote “Tortilla” while on a roller coaster. OK, the complaint department is now closed, as I had no problems with the rest of it. Stories in here include an inspirational “brawl”, some silent (and not-so-silent) moments from his area, the perfect modern superhero (“Too Fat To Do Shit Man”), and some brief hilarity with Floyd and Ringworm. There’s also a lengthy text story involving a face from Jaime’s past and how he stumbled into her later in life that is a lot more involved than I’m letting on. It’s a bit of a horror story, frankly, but I’m damned if I can figure out what Jaime should have done differently. Then there’s the big comic piece of the book, “Corner Store”. Jaime was always forced to walk to the local store instead of the closer big box store as a kid, and resented the hell out if it, until one day he happened to see a rum bottle. What was odd about this rum bottle? To a kid of around 7, something crucial: boobs! He alerted the neighborhood, everybody snuck a peek, and there’s even a fantastic epilogue to the story that I’m not going to ruin here. For once I’m not going to demand that everybody immediately go out and buy this comic, even though it’s fantastic and you really should. Instead I’ll say that you should buy his graphic novel the second it comes out and make this guy famous. He’s been doing this for decades (seriously) and deserves to make some serious cash at it already. Of course, if you have $3 lying around, there are all kinds of worse things you could do with that cash than buy this comic…
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Posted by Kevin
September 12, 2010
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Set to Sea
Huzzah for some of the crew from Athens getting a book published by Fantagraphics! I’ve made it to a couple of FLUKE’s over the years (both times during a rare ice/snow storm in Georgia), and there’s all kinds of talent floating around down there. The credits in this book revealed that Drew is married to Eleanor Davis, and just look up her name on this site to find some fantastic comics. If those two have kids they’re sure to have artistically gifted mutants, and I mean that in the best possible “X-Men” sense and not the horribly deformed sense. Give them a pen and paper as soon as they’re able to grip things, that’s what I’m inartfully trying to say. When I picked this up and flipped through it at the library I wasn’t sure what to expect, as it’s not all that big and all the pages only have one big panel. Any fears I may have had were unfounded, as Drew is able to do a lot with those “restrictions.” This is the story of a meandering lug of a poet, a guy who skips out on his bills and mostly just wants to read and sleep. He is seen sleeping on the dock and is taken captive to be part of a ship’s crew. The poor guy wakes up when they’ve already set sail so he’s kind of stuck with it, and he quickly gets to see what those poems of the sea he was trying to write were really about. Pirates attack the ship, he is singled out as the biggest of the defenders and attacked, which leads to some serious rage and a saving of the day. From there Drew uses the possibilities of the medium to perfection, telling the life story of the guy page by page, somehow pulling the impression of a richly lived life through scattered moments. And even the “only one panel per page” isn’t a fair cause for complaint, as he manages to tell a little story on every one of them with his attention to detail while often avoiding those pesky “words.” I have no idea if this book will catch on, as it often takes somebody a few graphic novels to really get the attention of the small press comics world, but the man is well on his way with this gem. And if anybody in the comics publishing world pays the slightest bit of attention to this website of mine, you might want to give his wife a call about putting out a graphic novel too… $17
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Posted by Kevin
September 10, 2010
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Shit Happens
Are you someone who sees the occasional poop or flatulence joke and think “That’s funny and all, but what I really want is a comic with nothing but poop and shit”? If you’re that guy (or gal, I don’t want to discriminate), then you’re in luck! This is the story of a naked guy (?) who is wandering aimlessly through the forest. Seriously, it’s completely aimless, as the page of his wanderings has him going many different directions on the same path. Anyway, as he’s wandering around, a plant (forgive me, I can’t help it) talks shit to him, saying that if the guy eats the plant, the guy will shit. The guy considers this a challenge, eats the plant, and has a series of gastrointestinal mishaps before finally losing his “bet” to the plant. I guess that’s a spoiler, but is a spoiler even possible in a comic where the guy is sitting on a mound of shit on the cover? Think I’m probably safe on that one. Anyway, these are all just words, and you already know from that cover and title if this is up your alley. I will say that Charlie turns a more artful phrase than you would have guessed every now and then, and his artwork (where he actually draws real things) makes me wonder what a regular comic from the guy would look like, but other than that you’re getting what you would expect. No price listed, but $2 sounds like plenty to me.
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Posted by Kevin
September 9, 2010
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Mecha #1
That’s what Brian was missing: giant robots! Sorry, did I give away the ending? I was guessing people would have picked up on the giant robot thing from the title. Anyway, this is about twice as big as the usual BJM mini comic and, if this is at all easy to produce, I suggest he go with this format all the time. Much easier to turn the pages and bigger pretty pictures to look at, what’s wrong with that? This is the story of a man who can’t even remember his life before the Martians took over and has been fighting for his life as a gladiator. He eventually gets away with a group of people, spends years fighting Martians and eventually meets the woman of his dreams. Sadly, a happy ending is impossible in these books and things take a turn for the worse. This leaves our hero at a loss for what to do with his life… until he finds one of the old giant robots used at the start of the war with the Martians. I’m starting to just accept the fact that Brian has the ability to put out half a dozen series or so on a regular basis and have them all be intriguing in their own way, but it’s best to remember not to take this sort of thing for granted. Sure, he’s not the artist so he has that going for him, but I’d almost think it would be harder trying to keep the attention of a half dozen artists for the length of a series. Whatever it is he’s doing he should keep it up, as this is yet another winner. Or maybe it turns to crap in the next issue, but the guy has more than earned the benefit of the doubt by now. $1
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Posted by Kevin
September 7, 2010
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The Clouds Above
There’s one definite pattern in my reading of comics that has shifted since starting this website 9+ years ago: I don’t read as many of the titles from the “big” publishers. It’s odd, as I was an avid reader of most things D &Q/Fantagraphics/Top Shelf put out back in the day, but between the piles of free minis (three cheers for review copies!) and publishers who do send me their books, I just don’t get around to the big three as much as I’d like to. That might be changing, as the library here in Champaign has a much better selection than the one in Columbus, so I get to answer on of the many nagging comic book questions in the back of my head: “Whatever happened to Jordan Crane?” He’s done other books, as you can see on his website, but I was thrilled to see he made the leap to Fantagraphics. They have a very low bullshit threshold, after all. This book blurs the line between being kid’s book and a graphic novel, although I suppose you could say that it’s both. It’s the story of a young boy named Simon who is late for school and his fat cat Jack. After unsuccessfully trying to sneak into class, Simon discovers a staircase that leads up straight up, seemingly to nowhere. Jack isn’t thrilled with the idea, but the two of them go up the staircase, run into a group of misinformed birds and learn that they can walk on clouds. They find a cloud who is sad because it can’t fly so they give it a few pointers and also encounter a group of storm clouds before getting in some serious trouble. If you’re thinking this sounds exactly like a kid’s book and not at all like a graphic novel, well, you’re sort of right. I’ve never been completely comfortable with the term “graphic novel” anyway. For the adult enthusiast, the use of color here is brilliant in all senses of the word, and there enough cute turns of phrase to make most folks smile, at the very least. But yeah, it’s a children’s book more than anything else, complete with the “This book belongs to: ____” on the inside front cover. It’s up to you to decide whether or not that’s a good thing; I generally prefer the stuff more geared to adults, and it looks like Jordan has kept up on that end of things too with his other comics. If you’re simply starved for color in the dreary black and white world of small press comics, this could be a welcome antidote, or if you’re looking to get your kids into comics by quality artists where they can eventually grow into their older work. Parents, it’s your call. For the rest of us childless heathens, maybe stick to some of his other stuff, unless you’ve somehow managed to stay a kid at heart… $19 (for hardcover).
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Posted by Kevin
September 6, 2010
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Silent V #1
Is it bad if I’m hoping that something is an undeclared 24 hour comic? That’s not to say a thing either way about the story, but these are such simple drawings with such nonexistent backgrounds that this guy could put together a monthly series in no time if he wanted to. As for the story, well, wow. I need to narrow that down a bit, so how about “damn”? In a good way? OK, let me try again. This is the story of a man who has been protecting the Earth (or at least something very close to this planet) from alien invasion since he was a baby. Literally, as he would throw homemade molotov cocktails at the ships while sucking a pacifier. He seems to be friends with, or at least work professionally alongside, a bird who has apparently faked his own death. The dingos are not interested in helping against the invasion, the dead have started to rise, and goblins are dancing naked. Meanwhile, there are other babies who are being cared for by a woman who probably should get a different job (and the babies seem to be highly explosive when dropped from a great height) and a member of the invasion may yet win the whole thing for the good guys. It’s a delightful mess of a story, in other words, and I chuckled in awe of the guy behind it more than a few times. I can only hope this really is only the first issue and there’s more to come, as this was a blast. While the art may lean a bit on the simple side, it gets the point across and that, more than anything, gives me hope that Kyle could start cranking these out if there was enough of an outcry. Like, say, the outcry caused be the good comic loving people of this site sending him some orders for the first issue? Couldn’t hurt, anyway. No price listed, but a buck or two is probably about right…
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Posted by Kevin
September 4, 2010
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Sherlock Holmes vs. Skeletor
I feel for anybody reading these reviews every day and trying to get some sort of consistency out of them, I really do. One day I’ll say never to judge a book by its cover, and the next I’ll get something like this in the mail, see that title and “Gareth Brookes” on the front, and it will be clear quickly that the cover won me over completely. Ah well, consistency is for the weak! This is, as you may have guessed, about the feud between Sherlock Holmes and Skeletor. What, didn’t you hear about that one? If you’re looking for apocalyptic action as depicted on that cover you might be disappointed; if you’re in it for the funny you’re going to go away very satisfied indeed. This is a series of pranks between the two, um, “men”, and it took a few pages for me to get that Holmes even knew that Skeletor existed. It seems a shame to spoil even one of these pranks by revealing them here, but as a reviewer I suppose that the spoiling of fun is, like it or not, in my job description, so here goes: potato, Aniston, “it burns”, wattage, poo, cheating, birds, and an infernal contraption. There, that seems vague enough. Look, if you’ve been reading this site for any length of time you should know that getting a book from Gareth Brookes is as close to a sure thing as you can get in this medium. If not, search around a bit and check out some of the older reviews. Really, all this rambling is irrelevant, as one look at that cover should be enough to convince you one way or the other. If it’s the negative way I mourn for the lack of fun in your life, if it’s the other way you won’t be disappointed.
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Posted by Kevin
September 3, 2010
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King Cat #71
I’ve long resisted implementing any kind of a grading scale for reviews. No “8 out of 10” for anything, no “5 stars!”, none of that crap. It’s not because what I have to say in the body of a review is all that important, it’s mostly just because such a simplistic way of doing things really belittles something that took an artist weeks, months or even years to accomplish. That and it often makes little sense; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a review on CHUD.com tearing a movie to pieces, explaining in excruciating detail how every little thing about the film is terrible… and then they give it a “4 out of 10” grade. It’s gibberish, I tells ya! So why bring this up? Even with my feelings against such a system, I’m starting to think I could grade King Cat comics on a “wistfulness” scale. It would still be simplistic and cheap, but it might be handy for the folks out there who can’t wait for each issue. This issue is more wistful than most, as John moved to Gainesville, FL at some point during the making of the comic and has apparently ended up there without his cats, which is mildly baffling to me, but he doesn’t get into it (or I read the last story of the book and assumed that that’s still his situation, which is probably wrong). Stories in here include a pearl of wisdom from Jesus (the guy had a lot of nice things to say, too bad he’s depicted now as a dude who wants poor people to suffer), a daydream about a missed personal connection, a genuine white trash moment, another one that isn’t labeled as such, a visual aid to all the new forms of life John is seeing in Florida, a drunken lighter request, some lingering silence, and a really fantastic essay detailing Denver before everything became profoundly commercialized. Of all the comics in the world, I hope I can say “more of the same” with this one and have the reader understand what a unique and tremendous thing that is. I also love John’s willingness to just get up and go when he thinks that life is pushing him in a specific direction; if only everybody had that kind of courage. In conclusion: of course you should get it. If there was an issue that disappointed you, I’m going to resist the urge to say it was your fault and just say that this issue in particular really moved me, for whatever that is worth…$3
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Posted by Kevin
September 2, 2010
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Walking Man Comics #34
Matt Levin has been doing comics for a very long time, or at least he has in “internet years”. I reviewed one of his books age ago (oddly, it was #38), but he just sent me a few books, so it’s clear that he is still cranking them out. My confusion last time is the same as this time: are they all done with rubber stamps? It’s an interesting idea, but I just don’t see how it holds together for at least 59 books. Well, that’s not my concern, right? Let’s talk about this one. This is a story about the belief in magic or, rather, why people believe in magic at all. He makes a few good points about it (this is basically a poem, so it meanders a bit) then circles back around to believing that there is at least one thing in humanity that is magical, but what kind of reviewer would I be if I spoiled that for you? It’s interesting how he lists the source for all his stamps at the end of the book, so if you wanted to produce one of these comics, it’s easy enough to do. Well, you do also need a bit of talent, as a simple story of hope, longing and peace isn’t that easy to pull off. He has plenty of these books available but no sort of coherent website to check them out, which is a shame. Still, samples can be found at that website I linked (which looks a bit outdated but it still works), and if this sounds like the sort of thing that would intrigue you, it’s worth a look. The last I heard these were available at 3 for $4, so that should be a wide sampling range if you are so inclined.
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Posted by Kevin
August 31, 2010
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Monstrum Horrendum Volume 2 #2
Ah, to live in a small press comic book world where every book was as gorgeous as this one. Granted, the $8.65 price might drive some people away, but this is a huge book with a vast array of colors all over the place, and they’re used to illustrate lush landscapes, swaths of ocean and a couple of unexplained monsters. I mostly like the black and white nature of minis, but there are days when I just want to bask in a comic like this. In this issue the crew deals with recently taking over a “haunted” boat, the fact that their financier is broke and the free ride is over, discovers a giant prehistoric shark that seems to have a connection with the mysterious little boy, Ella (the captain) and her feeling that something is wrong with her father, another mysterious monster, and the ex-fiancee of the rival of Chester’s that was killed in the last issue. That’s a pile of stuff to work through, isn’t it? That’s all on top of the fact that Leonie manages to work more character development than should be legal in between all these tense situations. The mystery of that little boy is being opened bit by tiny bit, Chester is being slowly and reluctantly revealed as a human being after all, and even Montague (despite his desperate need for physical proof of these monsters) clearly has his heart in the right place. The basic plot of this issue deals with trying to track down an orca that has been killing people, in case you were curious, but that gets resolved so quickly and in a manner that so effortlessly shifts the story in another direction entirely that it hardly seems worth mentioning.  One minor complaint is the couple of typos in the book, as it makes no sense to me how something that is so clearly dedicated to the best possible artwork could be a little lax in checking the spelling, but at least there aren’t a lot of them. There, I have listed my legally obligated complaint. Everything else about this book is a joy to behold and, seeing as how this book came out in 2009, the next issue must be right around the corner. Right? &8.65
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Posted by Kevin
