April 3, 2010
Website
Anxiety, Sleep Problems & Depression
You know, for a comic with a title like that, I would think there’d be a lot more angst, staring at the ceiling, those sorts of things. Don’t get me wrong, they’re in here, but the vast majority of this is about Rashy (the rabbit on the cover) and his girlfriend, Penny. They’ve only been on a few dates but Penny is taking things a lot more seriously than Rashy is willing to. He learns more about her life, she decides that she loves him, and it’s all downhill from there. All kinds of detail in this one, which is something that I love. Vibrant backgrounds all over the place (although the burners on the stove are hilarious, but that’s my only completely irrelevant nitpick), good dialogue all the way through, there’s not much to complain about here. This is $3, here’s a website, check it out!
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Posted by Kevin
March 23, 2010
E-mail (possibly)
Nepotism
You know, I get all kinds of random comics submissions for the site these days. I can usually find something positive to say about almost all of them, as the sheer level of will in putting a comic out usually lends itself to some positives. Still, it’s rare that I get something that’s as well put together as this, and I think it’s Geoffrey’s first book. Half of the book is The Labyrinth, a story that was one of the highlights of the SPX 2002 book. It’s a story about Jorge Luis Borges, one of two that I’ve received this week, in one of those odd cosmic coincidences. The second half of the book is split into three different stories with three different artists, all written by Geoffrey. The first one, called The Question, is drawn by Janet Alexander, and it’s a silent tale about a cute little thing asking questions all day long that never get answered. The second one is called Fought Over. Drawn by Russell Hawley, it’s a nature tale about two males fighting for the right to mate with a female with tragic results, but probably not the ones that you might think. The last one is called The Birthday Boy; Marc Raab draws one hell of a creepy tree. The boy in question asks the tree how he can tell how old he is, and I think you can guess where it goes from there. All of these artists bring something to the table. Janet has adorable characters with densely layered backgrounds, Russell’s depiction of the animals is incredible on all kinds of levels, and Marc, like I said, draws a great talking tree. But Geoffrey doesn’t need the help drawing. His minimalist (sort of) style is perfect for the tale that he’s telling, although the sheer range of talent on the other stories helps bring the whole comic together. This is the best first effort I’ve seen since Lumakick, and if you haven’t seen the SPX 2002 anthology The Labyrinth is worth the price ($3.50) by itself. Buy it now so you can tell people (in a few years, when he’s rich and famous) that you got the first comic that this guy ever put out. Oh, and check out the website for samples and stuff…
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Posted by Kevin
March 16, 2010
Website
The Ditch The River The Sea The Snake
The cavalcade of reviews for ancient (at least you could call it ancient in a culture with no attention span) mini comics continues, as I was appalled to notice that there were no minis at all from Tom on this site, just graphic novels. And it looks like the man never did put all of these into one collection, because he very clearly hates the people who enjoy his work. That’s my theory, anyway. Another one is that as most mini comics folks seem to hate their older work, maybe he just doesn’t want any of this older stuff seeing the light of day. Well, too bad! This particular issue is a 24 hour comic (if memory serves, and the fact that there’s only a single date on the back cover (5/5/96)seems to back me up) and, well, it doesn’t look all that great. Hey, that’s what 24 hour comics are! The story is fairly simple: there’s an old man who digs a ditch for his town, as they need water. He goes off to complete a ritual that will allow him to fill this ditch with water, but when he leaves his brother takes over the town and starts making demands. When the old man comes back with an immensely bloated snake (as he’s full of the sea), his brother and the hungry townspeople see a giant pile of food instead and attack. Tom manages to put a pretty decent moral at the end of the story, as one of his main skills was being able to make the reader think about any number of things. I doubt if you can find this anywhere (my copy is from Spit and a Half, John Porcellino’s old distro), but all of his old books are worth picking up if you do see them. $1.50
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Posted by Kevin
