January 27, 2011
Website
Bird Brain #4
Hey, all you bird watchers out there! Are there any of you? How many do you figure wandering around this country? Just curious. This here is a book for you, and as it’s already on #4, I’d say you have some catching up to do. Luckily there are a few things of interest to the rest of us too, not to mention the fact that reading about these different birds was vastly more entertaining than I would have figured. That’ll show me not to underestimate a book by this man. The only thing I regret was that it wasn’t in full color, but that would be insanely expensive for a niche project in a niche genre. We do get a color center spread, so at least there’s that. I feel a little silly doing a review, as it’s all about Francois bird watching, but I have to say something, right? In this issue Francois wanders around to different areas and makes astute and occasionally funny observations about the creatures he sees. No, they aren’t all birds. I also thoroughly enjoyed the afterward, as he talked about how happy he was that this project is giving him a reason to get out of city and connect with nature a bit. I had one question about this book, or maybe bird watching in general: in the text piece for the center spread Francois mentioned that he and a friend found this dead bird, so he picked it up, took it home and froze it for “future examination.” That part I could almost get, but they also named the dead bird, and that was downright baffling to me. Anybody care to clue me in on any aspect of that? Overall, yes, you’re still getting a Francois Vigneault comic, and after his “Friends” series you should already know that this will be a good read. Unless you only read violent comics, in which case you probably went to the wrong site to begin with. $3
Comments Off on Vigneault, Francois – Bird Brain #4 | 
Reviews | Tagged: Bird Brain, Francois Vigneault | 
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 25, 2011
Website
Unrequited Monsters
It’s tricky enough to review comics that are essentially visual poems, it’s even trickier to try to pick a sample image from the comic. Still, you can get people interested in a certain poem by a line or two, so maybe it works for comics too. This is a series of images of people, couples and not couples, that L. drew at some point and put together to form a story. Well, sort of a story, as it probably depends on your definition. It hits on all the “high” points of relationships and the effort to enter one: fear of rejection and/or solitude, the inevitable distance created, and secrets, but also the potential of making something better than you could on your own. L.’s choice of images, particularly those of couples who didn’t know that they were being observed (or, if they did, she managed to catch them in some candid moments anyway), really makes this comic, as subtle glances can mean everything. If you stick with comics with a linear story, I suppose you can skip this. If you like a little bit of poetry in your stories, this is right up your alley. If you’re somewhere in between, the visuals in this should bring the fence-sitters in. No idea on the price, but my random guess of the day is $4.
Comments Off on Nichols, L. – Unrequited Monsters | Reviews | Tagged: L. Nichols, Unrequited Monsters | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 24, 2011
Website
Now Available! $3
Fear of Triangles #1
In case you were wondering, yes, that odd cover does sum up the contents pretty well. This is the story of a man who hates triangles (seen on the cover trying to kill himself) and how he runs into Sasquatch right before his first suicide attempt. The gun goes off accidentally, he scares off Sasquatch (who can talk, oddly enough) and ends up getting arrested for public drunkenness. This is a persistently depressed man, and he tries to kill himself a few more times, but is stopped by Sasquatch each time. I shouldn’t give a whole lot more away, but I think the fact that he doesn’t successfully kill himself is fairly obvious. Or it isn’t and I just ruined this. Sorry. Anyway, his hatred of triangles seems a little petty and ridiculous, but it had to be hard to come up with a way to justify that excellent title. Frankly, one of the more interesting bits came in the afterward, in which talks about how this comic was basically a test to establish a character (Frank, not the Sasquatch) that could be used in a later comic that they put together. In that case they got off to a good start, and there’s still more than enough mayhem to make this a solid comic in it’s own right. It’s worth a look for lovers of Sasquatch and irrational haters of triangles. $3
Comments Off on Havert, Nik; Proctor, Jimmy & Wilkison, Bill – Fear of Triangles #1 | Reviews | Tagged: Bill Wilkison, Fear of Triangles, Jimmy Proctor, Nik Havert | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 22, 2011
Website
Now Available! $5
Losers Weepers #1
Are you the type of person who picks up random scraps of paper if you see that they have handwriting on them? How about journals or notebooks that you see lying around? I’d answer “yes” to each question, provided that they’re not laying in a puddle of gunk or something equally nasty. J.T. uses a couple of found items as launching pads for a few stories, fitting nicely into the “tragi-comic” theme he mentions in his intro. First up is a journal that he found and decided to keep because only a few pages had been used. But those few pages… hoo boy. He’s also nice enough to reprint the entries in legible writing, and kudos to him for that, or this would have been a whole lot tougher to follow. The gist of it is that a young woman is dating a guy and doesn’t know how to get out of it because the guy is not all there mentally and she’s sure that her leaving will devastate him. Then there’s another entry much later (when she’s much less concerned about what’s going to happen to the guy) and one final entry dealing with her moving to a new town and having a hard time making friends. The story for this one bleeds into both of the other stories, and they involve a set of wildly offensive lyrics and one garbled note about watching a wallet and “borrowing” some coke. All of these elements end up jumbled together and we get a story about a new relationship, running into an ex on the street, an open mic night involving those lyrics, and the potential meaning behind that last note. It’s a combination of stories that could have fallen apart pretty easily, but J.T. makes good use of the material and crafts and pretty compelling piece about it all. There’s at least one more issue in this series, and I’m very interested to see if he can pull this off twice, but this issue was solid. Entertaining, darkly funny at times, and yeah, a little tragic. $5
Comments Off on Yost, J.T. – Losers Weepers #1 | Reviews | Tagged: J.T. Yost, Losers Weepers | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 21, 2011
Website
Death Deals
That sample below is the first page of this book, just so you know. Fans of Eamon’s work already know what to expect, but for everybody else “proceed at your own risk” seems like a helpful tip. It’s not the story picked up from there, as I think it was just setting up what’s to come. Things start off in a coherent if disturbing fashion: a man dressed up as Santa Claus charms the owner of a house into letting her guard down, and he then proceeds to pull a gun out and shoot her in the head. After this he enters the house, shooting everyone he sees, even the baby and the cats. Then he heads upstairs, kills a couple having sex, a woman jumps out the window to get away from him… and then things get weird. That’s right, everything up until then, in this context, WASN’T weird. From this point on I’m not even going to try to interpret it (something about being thought a fool if you keep your mouth shut and then opening your mouth and proving it, and yes, I know I garbled that quote in a big way), but I will tell you that it included aliens, a rabbit, bird royalty, a walking vagina creature, more Santa, and plenty of murder. Eamon is one of the more visually inventive folks working in comics today and his comics are always worth a look. Often a re-look after that just to try and piece together what you’ve just read, but the deeper you try to interpret his stuff, the darker it gets. Hey, this one does have “Death” in the title, after all. He’s still an irreplaceable voice and everybody out there who isn’t squeamish should still buy his stuff. $4, but I just saw that this is listed as out of stock on the Secret Acres website, but maybe you can still get a copy if you run into the guy at a convention or something.
Comments Off on Espey, Eamon – Death Deals | Reviews | Tagged: Death Deals, Eamon Espey | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 20, 2011
Website
Now Available! $3
Tale of Good Ol’ Snoop Doggy Dogg
I’ll be honest with you: after seeing that cover and that title, this would have had to be a pretty lousy book to get me to hate it, and this is not a lousy book. Perhaps you could be more objective about this than me, in which case there are always openings in the (not at all) lucrative field of rambling about comics. Make your own website, it’s easy! Anyway, this comic mostly has dreams involving Snoop with a few real bits thrown in. The dream stories include Snoop and J.T. on a trampoline, Snoop walking into J.T.’s store and asking about the music that’s playing and J.T. signing up for a painting class taught by Snoop. The actual story involves J.T. making friends with a tough guy in his high school (?) days after finding out that they both could draw and getting introduced to Snoop’s music at a party. There’s a bit more to it than that, but hey, why give it away? You can tell from that cover if you’re interested, although if you’re not I regret your lack of appreciation in things that are fantastic. $3
Comments Off on Yost, J.T. – Tales of Good Ol’ Snoop Doggy Dogg | Reviews | Tagged: J.T. Yost, Tales of Good Ol' Snoop Doggy Dogg | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 19, 2011
Website
Attic
If you’re going to post comics up at your website, why not make mini comics out of them? Whit clearly has no trouble with that idea, as this is another collection of her website comics. She’s also working on a longer piece, which I’d be curious to see after two issues of shorties. Before I get started, embiggen that sample and read the strip. OK fine, I’m not the boss of you, but the next sentence or two will make more sense if you do. What the hell is an “angel master?” Whit clearly gets that clairvoyants are fraudulent, and hey, if she still wants to go see them, it’s her money. But angel masters? Anybody with a functioning bullshit meter would run screaming out of a room if somebody wanted to charge you for their advice based on their expertise as an angel master. I’ll go with the theory that she made it up, in which case it’s a funny play on just what people are willing to spend their money on. Other strips in here include her homage to her attic, snooty people who loudly proclaim that they watch no television, being caught out watching a crappy movie, an odd yet loving conversation about vomit, how to hide a hickey, the essential vapidity of having hundreds of Facebook friends, how many ads we see in a day, what happens to old soda, what era would be best to live in and how it’s stupid that robots in Pixar movies are given genders. It’s another pile of interesting and/or funny stories, in other words, so you should maybe contact her if you’re interested, as there doesn’t seem to be a price listed here or on her site. My random comic price guess of the day is $2.
Comments Off on Taylor, Whit – Attic | Reviews | Tagged: Attic, Whit Taylor | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 17, 2011
Website
Panel #13: Superstition
This group of Ohio folks keeps going strong, and naturally superstition is the perfect choice for their thirteenth anthology. Before I get started on the actual comics I wanted to talk about the peripherals fora bit. First, the production design of these things has always been top-notch, and this one is no exception. They sent some other issues along, and I was so impressed that the gushing has carried over to other reviews. Not that there’s anything wrong with this one, but they have an uncanny ability to top themselves in this department. This one was done by Brent Bowman, I wonder if he’s the one who has done all the covers? Ah, what I wouldn’t give for a photographic memory. Anyway, A+ on that end of things. There is also always an introduction that both lays out the point of the book and manages to be genuinely funny, which is tricky but they manage it. Well, Tony Goins manages it this time around. Then at the end of the book you have the author bios, which are also always amusing and informative. What I’m trying to say with all this build up is that by the time I get to the first comic I’m already smiling and impressed, and when I finish the last comic there’s another page of bios to put that smile right back on my face. Maybe all of the content has been lousy and it’s all a diabolical trick on their part. Let’s check over these stories again to make sure… nope, they’re good too. Damn. So! Stories in here are two pages of baseball superstitions by Sean McGurr and Tony McClurg and a declaration of fidelity to the Cleveland Indians, Molly Durst & Brent Bowman’s tale of exactly what happens if you go around killing spiders in your home, Molly Durst tackling the broken mirror superstition, Tony Goins & Tom Williams with their take on the evil eye, Dara Naraghi & Andy Bennett with what looks like a small piece of a larger story about the Twilight Order and psychic parasite, the page I sampled by Sean McGurr & Tim McClurg and the tale of how picking superstitions as the theme managed to prevent the book from ever being made by Craig Bogart. Oh sure, it actually did get made if you want to quibble about it, but it’s a funny take on what could have happened. The only minor complaint I have is that having no page numbers makes having a table of contents significantly less convenient, but there were only so many stories in this one anyway and I was able to puzzle it out. Other than that everybody out there should support this crew, as they’ve been consistently putting out two quality anthologies a year for ages now and deserve some love. They don’t seem to have this listed at the website, or any of the recent Panels for that matter, but I’m sure an e-mail to the proprietor will get you a copy. How much it will cost you is another question. $5?
Comments Off on Panel Anthologies: Panel #13: Superstition | Reviews | Tagged: Andy Bennett, Brent Bowman, Craig Bogart, Dara Naraghi, Molly Durst, Panel, Sean McGurr, Superstition, Tim McClurg, Tom Williams, Tony Goins | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 14, 2011
Website
Thom Ferrier is a Lover of the Great Outdoors
Thank you, o random submissions, as this stuff would be in serious danger of getting repetitive if it wasn’t for them. This is a short but interesting take on travel comics, as you might have guessed from that cover. This one contains a three short pieces and each made me chuckle, which has to be a record of some kind. First of is Thom and friends going through a bunch of American National Parks, but he only documents their interactions with the various guards. Believe me, bit of it are funnier than you’d think. Then there’s the grab bag page featuring overly aggressive RV names and me realizing that I don’t know what a “cold frame” is and why a kid would be dropping bricks through it. Have I mentioned that Thom is in Wales? Finally there’s a fantastic piece about a man who has made it to top of a peak seemingly just so he can yell obscenities at the world. Generally I would never scan the last page of a story, but as this was only two pages, is available on his website anyway and is hilarious, I figured it would be OK. Plenty of other free comics are on his site too, and I really love the layout, so you should maybe poke around there for a bit more info on his general comic sensibilities. No price, and this is so small that it’s not even listed on his website, but I’d say maybe $2.
Comments Off on Ferrier, Thom – Thom Ferrier is a Lover of the Great Outdoors | Reviews | Tagged: Thom Ferrier, Thom Ferrier is a Lover of the Great Outdoors | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
January 12, 2011
Website
Only Skin #6
One thing I’ve never managed to figure out in ten years of doing this site is how much information to relate in a review. Sure, it’s good for people who have also read the issue to be able to read along and nod their heads at various points (or curse loudly, depending on the point). And for a series like this, you’ve either already picked it up and gotten hooked or you’re never going to give it a chance. But that’s not entirely accurate, is it? Somebody who reads small press comics sparingly and comes here once every few years might stumble across this review today, be intrigued and not want anything spoiled. Then again, I read the whole series before reviewing #5, so I gave plenty of information away in that review, which somebody might check out if they were intrigued by this issue. Maybe the answer is that I worry far too much about stuff like this when the vast majority of people coming here just want to find out about a few new comics with a minimum of bullshit coming from me? I’ll admit, that does sound plausible, so I’ll try to walk a fine line here. In this issue we do find out the identity of the main ghost, we learn how he became that ghost, the other ghosts play a much bigger role (and I didn’t notice last time around that these ghosts have arms and legs while the original one does not), it turns out that Jordan knows a whole lot about what’s been going on, there’s more violence than in probably every other issue combined, we get a reunion that was a long time coming, and the shit seems to be very definitely hitting the fan. There, that seems vague enough to not give everything away. I’m not sure how much longer this series is going to go, as it seems to be heading towards a conclusion, but Sean deserves all the credit in the world for coming up with this idea and sticking with it. It’s way too easy to see things logically and financially and give up on comics when you’re halfway through a story; it happens all the time. But that’s not how genuine artistic achievements get done, and I think Sean is well on his way to pulling that off. Well, unless we learn that it was all a dream in the end…. $5
Comments Off on Ford, Sean – Only Skin #6 | Reviews | Tagged: Only Skin, Sean Ford | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
