If anybody in the world is a fan of my especially long and rambling reviews, all of Nate Powell’s work that I’ve reviewed has been graphic novels, and I do go on when it comes to those.
“Update” for 9/17/25
September 17, 2025Today I’m linking to a newish favorite around here, Karl Christian Krumpholz! And yes, since I’ve been doing this for 24 years, somebody that I’ve only been reviewing for 9 years does count as “newish.”
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Posted by Kevin
“Update” for 9/16/25
September 16, 2025Today I’m posting the reviews for somebody who’s a featured guest at Cartoon Crossroads this weekend, but I started reviewing his stuff when he was still doing mini comics: Matt Madden! Crikey, look at the text formatting on some of these oldies…
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Posted by Kevin
“Update” for 9/15/25
September 15, 2025It’s a trick! There are no actual reviews this week, but I am going to post a link to all of my reviews for somebody who’s going to be at Cartoon Crossroads this weekend every day. Watch how they/I evolve over the years! Probably more them then me, honestly. I’m mostly still the same old dope I’ve always been. Anyway, let’s start things off with reigning champ of the website (i.e. the person I’ve reviewed the most) Brian Canini!
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/4/25
September 4, 2025New review today for The Bible Drawings Part One by John Mitkoff. I wasn’t able to get to Chicago this weekend as planned, meaning my options for review comics until Cartoon Crossroads in a couple of weeks are just about gone. Will I get enough comics over the next week to write reviews next weekend? Probably not, but maybe!
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Posted by Kevin
Minkoff, John – The Bible Drawings Part One
September 4, 2025
My initial impression after reading this was that there’s not a book out there that calls for this kind of artistic treatment more than the Bible, but looking through John’s old work shows that this is kind of his style. Not always, as he’s clearly changed his style over the years, but fairly often. This is the part where I point out that I’m not any kind of an art scholar or student, so I can only hope that nobody is reading these reviews for that kind of viewpoint. If anybody had they would have long ago failed out of art school because of me and would have taken me out in a fairly brutal fashion as revenge, so I’m going to keep assuming that never happened. But the image below, for example, shows Adam and Eve hiding out after eating the forbidden fruit. You can make them out, and you can even (to me) see the fear on their faces, along with a barely defined figure peering around looking for them. In the chaotic lines around it, what else can you make out? This is where things get subjective in a hurry, so consider that a rhetorical question. Other images depict different scenes from the first book in the Bible: there’s Adam being molded from the dust, his getting placed in Eden, the first time he’s shown animals, the woman being made from the rib of Adam, and more; these all come from Genesis, so maybe you can guess what he chose to draw. But each image had me flipping back to it after finishing, looking for details in the din and seeing new things each time. So it was a rewarding experience for me and am curious to experience the next book (which John was nice enough to send my way). It’s well worth checking out, assuming you have an interest in the subject matter. $13
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/2/25
September 2, 2025New review today for Maps by Chris Auman, as I’ve somehow ended up with maybe the dumbest theme week around here yet: double page spread as a sample image week! Ugh, that needs a catchy name in the worst way.
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Posted by Kevin
Auman, Chris – Maps
September 2, 2025
Generally speaking, there are two types of people who read books with maps heavily featured in them. There’s the type who obsess over the details and gladly call out the author if the movements they describe wouldn’t make any sense in their own maps (hello Game of Thrones!) and the readers who ignore the maps. Chris, as he makes very clear in his introduction, is the former type, even going so far as to say that he’ll read books specifically because they have maps in them. This comic is a natural outgrowth of that obsession (and a companion to his Cities comic). Maps let you wonder what life would be like on different sections, where (if it’s not accompanied by a global map) they could be placed on a planet, what the environment might be like, etc. The sample image gives the game away a bit, but the rest of the comic is close-up images of different sections of the map, and it wouldn’t make much sense to use one of those images with no context. This is one of those cases where whether or not you should check out this comic is a simple question. Are you obsessed by, or at least interested in, maps and speculating about what might be going on in there? Or do you ignore the maps? Folks who are the former type, come on down! Probably should go ahead and get the set of this along with Cities so you have full context too. $6
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/28/25
August 28, 2025New review today for Ninja Bootleg by Brian Canini, and you wouldn’t believe how low my Canini comic reserves are getting. The plan is to get to Chicago this weekend and stock up at Quimby’s, so we’ll see if that’s what actually happens!
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Posted by Kevin
Canini, Brian – Bootleg Ninja
August 28, 2025
You don’t see them very often these days, but I do love a tribute comic. This is Brian’s homage to the Ninja comics of his friend Michael Anthony Carroll, who I reviewed a fair amount back in the day (before the great website update of 2010), and then apparently stopped reviewing for some reason? Odd. I’ll have to grab some of ninja comics the next time I see him at a con to catch up/get some context for this one. Not that you need much context, because: ninjas! Everybody knows ninjas. This one starts off with a brief explanation of the concept, then it’s on to the “training video” portion. Other stories include a listing of their weapons, Godzilla dressed as a ninja, a very vocal movie critic who’s not having a good time watching a ninja movie in a darkened theater, and of course Franken-ninja. I also couldn’t possibly avoid talking about probably the longest story in here, about a silent fart who takes up ninja tools and goes on a rampage. I thought it was funny, but if your eyes just rolled out of your head, maybe this one isn’t for you. Which is fine; very few people have as many comics to choose from as Brian does. I found the whole comic to be a hoot, even if I was probably missing some context, so if you’re up for some ninja mockery I’d say you should give this one a shot. $5
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/26/25
August 26, 2025Hey everybody, Andrew Neal has a new comic out! Review today is for No Raccoons in Hell by that guy I just mentioned.
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Posted by Kevin
Neal, Andrew – No Raccoons in Hell
August 26, 2025
Hey everybody, it’s a new Val Cannon mystery! OK, that’ll wrap up this review, as… huh, you probably want me to talk about this a bit more than that. This is considered to be #30 of the Meeting Comics series, which I’ve been praising for ages, so you can probably guess where this review is going to go. But fine, I’ll go into some detail. This one is set in 1997, back in the younger days of Val. When we last saw her she was having sex with every one of her 5 of so roommates, first one by one and then (when they all found out about it) as one big group. But this issue has a bit of a “morning after” vibe from all of them, as they’ve each had time to think about what they might want in the future, and oddly it might not involve a daily orgy. To each their own, I guess! Still, that can’t possibly be the attitude of 1997 Tori, right? Also, doesn’t the title allude to a mystery? It sure does! Their house raccoon has gone missing, along with the trap they use to take it to the vet for checkups. Unfortunately they all blacked out the night before, and since this is before the age of ubiquitous cell phones, photographic evidence is a bit hard to come by. Still, they’re able to piece together enough information to get a good idea where to check out next, and they get to be in disguises to do it. Will they be discovered? Will they figure out what happened to their raccoon? Will everybody change their minds about the orgies? I genuinely don’t know, as this is the first of a two part story. I reckon we’ll find out next time though! $9
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Posted by Kevin
Not really an update for 8/23/25
August 23, 2025Fantagraphics lost a whole lot of money/books when Diamond publishing went out of business (long story), so they’re having a big old 30% off sale through 8/25. If you’re looking for suggestions, well I just reviewed Jordan Crane’s latest and you may have noticed that I had very nice things to say about that. Or you can do what I do and just get another book from Jason every time you order (I’ll get them all sooner or later). Or the newest Hate series by Peter Bagge was just collected, or you must have missed at least one of Simon Hanselmann’s books, or maybe one of their big old hardcover collections that always seemed too expensive is now affordable for you, etc. Help them out and get some great books in the process!
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/22/25
August 22, 2025New review today for The Fifty Flip Experiment #34 by Dan Hill! Is this the last of the reviews until Cartoon Crossroads next month, since most of my review comics are gone? Eh, probably not.
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Posted by Kevin
Hill, Dan – The Fifty Flip Experiment #34
August 22, 2025
I’ll admit it, there are times where I zone out when there are large blocks of text in a comic. If I’m reviewing it I fess up (as I’m somehow always guilty about it), but yeah, sometimes all the text gets me to tune out. I mention that mostly so I can say that Dan has another one of his delightful… stories? Calling it stream of consciousness rambling sells it short, as he clearly sticks to his own plan throughout. Whatever you’d call it, this time around it’s four pages instead of the usual one or two, and after reading it my brain got the clear signal that I had just read a piece of art and it was time to ramble about it myself on my website. It wasn’t until I sat down and logged in that I realized that I hadn’t read the actual comic yet. Oh laughs! It really is possible to have them by myself while reading comics and then writing reviews! So basically yes, the four page story alone is worth that measly $5. But there’s also a whole comic that comes with it! He’s sticking with full color, and I’m a fan of the idea. This one is all about Lily, the goth girl from DuoLingo (not familiar myself, but I looked it up and she’s real) getting transported to a cave of evolved dinosaurs. In this case “evolved” means “walking upright and talking,” not telepathic dinosaurs, if you were thinking about that for some reason. He goes to great lengths to mention that this story is about the real Lily, so it’s now canon that that lady has lived with dinosaurs in a cave. We see her on a beach, we see her wash her pits in a bathroom, we see her join the civilization of the dinosaurs and return to her own world. But not all is as it seems! In fact none of it is, but I’m not going to get into specifics. Here’s to another 34 issues at a minimum of this constantly delightful series! $5
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/20/25
August 20, 2025New review today for Goes Like This by Jordan Crane, and after this one I’ll be going back and rereading his old graphic novels. Yes, that means I liked it!
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Posted by Kevin
Crane, Jordan – Goes Like This
August 20, 2025
Jordan Crane! He’s one of those people who got me into the small press comics back in the day; if you look up his name on the website his reviews are mostly from the 2001-2004 era, where all of the “site news” posts have vanished so I’ll never know exactly when those reviews were first posted. And oh, past me, to complain about an $8 graphic novel. So young and dumb! Anyway, in my world, he put out two amazing graphic novels, several years later put out a kid’s book, and then vanished. In reality, he put out five issues of a series from Fantagraphics, was working on a graphic novel that took him 20 years to complete (Keeping Two, which I’m shocked I never reviewed), and never stopped contributing stories to anthologies. Which, and sorry to take so long to get to the point, is what this volume contains. Despite my admiration for Jordan’s work, I still honestly wasn’t expecting to be blown away by this because hey, anthologies, am I right? Some good stories, some bad, many so-so. Allow me to murder any suspense that you may be feeling: this is one of my favorite books of the year. Top to bottom, with no qualifiers for “some of the stories were just OK.” Nope! This is a book I’ll be returning to on a regular basis. I have to mention the design of the book, as it very quickly moves into the realm of being one of the prettiest books that I own. And good lord, do I ever own a lot of books. The thick pages mixed in with the thin, the vibrant (and there should be a word stronger than “vibrant” for this) colors, the single or double page silent drawings between the stories (which often feel like padding but in this case masterfully raise or lower tension between the stories)… if there’s an award available for book design and he doesn’t win it, what are we even doing here people? Perhaps now you’re curious about the contents, or not willing to take my word for it. Well, I’m not going to walk you through all of it (this is a dense volume), but things start off in fairly wacky fashion, with a thief in old timey prospecting times trying to get a locked briefcase off of the handcuffed wrist of a dead man. And I was set for wacky times, I’m so fine with that! But the images in between stories told the tale and set the mood, leading to the quiet claustrophobia of “Keep a Light Out.” Then the stories shift to black and white (but not the larger drawings), with a heartbreaking story of a relationship dying a slow death, mixed with images of it when it was just getting started, which also continues later in the book. And you know what? That’s all you get from me. A solid chunk of the joy of reading this is not knowing what to expect after every page/story, and I’m not going to ruin that any more than I have to. Again, one of my favorite books of the year, and if you like comics at all (and what would you be doing here if you didn’t?), this one is mandatory reading. $39.99
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/18/25
August 18, 2025New review today for the last of this round of mini kus books, Sandbox by Yuichi Yokoyama. Does this pile go out with a bang or a whimper? Also my apologies for taking the week off last week, but my review pile is at a low ebb at the moment (hint hint, to anybody looking for a quick review). Cartoons Crossroads is a month away, so I’ll definitely restock there. If I don’t get more review comics maybe I’ll dig through the boxes for some oldies? Who knows!
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Posted by Kevin
Yokoyama, Yuichi – Sandbox
August 18, 2025
I briefly thought that there was a printing problem with this issue, as the title and author is on the back cover, before I figured out that it’s more like a manga. A tip for you, gentle reader, so you maybe don’t fumble around as much as I did. Or at least part of the story is, while the rest starts from the usual (in America) front of the book. Although you can kind of read that part right after the initial story on the side with the title and author and it’ll still work in that order. OK fine I’ll fess up! This one didn’t completely click for me. Blame it on the manga aspects (I still haven’t read enough of that for it to feel natural to read a story in the “wrong” order), I’ll absolutely accept the blame for that. There’s still a lot to like here, even if I feel like I’m missing the big picture. The haunting cadence of a whole lot of the dialogue, the absolutely otherworldly sandy area where they’re all trapped, the inhuman masks on the walls (and how they may or may not tie in to the rest of the mystery), all that kind of stuff. And Yokoyama has put out all kinds of books, so it’s not like he’s some new artist which, once again, proves that I’m the dummy here. These things happen! On the other hand, what a great opportunity for you to just get the bundle of four comics instead of just one. You may find this one a headscratcher too, but even if you do, you’ll have the three other latest mini kus books to keep you entertained. $8 for this, or $22 for the bundle.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/7/25
August 7, 2025New review today for Spirit by Tony DiPasquale, so hey, that’s at least one comic from CAKE that I’ve been able to cover so far!
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Posted by Kevin
