May 29, 2012
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Troop 142
I recently mentioned (and probably have several other times as well) that I loved this “job” because it gives me a chance to see comic artists at all stages of their careers, from scribbles with all kinds of typos to the eventual polished version later on. The trouble is that, what with this being mostly a mini comics kind of a website and all, I often lose track of people once they start putting out graphic novels on a regular basis. Not so much if I have a regular source of income, but when I don’t they have a tendency to fade into the background for me. This is all a long-winded way of me saying that Mike was one of the first people to send me review comics back in the day, but I haven’t read any of his new comics for at least five years, and I’m thrilled that he’s one of the people from back in the day who “made it.” I have no clue if he’s making a living off his comics yet, but artistically speaking he seems to have put all the pieces together. I should point out that my copy of this also came with a “142” boy scout badge, which was a neat little thing to throw in here, but I’m not sure if that comes with all the copies. This book is all about a week of summer camp for this troop in 1995. A lot of people are probably going to call this a “coming of age” story, but I think that’s a lazy way to look at it, as most of the characters in here don’t come to any serious realizations at the end of the week or change in any significant way. What this book does do perfectly is capture that moment in time, that late adolescent awkwardness where things are starting to change for some people in your age group, but the changes come at a different pace for different people. In this summer camp we get examples of bullying (that mostly (but not always) stay below causing the victim any actual harm), taking LSD and sitting around a campfire, unconscious homosexual experimenting, communal showers (and a communal toilet), living in a tent for a week, and some of the classes needed for Boy Scout badges. But the main thing on display here is the conversations between these kids, and they’re scary accurate from my memories of the time. A lot of adults try to protect the youngsters from foul language and anything untoward, which naturally leads to kids saying the most vile curse words that they hear whenever they get the chance. There’s also a smaller plot in here about a camp counselor (who’s there with his two sons) and the troubles he has fitting in. What’s the etiquette for sleeping in a tent with another man? What are the exact rules for maintaining discipline while not going over the line, especially when it’s your kids that are getting picked on? There are countless quiet (or loud) moments of conversation in here that I’ll let you discover for yourself, but I’d have to think this book would really hit home with people who went through this process themselves. As for the rest of us, you probably already know if you’re interested in this book, as a tale of summer camp for Boy Scouts either interests you or it doesn’t. But if you’re on the fence it’s well worth giving this thing a shot. $20
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Posted by Kevin
May 25, 2012
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Thurber of Ohio
No, I didn’t forget to add the usual sample image, it’s just that this comic is four pages long and it seemed like cheating if I had 50% of it up here for free. Not that that would cut greatly into Bruce’s profits, as he’s only asking for $.25 per copy of this mini, but it’s more the principle of the thing. Anyway, this comic is a brief recap of the life of James Grover Thurber, a former cartoonist for the New Yorker who died in 1961. There are a few examples of his work (and his dedication to simplicity in his comics), a pretty funny anecdote from his time at the New Yorker and his deteriorating eyesight. This takes up the bulk of the book (he says of a book that is, again, four pages) and we see Thurber trying surgery and different kinds of special equipment before finally settling on a powerful microscope attached to his glasses. In case you were wondering, yes, it is possible to learn something new about the guy even in a very short book. It’s funny, informative and almost takes a turn for the tragic towards the end, so I’d say it’s worth a look. And if you happen to get this at a convention chances are you can get a few more minis from Bruce along with this one for right around a dollar.
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Posted by Kevin
May 24, 2012
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Daucus Carota #2
Ah, this is what I love most about running this website and chattering about comics for going on 11 years now. Brandon sent me the first issue of this series years ago, I loved it and never heard from him again. Until now! Scroll through the archives to find my review of #1, but Brandon put together a nice, succinct recap on the inside front cover, which is where such things should go. To sum up, as it’s silent: angry monkeys, confused giant rabbit creature, cartoon cloud of dust representing the battle, giant rabbit creature walking away triumphantly as a monkey arm belonging to a defeated monkey lays on the ground. Perfect. In this issue the rabbit creature is still doing his thing, whatever that might be, and the defeated monkeys return to their leader to report their failure, which goes about as well as you’d expect. The monkey king takes his strangely floating crown (it hovers over his head in most of the panels and he never loses it, no matter how many punches he takes) and goes out in search of our hero. A big old battle ensues with a shocking finale, of which I should say no more. Once again his brief use of colors here and there has more impact than an entire brightly colored comic, and the art is still impressive as hell. Even if he does say in the afterword that he’s embarrassed by the art of the first issue, which is madness, but hey, when are artists ever happy with their earlier work? He implies that the series will continue, which it damned well better now that he’s gone and gotten me hooked. Here’s hoping it’s not another three years before #3. Oh, and some contact information listed in the comic would have been nice, as I had to search around the internets to find it. And in case you were wondering, yes, it is always hilarious when I do a Google search and the first thing I find that I can actually use is a link from Optical Sloth. Funny every time. $5
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Posted by Kevin
May 24, 2012
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Alex Jones True Adventures #1
Ah, Alex Jones. I’m going to happily assume that this comic is supposed to be about the Alex Jones of radio/various conspiracy theories fame and not just a random Alex Jones, mostly because this comic would serve as an excellent origin story for the guy. Scratch that, Alex has a microphone and a tape recorder on the first page, so obviously it’s him. Anyway! This comic reads like a bizarro lament to my opinion that too few comics deal with modern political events or figures. This one has a bundle of political figures show up, and if any of them ever somehow heard of this comic I’d have to imagine that they wouldn’t be too happy about it. Buy hey, fuck ’em. This starts off with Alex on his personal tour of Bohemian Grove, the “play area for the elites,” and his confrontation with a “dandy sex toy” who seems to have stolen Jughead’s crown. From there he witnesses all kinds of horrors involving Geraldo Rivera, Herman Cain, Hilary Clinton and Bernie Madoff that I probably shouldn’t get into because of the dreaded spoilers. I will say that the ending with _____ (I’ll leave it as a surprise) in his “liberty copter” was brilliant, even if the person in question is a goldbug loon in real life. It’s a nice little piece of cathartic madness all wrapped up in eight pages. Normally I’d also complain about the lack of any contact info in this comic, but considering the subject matter I can see why Tom might want to make this a little tougher to find than most of his comics. That being the case there’s no price, but a buck or two should probably cover it.
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Posted by Kevin
May 22, 2012
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Tabe Collection Volume One
Long time readers of this site may recall a few instances when I’ve tried to review abstract comics in (unintentionally) hilarious fashion, and this collected of Rio’s is actually ten comics in one package, so settle in for a garbled treat where I entirely miss the point of a good 3/4 of these comics. First off, the packaging is impressive as hell. This all comes in a large plastic envelope with images of transformers on the flap, and it even comes with a little hole in the flap where you would theoretically hang it on a wall. The packaging for the ten individual comics is impressive too, although if you weren’t a kid who could manage one of those “does he/she like me or not” folding hand thingies (and I clearly don’t know what to call them) then you might have some trouble folding some of these back into position after you finish reading them. On to the comics! #1 is a series of seemingly random images, involving a lot of people in very strange hats and some hieroglyphics. Have I mentioned that most of these comics are only a few pages long? OK then. #2 is a fold out thingie with all sorts of images of various transformers on it. Hey, just like the images on the outer flap of the whole package! #3 is a brief conversation on war and madness and #4 is a series of rorschach blots that are described as “new cave art.” #5 (sampled below, as I wanted to sample the most conventional page in a series of abstract comics just to mess with your head) is an interview with an unnamed person about either Don Juan, Cecil DeMille or both. There are a few interview comics in this set and I really wish I knew the subject in any of them. Hey, I’ve found a complaint! #6 is all about life and love, with an almost criminally adorable main image, and I can’t get it folded back the right way. #7 is a man coming to grips with the rot and taint within him, and it was probably my favorite of the bunch. #8 is a memory, a realization and a maze. #9 is a long interview about art and why to make it, and finally #10 is a message and a poem. With what appears to be that big guy from Katamari Damacy giving the main message. Overall this is an impressive pile of a variety of different types of comics. If you insist on a linear story, you have a few interviews and more conventional stories to win you over. If you prefer your comics abstract, damned near this whole collection has some elements of that. It’s a bit hefty at $14, but you’re also getting a fair amount of comic here. It’s worth a look, unless you really just hate abstract comics.
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Posted by Kevin
May 21, 2012
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Cornelia Cartoons #12
You’ll most likely be a bit lost if you didn’t read the last issue of this series, as this is a rare two part story, but I can sum it up for you. A new drug has been introduced that makes people deliriously happy, which really screws up the profits of the drug companies and various other folks who make a living on treating the depressed. This issue starts off with our heroine forced to hand over the formula to this wonder drug to a masked figure, who then loses it to another masked figure, who then loses it to another masked figure. It turns out that each of these people represents one of the many interests that would be adversely effected if this drug goes into mass production, leading to a pretty damned funny scene of them all trying to figure out who would be the most damaged and what their options were. The real fun begins when they each realize that they’d like to try the drug out for themselves, which they all unfortunately do before learning of the many possible side effects from taking the drug. From there things get more or less happily wrapped up, including an incredibly awkward revelation from the woman who was tricked into psychiatric care in the last issue. There’s also a very short story at the end about a man who finds himself trapped in one of those comic pratfalls that happen every time somebody hears something truly shocking. You know, the famous Robert Crumb (among others) habit of having only the upraised feet visible on the panel when somebody faints dead away from shock/indignation/general astonishment. It’s a nice extra funny bit after things got a little heavy in the main story, so no complaints here. This two part story is really worth a look if you’re at all interested in what legal drugs are doing to people and what the next logical step to the whole thing is. Or even if you just like funny bits of conversation about such things, as it’s not all as heavy as I’m making it out to be. The man just had a point that he wanted to make and I think he made it very well. $2
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Posted by Kevin
May 18, 2012
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Publisher’s website
Me Likes You Very Much
It’s unprofessional in the extreme for me to write a review that’s just a long, small childlike squeal of delight, isn’t it? Damn. Perhaps you’re one of the smarter comics readers who has known about Lauren’s comics for some time now, in which case you’re as excited as I am that she’s finally getting a big old book full of these comics of hers. For those of you who have never heard of her, boy are you in for a treat, as this is about 190 pages of pure goodness and light. And, happily, that cover gives several (smaller) examples of her work. If you can manage to read all of those small comics without laughing, you are hereby excused from buying this book. And from having the capacity for joy, you soulless monster you. For everybody else, like I said, you’re in for a treat. Maybe you’re on the fence somehow and I should at least try to make a coherent case for this book, so I’ll give it a shot. Lauren’s comics are generally between one and three panels long and usually involve talking animals. Or lighters, or salt, or many different kinds of food, or just about anything that could conceivably have a mouth and a couple of eyes attached to it. And they’re funny. Really, damned near all of them at least made me smile, and a really solid chunk of them had me actually laughing out loud, which is still a rarity even after all these years of reading these “funny books.” I should point that at least a few of these strips were already published in some of her mini comics over the last few years, but a good chunk of them are in color here, which was not the case for her minis, and wouldn’t you rather have them all in one place anyway? Sure you would. As I really don’t want to ruin anything about the actual strips (why rob you of the joy of discovery?), I’ll stick to the margins. The hamburger asking on the back page if the people quoted praising her book were lying? Well, it’s always impressive if you get a laugh out of me when the book itself is over. Speaking of that, she does have a few random strips before and after the book actually starts, so there’s bonus stuff for you to enjoy. I also loved her chapter listings almost as much as the fact that she actually had an increasingly desperate eggplant (as he realized the reader was approaching the end of the book) introducing the nonsensical chapters. Look, what you have here is a big old book full of the funny, put out by a publishing company that’s just starting out and could use the encouragement, and put together by a woman who’s funnier than most humans have any right to be and who really deserves a big old pile of money for her effort. Help these folks out with that please! $14
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Posted by Kevin
May 17, 2012
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Window #14
Aw, I’ve finally reached the last of these Window comics. Dammit. There, I guess I just gave away the direction of this review, for the people who haven’t read my reviews of the first 13 issues of this series and weren’t sure which way I was going to go. This issue has a few different stories in it, and I’d swear that the text size got much bigger this time around, for whatever that’s worth. First up is the sample below, mostly because it reminded me of a friend of mine back in the day doing the same thing to vegetarian friends, and he got the exact same reaction (“this is the best veggie burger I’ve ever had!”) while pulling the same trick. But hey, that’s just a one page piece. The first big story deals with Dave teaching another class, this time in a summer camp where students were with him for several hours a day for two weeks. He talks about the kid who got bullied (and how, even though he was a perfectly nice kid, it made sense that other kids were bullying him because he was so damned polite all the time), how the one kid who was too young for the class had an impossible time trying to fit in, and the time that a staple got into some candy and whether or not it was a malicious act. That’s roughly the first half of the book, and I’m going to be as vague as possible for the rest of it to try and keep some surprises for you readers lucky enough to find copies of this series. There are two other stories about the professor who was thinking of giving his kid back after his wife left the country and the mystery of the thrown shoe, then this series sadly comes to a close. Well, unless he’s planning on making more, but he seems to have moved onto other things, which I probably should have reviewed before this series. Oops. In a perfect world this series would be collected into one volume and then given to all teachers around the country, so any publishers out there with a few extra bucks lying around should make it so.
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Posted by Kevin
May 17, 2012
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Kekionga Mini Works #30: Fleek
There are times when a comic just mystifies me. Maybe if I had read some of Pam’s past issues in any kind of linear order I would have a better chance at understanding this, but as it is I’m almost completely at sea. This one starts off with a listing of the cast of characters, which is a damned useful piece of information (brain in a jar, a stuffed coelacanth, flying junkyard rats, two humans and a “Josef). Things start off with one of the humans poking around in a mysterious box with everybody else hovering around, trying to figure out what it is. They start guessing (by throwing out words that sound like nonsense), other characters make fun of them for their guesses, culminating in a page later in the book that looked like a sound effect convention gone wrong. I would have used it for the sample, but it was very late in this short book and I didn’t want to give the whole thing away. So if you’re a fan of wordplay and perhaps have a dictionary on hand that is getting a bit dusty, give this comic a shot. You’ll look up a half dozen words easy. I don’t have a dictionary around so I was mostly just befuddled. Which, again, is quite possibly my fault. $.50
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Posted by Kevin
May 15, 2012
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First Fight #3
I have one suggestion to make to Bryan before I get down to the reviewin’: please consider putting some sort of timeline in your books. Granted, that may eventually make the comics look dated if you can’t keep up a consistent publishing schedule, but I’m genuinely curious to see how long he wasn’t fighting, how long it took him to get back into shape, etc. Just a thought. So! This issue starts off with Bryan and his wife moving into their new home. He has some friends over, so he mentions to them that he’s looking to get back into the MMA fighting, which comes as a shock to them, because Bryan has put on a big chunk of weight over recent months and they wonder if he’s really ready for the training that would have to happen. Bryan chuckles, says he will be ready, and later that night he steps on the scale (which is something he had been avoiding for months). Well, it turns out that he was about 30 pounds off in his estimate of his own weight, and it was in the wrong direction. Hey, who hasn’t been there? Bryan makes a vow then and there to finish 30 push ups, which he does (eventually), and from there he fully gets back into training. I think, anyway, which is where my request for a timeline comes in. I guess it would be boring to see Bryan riding a stationary bike for an hour or so a day to lose weight, but if that’s part of his training it should be in here somewhere. The rest of the comic shows Bryan’s experiences with a jui jitsu class, the humiliations involved in repeatedly getting beat by teenagers, and using those skills to show up an uncle who was making fun of him. But in a harmless, all-in-good-fun kind of way (he didn’t choke the guy out is what I’m saying). It’s another thoroughly engaging comic and it looks like Bryan is going to pick up his publishing schedule in the coming months. I for one can’t wait to see how it all turns out. $4
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Posted by Kevin
May 14, 2012
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Euni the Unicorn #2
If you are a scholar of comic art and wonder why that cover looks a little off, it’s because it was done by Eric Adams (of “Lackluster World” fame) and not Kris. There’s even a little mini crossover inside too, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Kris sent me this because I missed him at SPACE this year (come to think of it, I somehow missed Eric too). Next year, seriously, I’m going on Saturday instead of Sunday. No that that’s your problem. So how about this comic? This is the first thing I’ve seen from Kris in a few years, and it does meander a bit, but that’s bound to happen when there’s a crossover involved. Things start off with a young man flipping channels until he gets to a show about the upcoming apocalypse. Panic sets in, the young man runs out into the street, and runs right into Euni the unicorn. Which would be a little shocking on your best day, but this dude is already freaking out. What follows is a ridiculously hilarious screaming fit by that man, in which the unicorn calmly tries to talk the guy down. That doesn’t work, and suddenly there’s a four page Lackluster World crossover. Well, it’s almost certainly not considered part of that story’s official timeline (if it has such a thing), but it did make me want to dig out those issues and read them again, so the crossover worked. Finally there’s some advice given by the unicorn to that guy about the apocalypse, but I don’t want to risk ruining that brilliant final page. It’s another pretty solid book from Kris, although I’d like a very slight uptick in mayhem for the next issue. No, there’s no way to quantify such things, but I’m always up for more mayhem. And he’s still managing to keep these books at $1, even with the full color crossover in the middle…
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Posted by Kevin
