Kiersh, Dave – Dirtbag #7

April 23, 2010

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Dirtbag #7

Do I have to write a review? Look, I think this guy is incredible. The page I sampled here is just about dead-on, at least in my experience. Granted, he didn’t say it, but he had the wit to draw it and put it in his comic. If you’re a male and you’ve ever been confused about females, his comics are bound to help at least a little, if for no other reason than you can find out some things that you shouldn’t do in certain situations. It’s supposed to be the same color as the cover but I wanted to make sure you could read it and that it wouldn’t be a giant-size file, so here you go.


Kiersh, Dave – Dirtbag #5

April 23, 2010

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Dirtbag #5

I think the best way to describe Dave would be “graphic poet”. If he leaves anything unsaid, he sure hides it well. I just get the impression that everything he has is going into these pages, and that makes for some compelling reading. This issue is more of the same of what we’ve come to expect from him: tales about loneliness, girls and trying to fit in anywhere in the world. I think he should be rich and famous, but that’s because I’m biased. It probably wouldn’t suit him anyway, because why would he feel compelled to make comics if he was content? Anyway, everything I’ve seen from him is really close to essential reading, and this one isn’t any different. Get as many issues of this series as you can and see if you’re disappointed. Go here to get his stuff, as well as just about every other mini you can think of.


Kiersh, Dave – Quaaludes #4

April 23, 2010

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Quaaludes #4

This is a hard guy to track down, at least as far as the internet is concerned. I managed to find an e-mail address, but that’s it. Apparently he’s in Non #4 and Lowjinx #2 also, so you’ve probably seen his work somewhere. This one is from back before he was “famous” in 1998, and it’s the tale of Tracey Gold (from Growing Pains) falling in love with Hugh O’Conner (from The Young Poisoner’s Handbook) and vice versa. A quick read, it still shows a little bit of what this guy is capable of. Kind of looks like he uses a regular pen and just scratches out some of the backgrounds, but that’s probably not true. The name I’ve seen him compared to the most is John Porcellino, and that’s a good comparison. It has the same feel of teenage hopelessness and a sense of not fitting in with the rest of the world. Both of those things have become something of a cliche in mini comics and it takes a real talent to pull them off without becoming obnoxious, and Dave fits the bill. You can find some of his book over at the fantastic USS Catastrophe page. He was nominated for an Ignatz in ’99 for best new talent and I’ve yet to see a bad story from him in any of the various places I’ve seen his work. This one is quick but good.


Kiersh, Dave – A Last Cry For Help

April 23, 2010

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A Last Cry For Help

I regret to inform you that I have no idea which issues of Last Cry For Help make up this comic.  I looked and looked online (and found it at Amazon and Bodega Distribution) but nobody seems interested in listing where the individual bits of this came from.  Ah well, what difference does it make?  Unless you obsessively follow everything Dave has done over the last ten years, at least some of this is going to be new to you.  If you scroll down you’ll see that I’ve read plenty of what he’s done and at least half of it seemed new to me.  Or maybe it’s just because I read most of this stuff four years ago and have a lousy memory?  In any case, from what I’ve been able to gather this is essentially a ten year retrospective of Dave’s comics, with one page stories thrown in with about a dozen longer bits.  Mostly the best of teenage awkwardness, with stories involving a young girl not really wanting to be making out on the beach, two young guys getting drunk and smashed their parent’s car, a pregnant woman stuck in prison, the merits of fantasy life versus actual life, drunken dancing, a lonely waitress, a humiliating Halloween and more than a few sexy nurses.  If you haven’t read Dave’s stuff I can’t think of a better introduction, and if you have this is damn fine collection.  Few people out there cover awkwardness and loneliness better than he does, all while never veering completely over into whiny self-indulgence.  $10


Gonzales, Rickey – Squish

April 23, 2010

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Squish

One of these years I’m just going to get a graphic novel from Rickey and be done with it.  Of course, that’s also assuming that I’m going to make it to SPACE one of these years with a pile of money.  This mini has a tiny original comic and then a preview (done in screenplay format) or his latest book, The Death of Ginger Fierbusch.  The comic is the brief story of a young woman who, while on the phone to her father, squishes a bug.  After doing this she goes on about how it makes her feel bad to kill bugs, how maybe some other higher being in the universe will decide to squish her one of these days for no reason.  It’s gets a little maudlin, her dad gives her a bit of a pep talk, and there’s a delightfully awkward ending.  As for the free preview, the screenplay format maybe wasn’t the best way to show the new book, but if he didn’t have any actual preview pages done it’s better than nothing.  It’s the story of the two best friends of Ginger Fierbusch, a local drag queen and podcasting sensation (do those exist?), trying to make sense of her death.  It has potential, clearly, but there really wasn’t enough here to pass any judgement one way or the other.  Next year at SPACE I’ll pick it up and see for myself, until then who knows?  Check out his other books first (as there’s much more to them), but this is still worth picking up for his short comic if you see him at a con.  $1

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Goldman, Steven – Styx Taxi #2 (with Rafi Efal)

April 23, 2010

Steven’s blog (that seems to have little to nothing to do with comics)

Styx Taxi #2 (with Rami Efal)

Not really sure what to call this, so I’m going with “#2”. If that’s completely wrong, here’s hoping somebody gets back to me. As for this issue, well, Steven went with the artist I liked the least from the anthology (Rami Efal) and had him do both of these stories. I didn’t like him because his art just isn’t my thing, all shadows and odd angles. These aren’t fast-paced stories and they’re not really meant to be, I don’t think you should have to work this hard to follow what’s going on in the panels. Just my opinion, of course, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who will love this. Frankly, Styx Taxi is a great example for the troubles of the small press comics world. If he had done even ten issues right off the bat, maybe “Styx Taxi” would be recognizable enough to warrant an anthology and another book with only two little bits of stories. It was (and is) such a great idea, I was really hoping to see more. Instead there’s just one absolutely perfect issue, one pretty good issue and this. The stories in here are fine, one about an old lady who dies in the middle of reading a story ro her dead relatives, the other about a young man who doesn’t have anywhere he wants to go when he dies so he invites the cab driver to dinner with him. Also in here are bits from a projected novel that were pretty entertaining, if it comes together. Look, this is pretty far from a bad comic book, it’s just that I saw this book as really taking the comics world by storm, but instead it’s been 4 years or so with only 3 issues put out, and Steven is going back to grad school soon, so I doubt if there will be a ton coming here in the near future. It’s just frustrating to get into a series and then have it either dumped or put out so slowly that you can barely remember hat the point of the whole thing was in the first place. Which is more of a reflection on the sins of the whole industry than this one comic, but here’s hoping you can at least see what I’m trying to say here. if you have a comic with the potential to be this good then, by god, why not start cranking out the issues?


Goldman, Steven – Styx Taxi: A Little Twilight Music

April 23, 2010

Steven’s blog (that seems to have little to nothing to do with comics)

Styx Taxi: A Little Twilight Music

You know, when I got this issue, I thought that there was no way it could work. An anthology issue, with three different artists? Already? There’s only been one regular issue! It seems that the creative team is busy doing different projects, which is fine, but if this is your main thing, you have to spend the time and effort to get it off the ground first! Then I read the comic, and it turns out that they can wander around and take their time if they want to, as they still have plenty of ideas. The first story (Goldman & Dan Goldman) in here is an unspoken tribute about the taxi crew on 9/11, trying to keep up with the dead. The second (Elizabeth Genco & Leland Purvis) is about Charon’s habit of enjoying a street musician perform and his inability to ever leave the taxi. The third (Goldman & Rami Efal) is about babies having babies, with a little death thrown in. The first two were fascinating stories, no problem there, but the third was a bit of a mess and hard to follow. Still, good stuff all together, and this universe gets more interesting all the time. $3, contact info is up there.


Goldman, Steven – Styx Taxi

April 23, 2010

Steven’s blog (that seems to have little to nothing to do with comics)

Styx Taxi

Small comics creators, take note: this is how you put together a comic. The contents are a matter of taste, as always but this is aesthetically perfect. No glaring spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, lush, involved backgrounds all over the place, and a complex story all help this out tremendously. A book like this helps itself out just by getting all the basic things right, as that’s a lot of things to complain about just taken off the table… and it’s the easiest thing in the world to fix! Sorry, rant over, but bravo to these two. The story here is that cab drivers from beyond the grave are competing to get the most fares, and whoever wins gets 12 hours on Earth. If that sounds ridiculous, I’m asking you to give this a chance, as this book asks a lot of interesting questions about life and death, as well as the choices we make about both. What would you do if you had two hours after your death to revisit the world? Would you see your wife, regardless of what that would do to her? Would you try to kill the person who killed you? Or maybe you’d just mope about it? This book looks to me like nothing less than a labor of love, and it shows throughout. The writing is provocative, the art is flawless, and did I mention that this is their first book? Ridiculous, and a lot to live up to for the next issue (it’s projected to be a series of one-shots or graphic novels, which is perfect for this concept), but I can’t wait to see them try. Contact the artist, it’s $2.50. Seriously, you really should.


Goldfarb, Andrew – The Eye Hand of the Carolinas

April 23, 2010

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The Eye Hand of the Carolinas

Hey look, an Andrew Goldfarb book that doesn’t deal with any of the 1000 sorrows! This is a short mini about a pair of conjoined twins (or two people sharing one circulatory system, not two different sets of people) who can’t stand each other. While fighting to the death they see that creepy thing from the front cover, who looks directly into their souls. Because naturally, you’d think that something that looks like that would be the thing that would bring two brothers together. As always with Andrew, the art in this book is gorgeous, with all sorts of little things scurrying around in the shadows. If you’re afraid of those hefty $3 and $4 price tags above but still want to check out his stuff, this $.50 cheapie is the perfect way to go.


Goldfarb, Andrew – Ogner Stump’s Automotive Sorrows

April 23, 2010

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Ogner Stump’s Automotive Sorrows Now Available! $3

More wonderful sorrows here, although fans of chronological order are sure to be outraged, as the sorrows hop all over the place. I believe that sorrows #46-77 are represented here, although some of them are subtle enough to be practically invisible. Again, without the visuals you’re missing the vast majority of the fun, but a few of the topics are car crashes, mechanics, knee injuries, sunburns, and hostile aliens. Also included in here is a delightul poem about an old woman who kills any guests that come over for a cup of tea and a brief autobiographical tale about a monster that Andrew sees late one night. Everything I’ve seen so far from Andrew has been a visual smorgasboard of creepy goodness, and this one is no exception. Anybody who loves comics and skips these things is doing themself a disservice. $3


Goldfarb, Andrew – Ogner Stump’s Hawaiian Sorrows

April 23, 2010

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Ogner Stump’s Hawaiian Sorrows Now Available! $3

Just in case you’re keeping track of the actual number of 1000 sorrows that have been completed, this comic has #26-45. So Andrew should be done with all of these, if that is in fact his plan, sometime shortly before he dies naturally of old age. Maybe it’s best not to think about the mammoth nature of this theoretical project and instead take the sorrows as they come. With the full knowledge that just listing these is useless without your being able to see how they’re represented in comics form, here are some of the topics: insects, bus stops, trains, ghosts, envy, ticklishness, and ritual human sacrifice. I said something along the lines of “demented brilliance” in the last review of Ogner Stump, and despite my not getting the point in most of the rest of the review, I’m sticking by that line. The book is gorgeous and haunting (seriously, I defy anyone to read one of these comics and not have at least one of the characters pop into your dreams at some point), and I’m tempted to quote about half the lines in here just to prove that point. OK fine, I’ll confine myself to one: “Your uncoiled innards will spell abundant appeasement to our mango deity!” $3


Goldfarb, Andrew – Ogner Stump’s One Thousand Sorrows

April 23, 2010

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Ogner Stump’s One Thousand Sorrows Now Available! $4

I’ve been sitting here for about twenty minutes now, trying to put my thoughts about this book into some semblance of order, but I’ve come to the conclusion that that’s just not going to happen. For anybody out there who likes bizarre, gothic comics (Jim Woodring, Richard Sala, and Edward Gorey, to name a few that fit in at least one of those categories): you have a new hero. Seriously, this is an almost flawless work of demented brilliance. Ogner Stump is a guy who has all sorts of horrible things happen to him, from plague to haircuts to apes to islands to defecation to rock and roll to… I could go on for a while here, but I think you get the idea. The thing is that all of these chapters have the most innocuous titles, like “Eggs” or “Employment”, but there’s nothing remotely normal about any of it. Enough about that, check out his website for samples of things too if you don’t believe me. The rest of the book is various short stories which, while lacking the sense of cohesiveness that the Ogner Stump stuff has, are still wonderfully insane in their own right. There’s a story about a floating head and another one about a truffle tree. Look, just get it. It’s $9 for about 150 pages of insanity and, if that’s your thing, this is perfect. If that’s not your thing, loosen up a little…


Goldfarb, Andrew – Ogner Stump

April 23, 2010

Website

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Ogner Stump

Andrew clearly has no interest in helping reviewers like me along, as he seems determined to call every mini he puts out “Ogner Stump”.  Oh well, if that’s the biggest problem I have today it’ll be a pretty good day.  This is a little different from his other comics, as even though this continues the 1000 sorrows (#81-94 this time around, indicating that he will indeed be working on these well into his old age), the sorrows are aspects of larger stories and no longer clearly pointed out.  He does list them all in the beginning though, so half the fun is finding them yourself and seeing how he works them into the story.  The other thing that’s different is that this is in full color, and if there’s ever been a concept that calls out for full color, it’s this one.  Anyone who has read anything else from Andrew knows it’s a bit difficult to nail them down in regular, human terms, but I’ll do my best.  Stories include Swamp Gas (a long, lyrical journey through the swamp and beyond), Ogner Stump Meets the Green Fairy (in which Ogner wishes for lemonade and gets a lot more than he bargained for), The Eye Hand of the Carolinas (see the bottom of the page, it was previously released as its own tiny mini), The Hex (in which Andrew explains, in great detail, how make a hex) and Andrew’s true story about taking a stone from the grave of a “voodoo queen” and what happened after.  I’d swear that Andrew’s writing has gotten even better, or at least certainly more lyrical than last time.  The art was always excellent, and it’s even better now that it’s all in vivid color.  However many of these he can afford to do in color, it would be great if he could stick with that as long as possible.  Also, Andrew sent me an extra copy, so the first person who buys the rest of his books on this page gets it free.  Note: if you’re reading this years down the road and wonder if anybody has taken me up on this offer, go ahead and check.  Sometimes these free comic offers get taken up right away, and sometimes they sit here forever.  $4

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Hawkins, Matthew – Unlucky #2

April 23, 2010

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Unlucky #2 Now Available! $1.50

Another preview mini? That’s all well and good, but where’s the great big graphic novel full of these stories? When that’s my main complaint for an issue, you know I probably liked it a whole lot. There are two stories in here. The first (drawn by K. Thor Jensen) is about a sexual adventure Matt had in college that led to an infected nipple. It’s a long way to go for a punchline, but it is quite a punchline. And there’s gratuitous sex, so it’s hard to complain about that. The second story (drawn by MK Reed) deals with an awkward conversation waiting in line to order food. It’s all over a penny, but kudos to Matthew for standing up to an asshole. With this collection of talent combined with the ability to tell a fantastic story, I’m really excited to see a larger collection of these stories, so get to work! Or just keep these previews coming if you must, but I want a big pile o’ stories…


Havert, Nik – Rocket Girl #1

April 23, 2010

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Rocket Girl #1 (with Jesus Antonio Hernandez Rodriguez) Now Available! $2.25

After many, many years of being disappointed with comics that have superheroes in them, I’ve learned to take anything with a superhero in it and assume that it’s crap until it wins me over. Luckily, this one did that about one page in. The first page is a spread of the main… well, obsession of the main character, a superhero called Fire Chief. I’m not sure what else Jesus has done, as this is from a few years ago, but holy crap is this man a gifted artist. That single page was enough for me to turn the cynicism off and let this thing win me over, and then the writing kicked in. Yep, that’s all you need for a great comic, so I was hooked. This is the story of a woman named Polly Harris, a seemingly ordinary woman who has a massive crush on one of the more famous superheroes in their town, the Fire Chief. Why she has a crush isn’t immediately clear, as he’s in a baggy costume with a bucket over his head, but she has an absolute obsession, which eventually leads her to try the superhero thing out for herself. That may be a spoiler, as most of this book is the “origin” issue and we don’t see her in costume until the end, but come on now, the book is called “Rocket Girl”, how did you think it would turn out? Anyway, great stuff all around, completely engrossing, and kudos to Jesus on the choice of making the werewolf more like the old black and white movie werewolf and less like the giant beast that seems to be in all the movies these days. You damned kids! $2.25


George – This is Still America #2

April 23, 2010

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This Is Still America #2 Now Available! $2

George reprinted most of the review for #1 inside this book as a synopsis/review, so for those of you who only picked up the second issue and are wondering why there’s such a crappy synopsis, that’s sort of my fault. Hey, if I knew that people were going to be taking these rambles and using them to summing up their last book, I would try to make them a little more coherent. In this issue we get to see exactly why the young man from the first issue didn’t care that his Dad was gone. Some of it you might expect, other parts of it you probably won’t, but it’s a pretty powerful indictment of shitty parenting where the parent is crazy enough to think that they’re teaching the child some good life lessons. This is essentially a day in the life of this young man, so there’s not a whole lot more to say about it than that. I still love the linework in this book, as a book without any solid blacks is oddly soothing, and I’m still fascinated to see what happens next. Both good signs for a book only on its second issue. $2


George – This is Still America #1

April 23, 2010

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This Is Still America #1 Now Available! $2

That’s right, it’s just George. Hooray for pseudonyms, I say! It shouldn’t take anybody more than a quick glance at the art here to see that it’s something unique to the comics world today. I guess you’d call it a cross between Ron Rege and Harold Gray (from Little Orphan Annie, and that’s mostly for the eyeballs). And, for those of you who are terrified of politics, don’t worry, despite the title there’s nothing remotely political here. It’s the story of a young man who gets word that his father has just died. We get to see one of the more visually rewarding dream sequences outside of Rare Bit Fiends, then he takes us on a flashback through his earlier childhood years when he was forced to go live with his father for a bit. This issue is a setup for that meeting, basically, as his father was somebody he was perfectly happy to see leave his life. Everything about this is just right. You know how some comics are ruined by silly or inane dialogue, sloppy art in places, a seemingly forced plot or just a sense of phoniness in general? Not a bit of that here. Excellent work for a first comic, if that’s what this is, and I’m already looking forward to #2… $2


Gennis, Emi – Spaz! #2

April 23, 2010

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Spaz #2

With a mini comic (or any comic I guess) there’s really only one question to be asked about the second issue: was it better than the first?  In this case the answer is an unqualified yes, as she spends more time writing, has more funny bits and just generally kicks the ass of this comic.  Not that I had a problem with the last one, but there’s not a weak piece in here.  Things start off with a tale of her job in general and the t-shirt she wears specifically, as it says “Obama Eats Here”.  She lays out the map, shows where he used to live, where his kids went to school and where he taught for 12 years and yeah, it’s pretty clear that he would have eaten there at some point.  Naturally, this t-shirt leads to all sorts of (mostly stupid) questions, and Emi does a great job of running them all down and explaining it all to the slow folks.  There’s one more page dealing with her job, but if I say anything about it I’ll ruin the joke, so forget it.  Other than that the comic basically breaks down into two parts: stories about her relationship with her boyfriend and her “conversations” with a zygote.  Her relationship with her boyfriend seems horribly strained, but in a “funny for comics” kind of way, and it mostly seems to end well.  You’ll probably have to read the comic for that to make sense, but trust me.  Her conversations with the zygote deal with her asking it about the wisdom of having kids with her boyfriend (as she worries about what genes he would pass on) and going on a cruise with it, as it hopes that said cruise will lead her to reproduce.  This zygote is a hilarious font of useless, contradictory and just plain wrong information, which is always fun when trying to get advice.  Also, I checked for that “atrocious error” she mentioned on her website and didn’t see anything.  I generally catch spelling mistakes, although grammar errors sometimes fly right by me.  Maybe something in her localized map of Chicago?  Either way, it sure wasn’t a big deal.  It’s another issue that’s well worth checking out, here’s hoping she keeps up this pace because there’s some serious potential here.  $2

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Hankiewicz, John – Guessbook

April 23, 2010

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Guessbook

Wow, it’s been far too long since John’s page has been updated. It looks like a homage to my older, crappier scanner over here. Guessbook is a sketchbook comic, and I think I’ve made my feelings known about sketchbooks in general, but a chance to get a peek into John’s brain isn’t something I’m ever going to complain about. Everything is so precise and structured in his comics that’s it’s almost a relief to see messy sketches and half-finished ideas, in an odd way. As always with sketchbooks, it helps a whole bunch if you’re already a fan of the artist’s work, so if you’re somehow not familiar with John, check out some of his other stuff first. If you already are a fan, images in here include people, places and things, some done in a surreal way, and bits of things that never went anywhere. Yep, that’s just about the most generic description I could give, but it’s not like there’s a linear story here for me to comment on. $4


Gennis, Emi – Spaz #1

April 23, 2010

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Spaz! #1

I’d like to start this review with something utterly irrelevant to the comic.  As I know a good chunk of you read this at work when you should be doing other things (and hey, if it wasn’t for my work blocking me from accessing this site at work I’d probably be writing it there), try saying Emi’s name out loud.  Go ahead, your coworkers already think you’re crazy, especially if you’ve ever brought a comic in.  That’s just a fun name.  Luckily she also makes a pretty great comic.  There are a variety of stories in here, mostly to do with her time working at a restaurant, some not so much.  There’s her getting hit on over by the phone (in an incredibly creepy fashion) by a guy ordering wings, waking up on a bad hair day and having very few options for what to do about it, losing patience with profoundly stupid questions at work and a gallery of the many creatures living at her apartment.  There’s also the heart of the comic, a story about a guy who comes into her restaurant on a regular basis, something he’s apparently been doing for decades.  It does a nice job of going into how hard it is NOT to speculate about the personal life of anybody who is a bit odd and how unlikely that speculation is to be anywhere near the truth.  Personally, I’m also going with the theory of a tiny alien controlling his human body, but I guess we’ll never know.  She also has regular updates to her website, a four panel strip twice a week that’s half comedy and half therapy, but she explains it far better than I could.  I also happened to check out her site right when she mentioned that she found “an atrocious error” in the second issue, which she was also nice enough to send along, so it’ll be fun trying to find that next time around.  As for this, it’s funny, the art is fantastic (especially if this is her first issue of anything), and there aren’t enough minis like this around out there these days.  Send her some money to reward good behavior!  $2

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