April 23, 2010
Website
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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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Weird Sister
Anthology time! Well, sort of. Is it still considered an anthology if different artists do each story but they all have the same writer and focus on two central characters? Actually, probably not. This is the story of a witch (more or less) and her eventual familiar, the ghost of a dead dog. Sort of Tales From The Cryptish (again that comparison, sorry), but with a witch calling on the gods for help and Elizabeth using Tarot cards to help her plot a few things out. The first story (art by Adam Boorman) is about said dog, who the witch discovers while he’s about to be killed by a gang of thugs for not being a good enough guard dog. The second (drawn by Dash Shaw) deals with the witch catching a man about to drown a young girl who can see his thoughts and has told him how he’s going to die. Finally, the third story (drawn by Jeff Zornow) has the witch running across a young girl who’s in a graveyard, mourning the loss of her junkie/drunk boyfriend, or at least mourning that loss until he rises from his grave. There are also a few sketches in back by Leland Purvis and Brian Wood, so maybe it is an anthology after all. It’s a pretty entertaining pile o’ stories, and I even learned a bit of the basics about witches and Tarot, although not much more than I already learned from watching Buffy. Still, it was interesting to see how lonely life was for the witch and how she still felt compelled to help people and animals. Worth checking out if you’re into this sort of thing, or I guess avoiding if you hate everything related to witchcraft, you model Christian citizen you… $4.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Red (drawn by Kevin Colden, cover by Miss Lasko-Gross)
How many of you know the original, genuinely horrific original story of Little Red Riding Hood back even before the Brothers Grimm told the story? This is based in the loosest possible sense on that. I’ve been watching far too much Tales From The Crypt lately, as the twist ending was something I could see coming a mile away (even without knowing about the fable connection until the end), but it’s still a creepy and tense story. A serial killer starts his day lamenting about “the one who got away”, and ends up running into the girl in the street, so he runs her down and starts up a conversation. Right away you get to wondering who is hunting whom, and it’s a bit of a race against time from there. Pretty great stuff all around, and the splashes of red on the inside were a nice touch. Oh, and Miss Lasko-Gross apparently has a memoir coming out from Fantagraphics later this year, so for everybody who’s been wondering where she’s been since Aim, there’s your answer. Oh, and Kevin has done some excellent work here and with some previous pieces in the Mauled! series, which is why he looked so damned familiar. I’m guessing this is around $3…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Angst Comics
First off, no, I’m pretty sure that you can’t buy this at all. This is kind of a bonus for everybody who likes her work but only found it in the last couple of years. Hey, maybe I could make this a regular thing, posting samples of out-of-print minis that I have laying around. Sound like a good idea? Creators, how about you? Generally speaking, do you care if somebody posts a bunch of pictures from things that will probably never see the light of day again, or would you prefer that they either stay buried or are only republished when you put something together yourself? Regardless, here are a few pages from this one. There’s also a great story with Elvis in purgatory and a story about cafe hopping, but I didn’t want to put everything up. Enjoy…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Bomb Pop Comics and Stories
Yet another person who should have been up here since day one. I had this comic all along and I knew her name sounded familiar, but it was in with my magazines like old copies of The Comics Journal, so I didn’t really check that pile. Did you all get the impression that I’m slightly disorganized yet? Good, that’ll make things a lot easier on you. Anyway, she was recommended by several people, and for good reason. She has a fantastically cute drawing style (those eyes couldn’t get much bigger on some of the pages) but that never causes you to lose touch with the core of her comics. In this one she interprets part of Rumble Fish (the novel, not the movie), tells the story of a lonely girl playing Space Invaders on a Friday night, and one about another girl on the racing circuit reading a letter from her father. I remember way back when you were all just whippersnappers (or something like that) when she put minis out all the time, but I think there’s just this and a coloring book that she has done in the last couple of years, unless somebody can correct me. It’s obvious from her website (which is fantastic, by the way) that she’s working a lot on other projects, and more power to her. I hope she makes a pile of money doing it. Still, more comics would be nice…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Punk Anonymous #9
He had to change the name because of some crappy funk band, but it’s still the same comic. The comic about him dying, going to heaven and meeting Cyndi Lauper is fantastic, but overall this one’s a bit thin on actual comics. Still a lot of content though and still worth getting, as are all the ones I’ve seen. Sorry if all the samples I’m using are depressing. Most of his comics at least seem slightly upbeat, but I’m using mostly the one or two page strips, which all seem to be depressing. Or maybe it’s all just the mood I’m in and I’m projecting, I don’t know. Anyway, buy them all and make Jerome a rich man.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Funkapotamus #7
Dreams, teenage memories and feeling like shit. All great tools when the artist knows what he/she is doing, and Jerome certainly does. Anybody out there know why he hardly does comics any more? Am I just missing them? Doesn’t look like it, according to his page, but at least he’s working on a lot of stuff. You can’t go wrong with these minis, what can I say? Whenever I scrounge up a few bucks (after FLUKE, that’s for sure) I’m going to try and get some of the issues I missed years ago.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Funkapotamus #6
Jerome would have been on here from day one if I had known that he was still around. I hadn’t seen anything from him since #9 of this series, and that was at least six years ago, so I just kind of assumed that he had stopped doing comics. Shows what I know, and that a little research can go a long way. This one isn’t available but I’m putting it up here anyway because it was in my pile of Funkapotamus minis. OK? Anyway, he’s one of the originals that I started reading way back when I was getting into small press stuff, so it’s tough for me to be objective about this. Random poetry and stories about killing time as a teenager are all over the place in these books, and he does both pretty well. You can’t buy this one but there are plenty of other ones available on his website. Here’s a couple of samples so you don’t feel like my putting this one up was a total waste of time…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Flying Saucer Attack
Here’s a partial list of who’s in this: Jessica Abel, Joe Chiapetta, Jennifer Daydreamer, Fawn Gehweiler, Tom Hart, Megan Kelso, James Kochalka, Dave Lasky, Ted May, John Porcellino, Brian Ralph, Zak Sally, Jeff Zenick, Jenny Zervakis and Aleksander Zograf. There’s more, and I can’t believe that there’s no review for this anywhere on my site, as it’s really one of the best anthologies of all time, not that I’m biased or anything. It’s also from 1995, so it’s one of the early small press books that I read, so there’s probably a bit of nostalgia going on over here. Still, take a look of that list of talent and tell me that it wouldn’t be great.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Bogus Dead Now Available! $10
I knew as soon as I saw this book that it was going to be great. Here I am, in the middle of my personal “anthology week”, and I’ve already read the best of the bunch. Prove me wrong, people! Anyway, this is a collection of the best small press people (although why John Porcellino isn’t in here is beyond me) doing zombie stories. As that combines two of my favorite things in the world, they’d have to do a lot wrong for me to hate this and, well, they didn’t. Thoroughly entertaining from start to finish, everything in here was tremendously innovative. I mean, there are only so many things you can do with zombies. That’s what I thought before I read this, and I’m more than happy to stand corrected. I’m not going to list everybody in here, as there are 43 folks and you can just go here and order the thing for $10 and read everything you need to know about it. Highlights? OK, but you have to understand first that everything was a highlight, these are just some moments that stood out: Tom Hart with the married zombies, Graham Annable with the almost somber “Revenge”, and Ariel Bordeaux’s ghost being embarrassed by her zombie body. Simply put, it’s the best anthology I’ve read in quite a while.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Faux-Pas #2
It what can only be called a major coincidence, it looks like Sam started up a website today, 2/14/07. Or at least today was the day he updated the thing, who knows? Either way, whether or not you’ll like this book boils down to a simple question: do sloppy comics bug you? You know, the ones that look like they were rushed through for large portions, regardless of the quality of the actual stories? If you don’t mind a bit of a rush when the stories are still entertaining, then you’re in for a treat. If slop makes you put the comic down, this isn’t for you. There are lots of little (mostly funny) one page gags here, and also a few longer stories. The longer stories deal with a taxi getting messed up on bio-diesel, a man realizing that the worst thing he did in his life was look at his friend’s sister as she was bending over and never apologizing for it, and hammering home the point that everything can kill you. Plenty of other comics are more aesthetically pleasing than this one, sure, but there’s a pile of good stories in here regardless. And it’s cheap! $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Fatal Faux-Pas
Apparently I was a bit wishy washy with the review for Sam’s mini, the contents of which are mostly included in this collection. So why, if that’s the case. do I have such unreserved love for this collection? Eh, I’m a mass of contradictions, what can I say. It’s also going to be tough figuring out what it is I love about this so much, as it’s a mass of unconnected stories, gags and strips, some tiny, some not so much. The uniting force behind this, the thing that made me laugh so many times, was the sheer absurbism on display. Spiderman wondering if Dr. Octopus is squeezing or hugging him, for example, is an image that either makes you smile or it doesn’t. Ditto with a series of four page gag strips involving The Fonz, the series of Faux-Pasta strips involving things that aren’t pasta, theories on what’s inside of Oscar’s trash can, and the drama of being a cat (with an indispensable set of drawings of a cat freaking out). When the worst you can say about a book is that not every page was hilarious, well, chances are it’s a pretty great book. This book is right around a hundred pages and full of things that you’ll enjoy discovering for yourself, so I’m not going to ruin anything by revealing the use of tacos as digging implements. Apparently it’s not widely available quite yet (as of 6/9/08 anyway), but it will be by October. In the meantime you can probably find it at cons, or just get a few minis from the guy. $10
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Monster Tales #1
What an awesomely pointless story. This is the story of a creature who pushes a boulder up a hill, pauses for a second too long in satisfaction, and sees all his hard work ruined. Seriously, that’s it, just a dozen panels or so of effort, followed by an excellent expression of surprise, then a moment of pure rage. Um, spoiler alert. Ah, what difference does it make? It looks good and it’s fun. I do have to admit to being incredibly curious what future issues of Monster Tales contained, assuming there were any future issues. This is worth picking up if you find it (or if you wanted to get it through Poopsheet’s insane sale too), but I wouldn’t spend too much time seeking it out. $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Pillow Talk #1
Depending on your perspective, this comic is nothing like what you’re picturing. If you’re just going with the cover image, you probably have it more or less right. This is the story of a pillow who notices a bird in a tree and decides that they should be friends. He climbs the tree (pillows climb trees in a shimmying motion, if you were curious) but the bird flies away. The pillow is sad, but doesn’t have much time to dwell on it as he gets caught up in a broken tree branch and attacked by a murder of crows, and boy you never get a chance to use that term in casual conversation, do you? The bird reconsiders when he hears the pillow calling for help (as the crows have carried him off and are picking him apart), and a monkey notices all the soft stuffing falling from the sky and tries to eat it.  There’s also a mysterious vine-like figure who talks to the severely damaged pillow where he lands and some reluctant assistance from the monkey, but I’ve given away too much already. The book is a pile of fun and that’s what’s important. The only problem is that the story comes to a screeching halt because it’s the first of a projected five issues, but I can’t find anything on his website (which is amazing, by the way) that indicates if there was ever a second issue, and this did come out way back in the dark ages of 2004.  I want to see what happens to the pillow, dammit! If this is the whole story it’s a fun but maddeningly incomplete story. If there are more issues then I recommend it unreservedly. And I don’t usually plug upcoming projects for creators, but Jamie is working on a Batman versus Godzilla comic that has the potential to be one of the best things in the world. He only has a half dozen pages or so up at his website now, but it’s something I’ll be keeping an eye on. No price, but let’s call it $2.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Nina the Librarian Now Available! $4
Here’s another great comic from Sharon. This one is all one big story instead of the collections of short stories that she was doing, and she’s considering turning it into a regular series. To which I say: do it! Seriously, one issue in and I’m already invested in the characters. As you can probably tell from the title, it’s all about Nina, who’s a librarian, and her dealing with work, a stalker (or just a slightly creepy admirer, it’s tough to tell so far), and an old singing bag lady. She’s a quiet, mousy girl who spends a lot of time writing in her journal and fantasizing about her life, what could happen with it and what it happening with it. I was smiling ear to ear throughout this book, and if that’s not a recommendation I don’t know what is. It’s $4, which is a bit steep, but it’s a pretty big book and it’s worth it. Contact info is up there, maybe if enough people buy this she’ll make a regular series out of this…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
I Had To Get A Stupid Root Canal
That Matt Fagan, he does give good title. It’s been years since I saw Domestic Partner of Frankenstein and was naturally thrilled to have something else to put up on this page, even if it’s just a $.50 shortie like this one. This, very briefly, describes Matt’s root canal. His reluctance to go to the dentist seemed to have carried over into his reluctance to document the experience, as it’s mostly about the time before and after the root canal, but who can blame him? Anyway, here’s hoping there’s more from the man in my Chicago comics pile, as this was just a taste. Favorite non-sampled moment: the little Dutch boy trying to stop the bleeding in his tooth. Adorable. $.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Archipelago #2 Now Available! $1.50
This one seems smaller than the first issue for some reason. Maybe because there’s no real extended story in this one? Anyway, another great issue. There’s one of the best dream houses ever, documenting her obsession with junk, her mother telling her that she was really an alien, a list of nightmares, and a 9/11 story. It’s hard to criticize something that deeply affected the entire population of this story, and her reaction it obviously deeply heartfelt. Then there’s a seemingly pointless one page strip about… um, going on vacation, I guess. Hey, when the rest of it is great, who cares if I don’t get one page? Buy these minis while you can, I can see her just doing really great graphic novels in a few years…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Archipelago #1 Now Available! $3
Here’s a great addition to the world of “it might be autobiographical, or it might not, or maybe only parts of it are, otherwise it’s just good stories” comics. Kind of a long name for a genre, I realize that, which is why nobody ever uses it, but it sums it up pretty well in my mind. All kinds of good stuff in here. Broken hearts on the subway, an epic about candy and trying to connect, getting fired, the harassment that women deal with all the time, trying to return some keys from the subway, breaking your mother’s back and women with actual women parts. Solid storytelling and incredibly expressive art of various styles, showing more than a bit of range for a first issue. There’s a website or an e-mail address, it’s $2.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Johnny Public #9: Entering Bridgewater
You may remember that the main complaint I had from the previous issues was that there were too few pages and not enough of a chance to get what was going on issue by issue. Well, this is an extra dollar, sure, but well worth it because it’s a whole 20 pages and plenty more time to let you know what’s going on. Which means, of course, that a lot of it is still a complete mystery, but there’s enough going on here to keep me clamoring for more instead of just wishing I had a few more pages to go on. It looks like (and I’m certainly no expert here) this is the start of another story arc in the Johnny Public universe, which I explained in those other reviews, so I won’t go into it at length here. It starts with a traveling salesman seeing an unconscious girl on the road, so he stops to help. It turns out that a lot more is going on here than he thought, as zombies (apparently) are coming back to life, and he gets enlisted in the fight to get them under control. Which sounds like the most simplistic thing in the world, but the story takes some serious twists after that that I’m not going to spoil for you here. Suffice it to say that I can’t wait to see what happens next and I still can’t believe I don’t have the first story arc. Maybe next year at SPACE I’ll have a few extra bucks…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Johnny Public #1
If you’re curious about this comic, go ahead and read my review of their preview. Go ahead, I’ll wait. What you have here, on its face, is the story of a man trying to find the right word to finish a sentence in a novel he’s writing. He’s at a bar and gets advice from what appears to be a stranger, then that’s it for the comic, as it’s only six pages. That, by itself, would be a pretty stupid comic. Luckily for us there’s a panel by panel (mostly) synopsis of what was really going on there, and how the bar is inside the head of the main character. It’s a fascinating central concept and you really can pick this apart panel by panel, at least you can once you know what’s going on. And that’s a fundamental problem I have with this (and other currently poor people are probably going to have): $1.50 per every six pages of actual story is ridiculous. The cover looks great, don’t get me wrong, and I saw them all lined up at SPACE and they look great together. The way to go with this series, a lot more than most I think, is to get them all in a graphic novel and go from there. There’s just no way to get a good idea of the story in these tiny volumes. I’m intrigued by what I’ve seen and there just might be a really great story here, so don’t think that I’m blasting this comic for that reason. Anyway, there’s contact info up there, this is $1.50, and I think you could do a lot worse than get a collection of these stories, but one by one I just don’t think they’re worth it…
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Posted by Kevin
