April 23, 2010
Website
Xoc #1
OK, you can see the cover. Are you one of the tiny amount of people in the world who aren’t intrigued, or do you immediately want to know more? It made me read it as soon as it got here, and seeing as how most things go into my “random review grab pile” as soon as they get here, that’s no small feat. This was also nominated for an Ignatz award, and if it didn’t win it either got robbed or somebody else made an even better mini comic, which is a hard thing to imagine. This is the story, more or less, of Xoc, a great white shark. Matt takes great care with his facts here, noting the sharks migrating when they notice a change in the magnetic pull of the Earth and the position of the sun. Granted, he could be making those up and I’d never know, but based on the level of detail in the rest of the book I feel secure saying he got it right. The story opens with a group of sea lions arguing (they’re the only group in the comic to talk, oddly) about how they’re going to get more food and whether or not they should move off their current patch of land. A brash young sea lion declares that they need to move now after seeing what he thinks are fish, and leaps into the ocean. He makes it to another small patch of land, but is only saved from being eaten by the other sea lions that follow his lead and attract the attention of Xoc. The blood from his first kill brings other sharks, and a feeding frenzy commences. While the survivors huddle together and plot their next move, Xoc and the other sharks feel the pull and move out of the area, coming across some deep sea creatures and other things that generally end up in the bottom of the ocean. This is a genuinely magnificent comic, something that is rarer than you probably think. Granted, I feel like a bit of a dork for even using the word “magnificent”, but it sums it up perfectly. The art is perfect, with all kinds of little details and some serious realism, and the writing is slowly starting to tell the story of Xoc. Heck, I was nervous watching the sea lions swim to the other bit of land, and that’s saying a lot from somebody as jaded as me. It’s well worth checking out, here’s hoping that Matt has an epic in him with this story. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Big Deal #6
Who out there has been dying to see a continuing story from Patrick? Granted, I was mostly OK with his random weekly strips, as they were consistently hilarious, but I have to admit that I was slightly curious as to how he would handle an “epic” story. Well, this is 7 years old and I think he could probably do a better job of it now, but there’s still plenty of funny in here. As you can see from the cover, this is all “Haul Ass to New York”, about an artist cowboy from Athens who heads to New York to make it big. Also included at various points on the trip are his horse, a giant robot, a giant monster (and shame on you if you can’t see those two getting together), Joseph Beuys, Zorro, Captain Zap, and a musical finale that THE MAN wouldn’t let you see. I’m a bigger fan of his weekly strips, frankly, but there’s something to be said for a story that goes almost completely off the rails and is out of control. It might seem a little aimless, but it sure is a fun ride. Also Patrick has little comments on certain strips, as he knows full well that this probably isn’t his best work, and those do plenty to liven things up. It’s $2, contact info is up there and then further up there…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Big Deal #3
Almost two years after I first saw his work, I was finally able to get ahold of more strips from Patrick. They didn’t make me laugh as the first batch though. Maybe he stopped taking drugs, or maybe he started taking them, I don’t know. If you think that is some sort of negative review, maybe you should scroll up and read my review of his other book. I still laughed out loud several times while I was reading this, but I didn’t crap my pants or anything like the last time. Was I supposed to mention that? Anyway, if you like laughing, well, you’re probably too happy to be reading small press comics, but buy this if you do. Monsters, bake sales, irony, the farmer’s daughter, J.D. Salinger, the liberal media, and tiny porn. That’s what some of the strips are about this time, although monsters are in a bunch of them. Also, if he was ranking the Jack Kirby monsters in order of coolness, then Fin Fang Foom has to come first. The other ones are just sound effects applied to monsters. To understand what I’m talking about, order the book!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Big Deal Comics and Stories
Ah, I can only hope that all the comics I got from FLUKE are this good. This looks like it was done for a local newspaper or something, as all the strips are the same basic format. If you’ve ever seen a weekly strip in a paper you know that they’re kind of hit or miss. Some weeks are funny, some are OK, and some just stink. Well, none of these are that bad and, granted, there are some that are kind of “eh”, but the funny ones are incredible. Strips that I didn’t put up here (because I didn’t want to put up the whole book) include a hillbilly yeti, Pants Man, an angry butterfly, a werewolf hand projector, Tom Selleck, and more monsters than you can shake a stick at, whatever that means. Looks, here’s one sample, and if you don’t laugh at this, don’t send this guy any money. Fair enough?
Still here? OK, I’ll make a deal with you. I normally don’t put up this many samples, but I had a hard time narrowing it down to three, let alone less than that. Obviously, I can’t see you here, but if you look at the rest of the samples you should really send the guy money so he doesn’t get pissed off at me or anything. I don’t have an address yet, but I’m working on it, OK? I did manage to find his e-mail address though, so you can ask him what you can buy. He had two books there with the same title, so you should ask him for the one that was all sideways. A little bit better than the other one, mostly because it didn’t have as many songs. Unless songs are your thing, in which case you should get the other one. Or get them both, as they’re only $2 each. On with the funny!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
This Comic Book Must Be Destroyed #0
OK, first things first, this comic is a part of Shiot Crock #11, done by many of the fine folks over at The Comics Journal message board. Not sure how much this costs as a package (haven’t been able to find it on the message board yet but will post it when I do), and I’ve decided to review it comic by comic instead of in one big clump, mostly because having a grab bag of comics that I can reach into each day without knowing what I’m going to get is one of my favorite things in the world. OK, now onto the actual comic. This is mostly a parody of Seth, Chester Brown and Joe Matt, and it’s mostly hiliarious too. Useless to you if you somehow don’t know who those people are, but incredibly funny if you do. Some of those facial expressions were just spot on, very well done. The Joe Matt character wants a rare comic and volunteers his friends to help him out, and they end up… ah, why ruin it, you already know if you’re interested or not, and if you are you’d probably like to see what happens for yourself. It’s funny and nails these people on some pretty easy things, what more do you need to know? Oh, and here’s that message board, in case you want to check out who else is in this thing and/or just want to talk about comics…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Foxes and Grapes #1
I’ve read and liked a few anthropmorphic comics in my day. Omaha the Cat Dancer and Hepcats come to mind immediately, but the field kind of narrows after that. This one is about a family of foxes who are living in a normal neighborhood. No one knows who they are or why they got there, but they’re the only family of foxes living in the U.S. Makes me wonder how there’s ever going to be another family of foxes, but I digress. The story in this one is just the youngest son wandering around imagining things, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. At least it’s a different idea, sort of. His art has improved over the years (I got a copy of an older book of his at SPACE too), but there are still a few side looks at things that are a bit off. He needs to work on his lettering too. If you’re going to spend that much time on the art (and some of the cross hatching tells me that he spent a long time on it), then why rush the lettering? Overall, not a bad book. I’m curious to see where it’s going, but I probably won’t order any more unless I see him at another con. Go to his website to see what’s up, e-mail him, or just go ahead and send him a couple of dollars at: 3800 Woodmere Way Bloomington, IN 4740 (I’m guessing that he forgot a number here, I’ll find out what it is when I can).
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Jennifer Daydreamer #11
Wow. There are going to be certain comics on this page that I’m just going to have to recommend that you read without giving too much away. Any issue of Jennifer Daydreamer is always packed with symbolism, things that you’re going to miss on the first way through, and deceptively simple artwork. I’m not sure what she’s using for the backgrounds in here, chalk or crayons maybe, but it creates a mood all its own. Let’s see what should I tell you… there’s a boy named Oliver in a rabbit costume (I think). There’s twins, Eva and Anna, and it’s known that whichever one marries first will live while the other one will sicken and die. I could go into some little things that happen in this issue and offer my two cents about what means what, talk about the eternal struggle of life, duality of man, all that crap. The bottom line is that every issue of this mini that I’ve seen is thought-provoking and leaves me with a slightly uneasy feeling about the universe and my place in it. If that isn’t unadulterated praise for a comic then I don’t know what is.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Oliver
Three cheers for Top Shelf! Jennifer deserves to be seen on a larger scale than her mini comics. For those of you who don’t know, Jennifer does one of the more surreal and dream-like comics out there. It usually takes me a couple of reads just to make sure that I’m getting all of what’s going on, but it’s an effort that’s richly rewarded. There’s a world that’s inhabited by all sorts of beings. Angels, children, clowns, flowers. Maybe they’re not beings, or maybe they are. What does it all mean? What the voices doing? Ah, I’m just trying to get you interested. If you’re interested in comics that you have to think about to figure out, here you are. Hey look, a website!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Guitar Solo
This is the first new comic I’ve seen from Mike in far too long, as he’s working on a graphic novel called Freddie and Me. This is apparently a bridge between the two halves of the book, so maybe the whole thing makes more sense in context. The first half of the comic was tremendous, among the best stuff Mike as ever done. It’s all about memory, self, how other people see the world, and a brief snapshot of growing up as an outsider (literally, as he came here from England around 5th grade). Really fascinating ideas on the concept of existence, how we hold onto the important memories and how this sets us apart from every other form of life. If his graphic novel is based around this, I’m sold. The second part of the mini, however, is a conversation between Freddie Mercury and Brian May about their last album and it’s a jarring transition. Again, it might all make perfect sense in the context of the graphic novel, but as a stand alone mini it seemed sudden. Freddie and Me is about Mike’s life in general and his lifelong obsession with Queen specifically, so I get the need to have Freddie Mercury in there somewhere, but what was the conversation based on? A recorded conversation? Gossip and hearsay? Eh, it’s a minor quibble, as the first half was phenomenally good, I just hope it all makes sense in the big picture. $2 or so, as the comics keep me guessing about pricing these days…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
All Dave Comics
This is a collection of Mike’s strips from a college newspaper, and I should mention something for the uninitiated: I don’t like strips. It colors my opinions on reviews, as you might imagine. Even with the strips that I like (This Modern World and K Chronicles, to name a couple) I get annoyed over the obligatory “punchline”. Mike says in the intro that he made this strip intentionally “PG” because everybody else at the college paper was doing shock strips and he just thought that was too easy, so he wanted to do a family strip. It’s funny at times but overall it didn’t do much for me. The bulk of the comic is strips about the main character going back to college at the age of 24 and the wackiness that ensues. Like I said, a few good strips and somebody who wasn’t as biased as me could like this a lot more, but give me Gabagool and Cabaret any day…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Gabagool #6 Now Available! $3
The conclusion to the Hedonism saga! It seems bigger than the other issues too, although it’s entirely possible that I’m making that up. Will any of the guys “get lucky”? Hm, I was going to put a whole list of questions there, but that sure seems like the main one. Oh, and how many dicks are there in this book, anyway? How about boobs? Vaginas? I should probably mention that a fair amount of time is spent at a nude beach. This is the best issue yet, which is saying a lot, and you could probably even figure out what was going on in the rest of the series if you just picked this one up, but why not check out the whole thing? Do you think I’ve been lying to you this whole time about which series are really great? I’m hurt and offended, and now this whole storyline is available through my website, so what’s your excuse? This is all topped off by another great rant from Cousin Lenny who, I’m told by the creators, is a very real person. It’s the perfect funny comic. Contact info is all over this page (which is getting huge, but that’s just because they keep putting out quality comics), check out Mike’s site for more samples!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Dirtbag #9
Wistful sadness, thy name is Dirtbag. In this one, Dave talks about cheerleaders, being stuck on a bus, leaving it all behind, being all alone in a supermarket late at night, first love, Halloween, being too ugly to go to school, Metal Heads, drinking, ping pong sex, movies about women in prison, being totally def, the older girl, and the arcade. You know, this might be my most blatantly informative review yet, so let me ramble for a minute. I try to save Dave’s books for the quiet moments. Not necessarily the real quiet moments, but whenever everything is too much and it all needs to just stop for a bit. He lets me remove myself from the world and peek into it with a whole new perspective, and I can’t imagine a better thing than that.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Gabagool #5 Now Available! $3
There’s one thing about this series that never occurred to me: is Cousin Lenny a real person? I mean, who’s ever seen him? Of course, if you wanted to use that criteria, how does anybody know that I’m a real person? Dude, this is blowing my mind, I’d better get back to the comic. You guys are all reading this series by now, right? Good. That’ll make this easy. This issue picks up with part 2 of the “Hedonism” story, and now everybody is in Jamaica, looking for drugs and women. It never ceases to amaze me how these two can put together an issue where not much of anything happens and still have it be incredibly entertaining. Yes, that really is the only synopsis you get from me for the main part of the book, as you should all be reading this anyway and I don’t want to bore you. The second part, drawn by Tony Consiglio, is all about a mysterious person who’s crapping in the classrooms at school. As for Cousin Lenny, if I said that he was getting soft in the last review, I take it back in this one. He remains one of the consistent highlights in a book that is full of great stuff all the time. Check it out, get the back issues, make these two rich and famous! But not too rich and famous, otherwise they’ll stop putting the goods out on such a regular basis.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Gabagool #4 Now Available! $3
Holy crap! It’s a regular comic! Where the heck did they get the money to publish this? Anyway, more power to them, and it’s a deserved jump, as this series just keeps getting better. I think it’s up to $3 this time, if you were wondering. Chris gets laid off but gets a huge severance check, then hears about a great beach where there’s a lot of action easily had, and hilarity ensues. Or at least it probably does next issue, because it’s “to be continued”. Then there’s a fantastic story about a bunch of the guys sitting around and playing Dungeons and Dragons with the characters saying the lines that the players are saying. Top it all off with another Cousin Lenny rant (although it sounds like he might be going soft. Where’s the rage?) and it’s another solid effort. They seem to be able to keep to a schedule, which is key in comics like this, and they’ve managed to keep it funny every time so far. Check it out, support their self-publishing endeavor.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Gabagool! #2
This stupid scanner, I swear… Anyway, the cover is of the main character and a bunch of animals standing around happily in the sunset. Trust me, it’s funny when you read it. The whole story here is basically a date involving Christopher and a couple of his friends who meet the girl he’s interested and a bunch of her friends in Manhattan. Simple, but a funny story. It’s great to see that they put this out so quickly after #1 too. I don’t know how many #1’s I’ve seen of mini comics in my life, but there have been far fewer #2’s and even less #3’s. Keep up the good work boys, I think you’re onto something. Check out the website too. It looks like Mike is updating on a regular basis, and that’s always a good thing.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Gabagool! #1 (made by Mike Dawson and Chris Radtke, reviewed by Jason Dupuis)
let me start by saying that this comic is not bad. it’s pretty entertaining in fact. i just want to get that out of the way before i start complaining about it. anyway, the story is pretty good: a few friends
are sick of their jobs and decide to start bounty hunting. they place a comically terse ad in the “pennysaver” and after waiting a few days, they get a job from a friend. it turns out that they’re not the
greatest men for the job.
i like the drawing style. i like the writing. and the whole package is very well done. the thing i don’t really like is the format. the size is just weird. it’s larger than most mini-comics and smaller than most “mainstream” comics. that’s not so bad, but it seems like they left a lot of empty space. the actual comic panels could easily fit into a more traditional mini-comics size. all of this is still not so bad. what really put me off was the filler they used to round out this big book. okay it may not have been intended as filler but i felt that’s what it was there for. they included some weird stuff; poetry, advertisements, some rant from a character named cousin lenny, anime reviews, etc. which would be fine if this were mainly a ‘zine but i think it’s a comic. i kept expecting a punchline in that poetry but it sure didn’t come. it’s for-real poetry. i’m not trying to poetry bash… i guess i just didn’t appreciate it in this setting, and i’m certainly not an advertisement fan, even if it is for “new york’s hottest online video magazine!” overall, this comic is worth getting (it’s “one friggin’ dollar”).unless it’s a ‘zine, in which case, it’s not great.
Send money to P.O. Box 1638 Radio City Station New York, NY 10101-1638, or visit his website.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Cabaret Comix #2
And here I was starting to think that Mike was working exclusively on Gabagool these days. Don’t get me wrong, I like Gabagool a lot, it’s just that his work on Cabaret is a lot more quiet and reflective. More stories about people and less mayhem and humor. This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending completely on your mood. This comic is made up of two main stories and a short one on the back cover. The first is a wordless story about a day in the life of Mike. It’s wordless and it’s the portrayal of a quiet, average day, except for the part when he shoves something up his cat’s butt. Hey, I’m going with it being some kind of legitimate medical procedure, or he’s just created a new level for self-disclosure in autobio. The second is the story of a conversation between Mike and some friends that follows his friend Steve as he attends a protest to hang out with a girl he’s interested in. As far as I’m concerned this guy can do it all. He nails funny stuff in Gabagool and he quietly examines loneliness and the motives of humanity in general in Cabaret. Well worth a buck, contact info is above…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Cabaret Comics #1
I’ve had really good luck with the random comics that people have sent me in the mail so far. I don’t think I ever even exchanged e-mails with this guy and boom, there’s a comic waiting for me in my mailbox yesterday when I get home. And a damned good comic at that. I guess you’d call it a tale of relationships. The book is broken down into two parts. Part one is about a man and his “relationship” with a high school girl and the second part is about this man’s roommate and his sexually adventurous girlfriend. This worked a lot better than I thought it would, frankly. Flipping through the book before I read it, nothing really hit me over the head. I thought it might be an OK book but that would be it. This guy managed to hit me over the head with the goodness in this book and it’s a good thing he did.
You could say that the first part is a little weak, I guess, if you really wanted to nitpick. We get to see nothing of the relationship or how it happened, just what happens when his friend starts making fun of the girl for being in high school. Still, the confrontation and what happens afterwards is great. I really like his way of running the word balloons together and cutting off a lot of what’s said, it adds to the general chaos of some of the conversations. The second part of the book is disturbing as hell. It shows why the second couple showed up at the restaurant at all and why they were in such a big hurry to leave and a lot of it’s wordless. I’m becoming more and more of a fan of that type of comic. It leaves so much more up to the imagination and the skill of the artist, and guys like Mike can certainly pull that off. This one is $3 and it’s a welcome addition to anyone’s collection. Good stuff, and I hope he does more soon.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Negative Too
Really, I don’t have any Phonzie Davis comics on this website? Amazing. I’ve been seeing his work for years, but apparently only in anthologies. Anyway, there’s a warning right on the front of this one: “This is a Phreak-Hop Anti-Comik!” Meaning, I guess, that I don’t have to review it as a regular comic, as it just barely resembles one. It’s mostly wordless with two stories that are both visually gorgeous in a messy, frantic sort of way. With no panels and very little structure, it’s obvious that Phonzie is trying his own thing here, and kudos to him for it. As for what the stories mean, here’s where I get to sound stupid, as I’m still trying to figure that part out. The first story is about the world of rap stars after hours, dealing with the women going in and out of that world, and apparently one of them at least is capable of eating you alive. The second story, um… punt? My guess is that it’s about a young man, falsely accused, who’s about to get executed and all the various public reactions to that fact. Or I’m totally wrong on both of these stories, but hey, at least I’m trying. Regardless, it’s worth a look just to stare at that incredible art and try to figure out what the hell is going on. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Left Handed Sophie #1
Well that was quite a gap between comics for this man on this website. It looks like he’s kept it up, as the art shows some serious improvement (and it wasn’t bad to begin with), it just looks like I missed the stuff in between. This is the first issue in a series (regular comic book size) dealing with, well, Sophie. That’s the part of the issue that works well, and luckily it’s most of the issue. The trouble is that Phonzie is building a saga, so random characters show up with little to no introduction and just start talking about their issues. Really, in some cases I got more information out of checking out the cover again to see who some people were than I did from their couple of pages in the comic. Actually, the cover gives a good chunk of her story away, as under the title it says “the shocking saga of a young albino woman, corrupted by drug trafficking and the occult”. The trouble is that this issue doesn’t get into any of that stuff, so I guess now we know exactly where this is headed. This issue starts off with Sophie (at age 13) getting pushed around at school and standing up for herself. This goes directly into a scene with Spree (a mystery man from the cover) getting a blowjob, followed by the reverend and his crew, with very little idea of how it all fits into the big picture. This flows into a black-eyed Sophie getting adopted by a family of white hippies, and things seem to be looking up as she also gets a new sister out of the bargain. Now we learn more about Pipp, who may or may not be the biological sister of Sophie, as this flows right into Sophie learning more about her new sister.  This goes into a local picnic, and we learn that Sophie’s new parents were just looking for someone “ethnic” to adopt and settled for Sophie instead of getting a kid from overseas.  Now it turns out that Pipp is actually a young boy, as he gets chewed out for saying that he only likes white women. From here we get to meet even more new people, Sophie’s new dad starts to introduce her to voodoo and we see why Sophie’s biological mom gave her up. Visually, this comic is striking, as Phonzie uses every bit of the page and has some of the most visually inventive use of word balloons and panel structure (when he uses anything approaching a traditional panel structure) that I’ve ever seen. As this is the first issue in a projected saga, I’m guessing that this cast of characters will become a lot clearer as time goes on. Right now I have very little idea of what’s going on outside of Sophie’s life, but I’m guessing future issues will have some sort of character synopses to keep all this people in some sort of order. It’s a hefty thing for only $3, and it looks like it’s off to a promising (if occasionally baffling) start.
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Posted by Kevin
