April 23, 2010
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One of Us #2
Alex said in the intro to this that nobody bought his first issue. Nobody? Of course, I got both issues at the same time, so maybe that’s changed, but it really was a decent zine. This one is definitely better than #1, as there’s no filler to speak of, just good stuff. The main story in this is about a Ramones reunion show and the dead members of the band coming back as zombies. Throw in the entire museum getting turned into zombies when the sprinkler system hits everything in there and it’s hard to go wrong with that level of mayhem. Next is a disturbed dream comic about melting trees which has a wonderful level of surreality (spellcheck tells me that I made that word up, but I’m sticking to it) about it. I sampled the only other comic in the book, so you can decide for yourself on that one. Finally, he has a text piece about the sheer devastation that a moustache can cause. I think the guy can tell a good story and somebody out there should send him a buck or two so he doesn’t feel so alone. That and anybody who thanks their girlfriend for her boobs in the intro gets total support from me. Contact info is up there, ye swabbies!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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One of Us #1
Here’s a pretty solid zine. The interview with James Kochalka is incredibly crappy. I’m amazed sometimes that the man is willing to let anybody who asks interview him, knowing that he’s probably going to get the same crappy questions over and over again. And yes, I’m aware that I’m saying that when I have two (2) interviews with him up at my site. Anyway, the book is good besides that. There’s a hilarious guide on how to be a bad artist, which rings true for plenty of people out there doing comics. I even recognized a few of this tricks from when I did a few comics and was a crappy artist. Other than that there’s a story about Mickey Mouse actually being Hitler and one about Alex’s first apartment in New York City. It was a bit too self-referential at times, but I don’t know how he could have avoided that with his choice of subject matter. Still, a pretty solid first effort, and you have to be impressed with a story called “3 Pages Going Nowhere”, about three pages that go nowhere. OK fine, maybe I’m just easily impressed. If I had to guess I’d say it’s a buck, send him an e-mail and find out! Oh, and kudos for the Freaks reference…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Never Ending Summer
I know I commented on Allison’s characters in the last review, but I should really show everybody something before I start rambling:
Those are all the characters in this story. They all wear the same outfit, they’re only differentiated by tiny things, and they all wear body suits that hide any trace of sexuality. Still, by the end of this, I had no trouble at all telling almost everybody in here apart. In my mind, and this might be saying too much for Allison’s first graphic novel, but that’s the mark of a master storyteller. This book is about a summer for Allison and her friends, and all the problems with boyfriends/girlfriends, jobs and the rest of the world. If it sounds like the kind of thing that you’ve already seen a hundred times, I’m just telling it wrong. It’s a complicated story that’s told in a simple way. How she has characters with no faces have incredibly expressive facial expressions is beyond me, but she pulls it off. Check it out, it’s good stuff. $11.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
O, Canada!
Here’s a quick, cute little book from Allison Cole. The people in it look vaguely like Teletubbies, although I’m sure that’s unintentional. There’s a story about trying to get her comic sold at a comic store, one about Allison and her friend trying to cross the street and getting yelled at, and one about all the little things in Canada that weren’t bad. This was a travel journal, in other words. She has a spare, expansive style in a lot of panels that I like. This name sounded familiar to me when I saw it, but apparently I don’t have any more of her work. Is there more stuff in anthologies or something? I tell you, doing this every day (or when I can, which has been the case lately) really makes artists run together in my brain. Anyway, this is probably $2 and it’s an incredibly quick read, but still worth a look. Send her an e-mail or send cash to: 2 College St. #502 Providence, RI 02903.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Dumpster
That’s what’s been missing from this page: an endearing love story between two hobos. Sadly, this isn’t it. The cover may fool you, granted, but this one starts out with Joy leaving her life with Cliff, as she’s sick of huffing gas, getting drunk and eating garbage, so she wants to move on to bigger and better things. Cliff is heartbroken and briefly attempts minimally cleaning up his act, but gets frustrated and ends up back in the city, making out with another random hobo. At least there’s a happy ending, as Cliff finds the things in life that he truly values. It’s 64 pages and a measly buck, so there’s good fun to be had by all hobo loving people of the world.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
The Cumplete Warlock Volume One
I’ve often seen the work of various artists and wondered what their earlier work was like, what kind of creative background they came from. There are, of course, times when that information is better left to the imagination. Max made these comics in junior high and high school, so this is lacking the lavish detail that’s in his other minis. And, as he was only a wee lad, most of the writing skills aren’t evident either. These are one page joke strips, where the joke always ends with somebody (usually a family member) getting beaten/stabbed/raped to a bloody pulp. If I was in junior high or high school, these would be hilarious. As I sit here now as one of them there adults, meh. It was funny and shocking for a little while, then the shocking wore off, followed by the funny. I would recommend just about everything else from Max on this page, if you have a strong stomach and an open mind. There are more volumes to come, so it still has a chance to pick up, but as this is all stuff that was done years ago, I kind of doubt it. Can’t beat the price anyway: $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Vittle Chin
Aren’t I the guy who’s always asking for people to focus on longer stories and avoid the short pieces? Well, that usually lasts just as long as it takes for me to find a good comic with short pieces, and that’s how I’d describe this one. Apparently at least a few of these stories have been in various anthologies, so it’s all new to me. In here you have stories about white trash, a crack whore, a magic banjo, sex with a sleeping husband in bed, a naked dumpster detective, a bashed snake, hobo slop, a demanding microwave, drunken fighting, bogarting that joint, feetloaf, and roadkill. There’s so much more to it than that, with a lot of his stories, as very few people use more sheer imagination in their strips. In the writing, sure, but mostly I’m talking about the amount of content in each of his panels. Even the strips that didn’t do much for me were strips that I could appreciate because he was trying something vastly different from the strip that came before it. He used the rat with the magic banjo more than once when that was probably a one-strip gag, but other than that I don’t have much to complain about here. Good stuff all around, plenty of stuff to discover even if you have seen a few of these in anthologies, contact info is up there, $2!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Shore Leave Showcase #1
You know what’s a great idea for a comic? An ongoing three panel strip showcasing the lives of a couple of violent, racist skinheads. OK, maybe I wouldn’t have thought it was the best idea either, but after reading this I’m convinced. This is all about a couple of skinheads as they deal with a hippy dad, try to satisfy Odin, and, of course, drinking and fighting. It’s a lot funnier than it might sound, and I had a real hard time coming up with only one sample, but it’s too small for me to give too much away. It’s “to be continued”, so there’s more, which is a good thing, and I can’t imagine this is much more than a buck or two. Oh, there’s also an unrelated second half to this, which is completely indescribable. Don’t you hate it when people say that and then go on and on trying to describe it? Me too. Website!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Snake Meat #2
Picture the most vile and disgusting thing you can in your brain right now. Seriously, go ahead and do it. Chances are really good that whatever you have in there, Max has something worse than that in these sketchbook pages. And I’m not talking about a horrible act, just a horrible thing. He manages to find the inherent ugliness behind almost everything in these sketches of his. It seems like there are a few more regular strips in here than the last issue of Snake Meat to go along with all of this sketchbook pages, so I sampled one page of each to give you a better idea of what you’re getting here. I do love to look at these sketchbook pages, even if it does hurt my soul at times to do it, but I’m yearning for the day when he puts out another regular, story-based comic, as all it takes is one look at the samples on this page to see that the man has a serious gift for the funny. Contact info is scattered around here, this one is $2…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Snake Meat #1
So how exactly are you supposed to review a sketchbook again? Never have figured that out… Well, I like Max’s art a lot, if that tells you anything. And, as this is a book of him drawing, I’d have to call that a recommendation. There are a few bits of actual story here, but mostly it’s just a series of unconnected pictures. The pictures are mostly solid though, not much in the way of half-finished sketches, so the book looks great. If you only read comics with a coherent story in them, the last two pages are fantastic. The rest of it’s all over the place or, as Max puts it in the disclaimer, “Yet another half-assed zine consisting of nothing more than sketches I’ve scribbled on typing paper over the past four months”. That’s a whole lot harsher than I would have put it, but I guess it’s technically accurate. $1, contact info is up there, check it out!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Abandon Ship
I very much want to point out the brilliant ending to this comic, but doing so would ruin it, so I’m not sure what to go on about here. The story? OK, sure. It’s the tale of a young man who finally has enough at his crappy fast food job and quits, which causes his girlfriend to throw him out of his house. This leads to his decision to become a bum and enjoy a carefree, living-out-of-dumpsters lifestyle, which of course ends up being more complicated than he might have thought. The art’s good too, there are wonderfully detailed panels all over the place. I don’t think crosshatching has ever made a book look bad, and that’s true here. Don’t know how long he’s been doing comics but this has a really professional feel to it, so kudos if he’s just started or something (or even if he’s been going awhile, obviously, but especially if he’s just starting and is already this talented). E-mail the man to make sure but I’m guessing that this is a couple of bucks. Anything else would reveal too much, but I will say this in a last-ditch attempt to get you to check it out: he draws a mean retard.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Stewbrew #3 (half Max, half Kelly Froh)
Ah, television. Good luck finding an American from the ages of five to forty five who can’t relate to memories of television. Max and Kelly team up here to do one page stories (Kelly on the left side and Max on the right) detailing their previous, constant television watching, how patterns change over the years and what television taught them, often due to the fact that in a lot of crucial areas they didn’t learn a whole lot from their parents. There are embarrassing stories a’plenty here, with Max talking about his first time masturbating (without really knowing what he was doing but I’ll leave out the gory details until you see the comic), being forced to play sports instead of watching tv, wanting to learn the theme song from MASH, being too attached to children’s programming, finally getting his own personal space to watch tv, going into tv withdrawal at camp, a hilarious (in hindsight) couple of injuries resulting in a Vietnam flashback dream, finally relating to his Dad because of Beavis and Butthead, watching porn with his Mom taking a bath in the next room, and a detailed listing of his high school tv watching routine. Kelly has her fair share of embarrassing stories as well, involving her first “boyfriend”, running away from home when the tv is taken away, a living warning against doing drugs, being really creeped out by the “sent to hell” episode of Fantasy Island, four tv people who made her feel funny “down there”, Showtime porn, and her late night viewing habits. Another solid effort from these two, and unless you grew up Amish, I’m sure you can relate to damn near everything in here. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Stewbrew #2: Coot’s Day
Just to make sure this is perfectly clear: this mini, along with “Meet Erin” by Kelly Froh, come bundled together as Stewbrew #2 for a measly $3. So now that the technicalities have been established, how’s the comic? Well, it’s based on a day in the life of a man named Cooter, so how on earth could it be bad? And yes, there is a real man named Cooter, unless Max is lying shamelessly in his intro. We get to see Cooter wake up, watch high school girls, get high, get drunk, watch Star Wars, smoke, and everything in between that makes up his day. It’s a very quick read, as it’s mostly wordless except for the caption at the top of each panel, but it’s funny and gorgeous, which are two things that are pretty much necessary for a good comic. The second half of this should be up tomorrow (4/3/07), so you can decide if it’s worth your $3, but this is certainly a good start.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Hugh Among Us!
How much is an interesting concept worth these days? The idea behind this series might end up being a great thing, or it might end up being a mildly interesting thing. So far I’m curious to see more. The idea here is that various creatures from our imagination and fables have started to become real in our world. There’s a group of these creatures whose sole purpose seems to be finding other “figments” and rounding them up and keeping their existence a secret. This is only an ashcan of a larger graphic novel, but it does a great job of building interest. Quite a colorful bunch of characters, most of which seem to have long term potential in terms of story possibilities. The names of the characters are kind of, um, stupid, but the tone of the series so far is light-hearted and jovial, so I guess it’s good that he’s not taking himself too seriously. Here are some names if you don’t believe me: Stitched Witch, See-All Cyclops, Totally Werewolf, and Inspector Spector. There’s also an incredibly handy interview with the creator in the back of the book that tells us that he plans on doing one 60-90 page graphic novel a year instead of publishing in comic format (mostly because of the cost and the difficulties in marketing a second issue of a series. Anyway, check out his website for more info. The issue is $3, which is a bit much for an ashcan but it looks great.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Mute
I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in this book. Seriously. I’ll give you my theory, because that’s why they pay me the big bucks, but I might be horribly wrong and this could end up looking more like my psychology profile than anything else. It’s set on a distant planet. One alien tries to get the upper hand on another one, but accidentally gets the local law enforcement involved. Hijinx ensue. OK, I don’t know about the hijinx, but the rest of it is my best guess. Granted, it’s only the start of a projected 130 page graphic novel, so I’d imagine it gets a lot more clear as it goes. For now, the art is cute, the story is at least intriguing and I’m curious to see what happens next. This is also a split book with another Mute story by Mark Burrier, so even if you don’t like this one maybe you’ll like the other one. Go to his website for ordering info and stuff.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Cuckoo
What a powerful, disturbing book. The only thing I could wish to be different would be the order in which her stories were told. It might have been a bit more coherent if everything was told in chronological order. Then again, coherency was not the reason for this book, and it’s certainly not how she’s lived her life, so why should the reader get a linear, clear picture? Madison Clell lives with multiple personalities, and these multiple personalities were created after several horribly traumatic things happened to her as a child. She doesn’t shy away from much of anything in here and, like she points out, if you’ve been molested as a child and haven’t been able to deal with it, you should probably avoid this book. It’s sure to trigger some terrible memories, and I just realized that I said “haven’t been able to deal with it”, like I have any idea what somebody would deal with who was molested as a child. Anyway, all the gory details are here. Her discovery of what she was suppressing and all the extra personalities that were inside her as a result. It’s a depressing book, granted, but there’s a whole lot to be said for the fact that she’s still here, and that she seems to have this pretty much under control. This is one of those “transcends the genre” kind of books for me. Not that I’m putting down the genre, as anybody who has seen this site before can attest to, but this is one of those books that I can recommend to anybody, anywhere, who is looking for a fascinating, eye-opening tale of survival. Check her website for ordering info, I’m having trouble finding anything…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Cuckoo #12
Frankly, this doesn’t look like a very appealing comic. A friend of mine read this before me and he couldn’t stop talking about how much he didn’t like it, so I went into it with an automatic negative attitude. I still don’t know what to think after reading it. It’s #12 and I felt like I was jumping on right in the middle. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no kind of continuing story (at least I don’t think there is). It just feels like something she has been doing her whole life, and I guess she kind of has. A back story is needed here. Madison Clell suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder and has (from what I’ve been able to piece together from the comic) suffered from this since she was raped when she was 7. Horrible stuff, I know. She proclaims herself cured on the first page after eight years of therapy, but if that’s the case I hope she did this before she was cured, because it’s bizarre stuff. The closest I could come to describing it would be a kick in the teeth. Page after page of confused, desperate rambling about her life and how things have gone. The stories in here deal with her trying to convince her therapist that she’s not crazy, learning that her parents knew that the people who raped her were deviants before they attacked her, and (I think) the last moments of a young girl’s life. Hard to follow at times, but unmistakably distressing stories. Not the kind of thing to read if you’re in the mood for a laugh, but if you’re up for a challenge and don’t mind reading in minute detail about a ruined life, you’ll get a lot out of this. Her homepage is pretty interesting too, even if it hasn’t been updated in a while. She has quotes from all kinds of odd people, including the real Patch Adams. E-mail her and ask about other issues too. She has a whole volume of work available, that’s for sure…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Sandwalk Adventures #2
Why is it that the comics that are published on a regular basis don’t suck? I say that mostly for the books that are obviously going to be put into graphic novel form in a year or so anyway. I’m trying to give up on getting books until they’re released in a complete form and this makes it just about impossible. Or maybe I’m too impatient. Anyway, isn’t there a comic here somewhere? This series (projected at 5 issues) has Darwin telling some mites living in his eyebrow about his history. It’s fascinating, mostly because I don’t know much about his formative years. This one, like Clan Apis, is told in an all ages kind of format and will probably be in classrooms shortly too. It’s good to see stuff like this, comics done well for everybody. Assuming that I have children somewhere along the line, it’s encouraging to see that there will actually be a pretty decent pile of stuff that I can show them before they’re in high school. Anyway, this series is getting better and better, although it’ll probably be easier to find when the whole thing is put out, there’s a very informative notebook at the back of each issue that might not be reprinted again. More than worth a look, if you’re curious. Send $3 plus shipping (I’m guessing here, but that’s the price of the comic) to Active Synapse Comics, 4258 North High Street, Columbus, OH 43214-3048. You should probably e-mail him before you send money just t make sure though…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
The Machinist Now Available ! $3
My head is all clogged with a miserable cold, so my reasoning may be a bit more suspect than usual here. Of course, it’s possible you always think my reasoning is suspect; I just wanted to throw out a warning. This book is the story of a Detroit machinist who, after being laid off after working at a tool and die factory for 20 years, drinks and wonders about the future of the town and America as a whole. It’s not preachy but it is an honest and at least mildly heartbreaking take on the state of things, and it has one of more genuinely sweet endings that you’re likely to find. After this wonderful story is a 5 page afterword with more of the factual details, as Ryan moved to Michigan in the summer of ’08 and has watched things go from bad to worse. It’s a useful piece for people who haven’t kept up with the situation, and a nice summary for those who haven’t… and I don’t think it worked as an afterword for this comic. Like I said, I have my doubts about being able to articulate this clearly at this point, but the story by itself was brilliant. It encapsulated the despair at the state of things while still holding a genuine love for the way things were, and it frankly didn’t need an afterword. The fact that the afterword was done well and contained factual information is almost besides the point. Maybe it would have worked better as a text forward, as I get that some people really don’t know what’s going on in Detroit and some background probably was necessary. I think what I’m using far too many words to say here is simply this: sometimes less is more. This shouldn’t be taken as a knock on the comic, and I’m hoping that’s perfectly clear. Ryan’s work is better each time I see a new issue. A minor tweak would have suited me just fine is all. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Rock & Soul Now Available! $2
I seem to be talking about a lot of 24 hour comics these days. No master plan there, that’s just where they happened to end up in my chaotic “reviewing pile”. Also, before I get started, let me just commend Ryan on his production values. It might seem like a minor thing, but I see so many comics that have some basic, fundamental problem with the design or the copying that it’s great to see his stuff always look fantastic. The comic here is a wordless tale about Ryan on a trip to the Grand Canyon (I don’t know if that should be capitalized based on the English language rules, but for sheer grandeur I’m sticking with it) and his thoughts on some old relatives. It’s an interesting book, if maybe a bit stretched out, but hey, it was a 24 hour book and he was running the event and trying to put a comic together. I’m a bigger fan of his diary strips, but you could also do a lot worse than this. $2, contact info is up there or this is in the store too…
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Posted by Kevin
