April 22, 2010
Website
Reich #5 Now Available! $4
Ho-hum, another excellent issue. OK, maybe I’m not actually bored by excellence (as you can tell if you notice the short amount of time between updates to this page), but I’m running out of superlatives over here. In this issue Wilhelm basically lets his marriage dissolve (as would make perfect sense if you read about his general theories on this sort of thing in past issues), gives Freud a thorough listing of what he’d like to accomplish with his sex education (and oh, what a better world we’d have if we’d listened to him back in the 30’s), and chats with some colleagues at a bar. Oh, and Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany. There’s a cliff-hanger for you! Wilhelm has to decide whether to stay and fight or leave, and this is all on top of the Communist party (who he had allied with) essentially disowning him for his views. Sadly, very few places are as progressive with his views on sexuality as he was even now, 80 years later. If you’re not already reading this series, pick it up already. I don’t know how I can convince you. You read comics, or you wouldn’t be at this website. You prefer the good ones, or you wouldn’t be digging through the piles of small press stuff available here. Here it is! One of the good ones you’ve been looking for! And yes, I would be saying that if I wasn’t selling it. Buy it from the Sparkplug site for all I care, but it deserves a huge audience. $4
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Reich #4 Now Available! $4
I can see that it’s been just about a year since I updated this page, but Elijah has clearly been working the whole time, putting out three new issues. In the world of small press comics, that’s an avalanche of issues, and it remains one of the most fascinating series out there. In this issue we learn that Wilhelm’s mother cheated when he was a young boy (and we see how his father would alternately nurse her back to health after her suicide attempts and beat her when she was healthy enough to take it), we start to see some of the political unrest of the time with a huge protest and a massacre by the police, and of course we get more conversation about Wilhelm’s theories of sexuality and how to become “genitally healthy”. Elijah does take one liberty in this issue, as Wilhelm gets involved in a confrontation on the street between a one-armed beggar and the police (that never, theoretically, happened), but it helps frame the riots later in the issue. This series has the potential to be mentioned in the same sentences as some of the greats of the genre if Elijah keeps this up, as this is the sort of thing you could show anyone and have them get instantly engrossed. It’s really not to be missed. $4
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Reich #3 Now Available! $3
OK fine, we’re at the third issue of this remarkable series about Wilhelm Reich (a mystery to me before I started reading this), but what on earth was he like as a child? What led him to his obsessive research into sexuality? This issue takes care of all that, as we get to see Wilhelm’s early years. It details his first observations of sex (with the household servants and among the animals on his farm), his first literature on the subject, and, of course, his first time. Which, of course, led to many other times, but he seemed to have a local cook who was a willing, constant partner. Elijah mentions in the footnotes after the story that at least a few things are his best guess, and the fact that Wilhelm said that he lost his virginity at eleven and a half can’t be proven or disproven. As such, it’s hard to say how much of this is sheer conjecture, but everything up until this point has been thoroughly documented, so even if Elijah is taking some liberties I trust that he knows his subject well enough to do so. It’s series like this that are the reasons they keep giving out awards for these funny books year after year, and three incredible issues is always enough to have me convinced that it’s going to stay that way. I really can’t recommend this enough.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Reich #2 Now Available! $3
Shall I start with a complaint? Why not, as I thoroughly enjoyed the second issue of this series and that’s boring. Books that look this good shouldn’t have spelling errors. It’s something I’ve said many times about many books, but this whole thing is as professional as it gets. The packaging, art, writing, literary references, everything is top notch, and when that’s the case the little things can mean a whole lot. Still, it’s fixed easily enough when it eventually gets turned around into a graphic novel, so no harm done in the long run, I guess. As for the issue, like I said, I loved it. Reich gets fleshed out even more, we get to see an interaction with his therapist, his early years with his first child, his dealings with his colleagues and another meeting with Freud. It’s a fascinating story, expertly told, so what’s to complain about? Besides the tiny thing I already mentioned, that is… $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Reich #1 Now Available! $3
Quick, a show of hands: who’s Wilhelm Reich? If you don’t know (and I didn’t), well, this is an excellent way to get to know the man. He lived in the early part of the last century, was a contemporary of Freud, had a lot of revolutionary ideas about sexuality and apparently ended up either killed or jailed by the American government. Hey, not to spoil it or anything, but that’s told right in the intro to the first issue, and spoilers are kind of impossible for this sort of thing with the Google around. You damned kids! This issue details Wilhelm’s life-altering sexual experience, his attempts to woo a young woman, a conversation with Freud and even has the decency to end on a cliffhanger. The mini of this has apparently been floating around since 1995, so plenty of people are probably already familiar with this work, but if this is the same artwork it’s been polished to a healthy sheen. The writing is crisp and leaves you wanting to know what’s happening in conversations after the panel ends, which is pretty much all you can ask for in a historical biography. An excellent, fascinating work, with all sorts of notations in the back and a list of references if you want to read up yourself. And yes, the comparisons to Chester Brown’s Louis Riel are inevitable, but from this one issue it seems clear that they’re both making their own distinct mark on this underused side of independent comics.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
E-mail
Power Ballad #3
One of my favorite things about doing this website is finding great new talent. Julian’s last book was great, but there was no contact info and I didn’t hear anything about him for years, and believe me when I say that I looked (online, at least). So when I got this comic in the mail, it was a happy day. That and now this page has actual content info (at the end of the review), so it’s not purely decorative. This comic is different from the last one in that it doesn’t seem to be as blatantly autobiographical, although there seems to be definite elements from his life. In here are stories about traveling, living in his car, random sex at a youth hostel, another roommate, rants about music and the movies, lucid dreaming, the L, an art club, late night at the diner, and protests for the war in Iraq. The last issue is kind of hazy, frankly, because I read it so long ago, but this seems even better than the last one. Here’s hoping that it doesn’t take as many years for #4 to come out. In the meantime, this comic has something for everybody and I could see this guy being famous (at least in the comics world) in a few years if he manages to put a few comics out. Here’s an e-mail address, this is $2!
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
E-mail
Power Ballad #2
Well, there are the comics that tell a little bit about the creator, and then there are the comics where you get the impression that nothing is too personal. This book is one of those latter cases. It always makes for a fascinating read when the creator just wants to tell things the way they really happened without regard for how anybody ends up looking when it’s all said and done, and that’s what makes this such a unique book. The art looks a tiny bit rushed and sloppy at times, but there’s so much raw emotion here that it’s hard to say a bad thing about it. The bulk of this is about his tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend, with the eventual break-up letter being one of the more honest things I’ve ever seen. If you prefer fiction this probably isn’t for you, but if you’re as fascinated in autobio and as I am you’ll probably love this.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Feeble Attempts
This page should be called the “Hey look, a Jeffrey Brown book you may not have seen!” page. Of course, most people who like his work follow it pretty closely, and I try to keep an eye on things, but this collection of assorted odds and ends flew right by me when it came out a year ago. At this point, chances are you have your minds made up about Jeffrey. Either you like his work or you don’t, and you’ll check out this book based on that knowledge. If you do like his stuff this is a solid collection of odds and ends, something more people should do on a regular basis because there are a lot of anthologies out there that vanish quickly, leaving some great work basically unseen. Stories in here include an apparently rejected (and awesome) super hero story, Jeffrey as a boy, the life of a gnat, 9/11, wandering around Maryland, war as reality tv, being a jerk at work, a 2004 year in review, Star Wars Episode III, Jesus, a dog peeing on the newspapers, and, of course, a woman or two. If your measurement for buying one of his books is judged by how many times you laugh out loud, I believe my total was 6, but there’s also some non-funny pieces in here, so that’s a damned good total. Well worth checking out, even as a good introduction to his work just in case you’re the last comics fan in the world who hasn’t seen his stuff. Oh, and you can get this through comic stores, or Top Shelf. $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Miniature Sulk
One of these days when I have a spare year or so I should go through all the pages on this website and list all these book in chronological order. This one came out in April 2005, but I’ve almost certainly reviewed stuff before and after this one before reading Miniature Sulk, or Mini Sulk as Amazon adorably calls it. This doesn’t have a defining, large story like most of his recent stuff, which of course means that I love it. In here we get to see plenty of Jeffrey as a child (including dealing with bullies and his early problems with women, and I sampled possibly his formative moment below), as well as a wide variety of other short pieces. Jeffrey gets punched by his Kung Fu brother, has a crappy birthday, loses control while being tickled, shows some bullies “what for”, gets extremely bored in church, wrestles a fatty, bites his nails, accidentally lets his salamander die… and that’s just the first third of the book. As most of the fun in these things is reading it for yourself, there’s not much point in describing every little thing in here. That’s the thing about Jeffrey: at this point, you know damned well whether or not you like his stuff. And, if so, what kind of books of his you prefer. This one has a bit of everything, including some short fiction in the back, so it’s hard to have much bad to say about it. One thing I did love was how he occasionally showed his younger self with his current stubble to differentiate himself from the other characters. It’s $8 but there’s more than enough in here to justify that price…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Be A Man
Has everybody out there read Clumsy? If you have, you’ll think this is the funniest book on the planet. If you haven’t, you’ll probably still think it’s a funny, but you won’t get a lot of the jokes. So, go read Clumsy and then come back to this, otherwise you’ll ruin it. OK? All done? Well, in this one Jeffrey says that he realized that he was too sensitive and pathetic in Clumsy so he did this book to fix himself. In this book he treats his girlfriend like shit, hits on other women, goes to bars and constantly thinks about sex. If you don’t think that’s funny, I’m not sure why you lied to yourself and me and refused to read Clumsy, but there you have it. It’s $4, check out the website up there for ordering information and plenty of samples from Jeffrey and three other fantastic Chicago artists. Paul Hornschemeier, John Hankiewicz and Anders Nillsen, in case you were wondering, and I know you just wanted me to type them all to see if I could spell them correctly. By the way, once I get all my comics out of storage I’m going to re-scan all these images so you can read them. Seriously!
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Clumsy
This is the kind of book you read and then immediately wonder why everybody in the world hasn’t already read it. People should be passing this out at street corners. At the very least this should be handed out to couples as they go into group therapy sessions. Clumsy is the story of a relationship of Jeff’s that lasted about a year. The art is minimalistic and looks rushed at first glance, but it’s perfect for the pace of the book. He tells everything about his relationship, no matter how embarrassing. The sex, his doubts and fears (and neuroses), even the break-up conversation. I don’t know why you need my to tell you about this book, as everybody loves it as far as I can tell. James Kochalka and Chris Ware are both quoted on the back and neither of them can find enough good things to say about the guy. This is $10 and you’re not going to find a better book about relationships anywhere. What makes it so great is that it’s not meant as anything other than a recollection of the time he spent with his girlfriend. It never gets preachy or obnoxious, he’s just telling the story of what happened to him in that particular relationship. Buy it and feel blessed to be reading it, also don’t mind the doubts that it’ll probably bring up in your relationships, past and present…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Fuck You
It’s official: I love Jeffrey Brown’s comics. Sure, I liked the last book that I read quite a bit, but I wanted to hold off on calling this guy a genius or something until I had more to work with. Well, I’ve seen more, and I’m jumping in with both feet. This guy is a genius. In this comic is the best three page summation of a relationship that I’ve ever seen, and I can’t wait for his novel Clumsy to make it to my mailbox (I ordered it a while ago and believe me, you’ll know when it gets here). Also included are Bighead, Sex Ghosts Attack, a 9/11 comic that’s more human than almost anything else I’ve seen about that day without being pretentious, and all kinds of short strips. Everything in here is golden and your life will be better for having seen it. I can see from looking at the back page that he’s going to be a busy man in the next couple of years, so if you haven’t tried him out yet, do it now so you can say that you were the first! Then when he’s big and “famous” you can say that you knew about him before he was famous but now he sucks because everybody is reading his stuff. Hurry! Contact info is above, and he has all kinds of strips at that website so you can see for yourself.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
I Am Going To Be Small
If I thought it would be OK I would scan about 80% of the pages in here for you to see. Why? Because I’ve laughed at a lot of comics lately, sure, but I haven’t laughed this much at something in quite a while. He has almost exactly my sense of humor, and that’s something that’s hard to believe. It’s all gag strips, anywhere from one panel to four, and some are funny precisely because there’s nothing funny about them. No, I’m not going to explain that. As you can see from the cover, it’s only $5 for 96 pages. Here’s what I’m talking about.
If you don’t think that’s funny (or if you can’t read it because of my crappy scanner, go to the website and check it out), then you have 95 more pages of the same thing. If you don’t think it’s funny, that’s $5 you can save, I guess, you weirdo.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Bighead
It’s easy enough to forget at times, in the midst of my gradually increasing “meh”-itude to Jeffrey’s relationship comics (“meh” being somewhere in the middle of the range of possible opinions, obviously), that his non-relationship stuff is constantly the shit. Seriously, if you can find I Am Going To Be Small or any of his non-personal stuff, it’s enough to restore your faith in the concept of comics as being capable of making you laugh out loud, sometimes to the point of tears. Bighead is a collection of all the Bighead minis and various places the character has appeared over the years, and it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. Here’s the origin of Bighead: repeatedly taunted by schoolmates, Bighead became emotionally scarred, causing his head to swell with power. If that’s not something you can get behind, move along please and leave the funny to the rest of us. Every part of this book is some degree of awesome, from the usually boring page with all the legalese to the last page of Bighead fan art. In between Bighead battles all sorts of villains, ranging from ninjas, a group of his most powerful villains, The Brit (who marries the love of Bighead’s life), Crabby, and The Puncher, among many others. There’s also the unpublished and incomplete Bighead graphic novel, and from the looks of it it’s a damned shame that one never got finished. I’ll leave it there, as it’s no fun to analyze humor to death, but this is just about required reading to any fans left of this genre. $12.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
AEIOU: Any Easy Intimacy
I think Jeffrey sums it up best in his afterward: “Although based on actual events, this book leaves so much unsaid that you may as well consider it to be fiction”. This is the story of his third significant romance, so if there are any continuity nuts who wondered why I didn’t get to his second girlfriend first on the site… nah, never mind, nobody is that obsessive. As in Clumsy, this starts at the beginning, when a friend tells him about his girlfriend’s new roommate and how they would be good together all the way to the inevitable end of the relationship. At least, I think that’s what happened. Look, if you hate spoilers I’m going to let loose here, so avert your dainty eyes. The book ends with his girlfriend (no idea if they were still dating at that point though) coming for what seems to be a happy visit, then it ends, and in the afterward it seems pretty clear that it all blew up, as they’re not on speaking terms. This sort of thing always mystifies me, because why dig into all the gory details about a relationship and then leave so many things so nebulous? Don’t get me wrong here, this is Jeffrey Brown we’re talking about and about 95% of the book is his typical wonderfulness, dealing with the quiet moments in a relationship that fly right by most people. It’s invaluable that all this stuff is catalogued here. The thing is, it’s hard to feel a ton of sympathy for the guy. When he starts dating someone he gets insanely jealous by the littlest things and can’t seem to go more than a few hours without talking to his girlfriend. This, naturally, smothers the girl, who slowly leaves, as even the great guy that Jeffrey mostly seems to be can’t make up for the complete lack of independence. I have no idea if this is still going on with the guy (this was a story about 2002, published in 2005), but if it is, well, back off a bit. This is, of course, coming from somebody who has no business in the world giving relationship advice to another human being, so please take that with the appropriate bucket of salt. All in all, if you like his other stuff (and who doesn’t?) then you’ll probably love this too. It’s just when I get that voyeuristic peek in the window of his life, I want to see all that happened and not be left wondering about some of the most crucial bits. $12
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Every Girl Is The End Of The World For Me
My opinion about Jeffrey’s relationship books seem to vary across this page, but let me make one thing perfectly clear: they’re always good comics. Even if I’m annoyed about bits that are left out or Jeffrey’s seeming inability to deal with women he’s dating, his ability to catch that perfect quiet moment or that perfect line said to a loved one in the middle of the night is unmatched. No ambivalence here though, this ended up being possibly my favorite “relationship” comic of his, although I haven’t read Clumsy in years so don’t quote me on that. It’s the story of Jeffrey’s life from 12/26/03 to 1/15/04 and that title sums it up beautifully. It’s all about the women in his life, sometimes just friends, sometimes exes and sometimes people that he would like to date. Things seem clear enough when Allisyn, Jeffrey’s girlfriend in Unlikely (the one that somehow got away as far as this page is concerned), contacts him after years apart. Things seem to be building up to them getting back together, but it turns out that she’s just a horrible human being and “cheats” on him before things really even get going. There are all sorts of other women in here who may or may not be interested in him, and a few that try to set him up with friends, but what sets this apart from his other work is that it’s not a relationship comic, it’s more about the time in between relationships, and that’s something that’s been sorely lacking to his work. It’s also probably a great epilogue to the events in Unlikely, something that I’m going to have to pick up soon. Really great stuff here, I can’t recommend it enough. $8
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Funny Misshapen Body
It’s odd to be saying this after the guy has already put out a half dozen or so graphic novels (and there wasn’t a terrible one in the bunch), but I think he’s finally made his masterpiece. This shouldn’t be taken in any way as a slam on any of his other projects, as they all have various things to recommend them, but this thing just stands out. This is, essentially, Jeffrey’s origin story. It details his growing up, how drawing has been with him every step of the way, and just about everything else you ever wanted to know about the man. He even has a brief FAQ at the end, answering the only real question I had (why does everything happen out of order?). The book is divided into chunks, and by the end of it I appreciated the fact that it wasn’t in exact chronological order because I knew that if there was something major left unsaid from a story, he was going to get to it further down the line. Chunks include (hey, I’d call them chapters if he did) a brief introduction into why he draws, his time as a fat kid (and what got him to start exercising), his introduction to comics (what appeared to be an issue of the X-men, around #190, and how a helpful comic store clerk steered him in the right direction), a devastatingly honest depiction of a major art critique of work (luckily he seemed to have taken away the important thing from this – critics aren’t always right), his stomach pain and learning that it was Crohn’s disease (and his painfully embarrassing depiction of everything involved with surgery and a protracted hospital stay), slowly learning to see the value in art history, his early adventures in serious intoxication, his first stab at self publishing, all his years spent working on wooden shoes, his brief journey with pot, poetry readings and hosting drunken parties, getting some direct (and necessary) advice from Chris Ware, stories about an old and crappy apartment, and how he eventually managed to self publish Clumsy. Whew! And that’s only scratching the surface of this book, as he paints an absolutely captivating picture of learning through mistakes as he’s growing up and being nudged in the right directions at (more or less) the right times. It’s a hefty book at 300 pagesish, and if you only pick one of his books to read, I’d start here. Sure, some are funnier, and some of the books about heartbreak are maybe more universally relatable (unless you’re the one person who’s still with your high school sweetheart), but this is really his masterpiece. So far, anyway, if we’re lucky he’ll be making these things for years to come. $16
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Old Website
New Website
Man Man and Friends #4
It’s a testament to Gareth’s skills that he’s able to keep this series fresh and interesting. I mean, a stick figure man and his friends, talking about life and relationships, and managing to never get preachy of annoying? That’s takes talent. Once again I had a hard time picking out just one sample, and once again I laughed out loud more than a few times. Stories in here include the shitting ghost getting startled, man man deciding to make woman woman instigate sex for once, a couple of hilarious bits about things his mother said when he was a kid versus what she says about the same things now, trying to meet up outside a mall when they all look exactly the same, ra man “saving” a party with weed, Mr. Shit, unhappy lawnmowers, and one of the pitfalls of speed dating. There’s also a page where Gareth draws things that are not stick-related (it turns out he’s quite good at it) and quite possibly the highlight of the strip: the vicious triangle of alcohol, work and women. At this point I’ve been talking up this series for years, so at least a few of you have already checked out his work, but for those of you who haven’t: send the man some money and buy some of his comics. It’s stuff like this that made me want to do the website in the first place. He also sent along a couple of “regular” mini comics, which I’ll be getting to in the coming weeks. They can’t possibly be as funny as these minis… right?
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Old Website
New Website
Man Man and Friends #3
Nope, I’m officially not even close to being sick of this book. I laughed out loud at something on almost every page in this issue, something I can’t remember doing with a comic in years. Man Man and Woman Woman still make their appearances, but the highlights of this issue go to the “friends”. We get the origin story of the prudish lightswitch, the shitting ghost gets misunderstood, the Mere Trifle’s disillusionment with politics and lack of faith in his sex appeal, Ra Man’s miserable (because it’s drug-free) trip around the world, and the origin story of the uncompromising compass. Single Man Man (not to be confused with Man Man) is a sad and lonely figure, chatting up a woman with a boyfriend and checking out women on escalators. Meanwhile Man Man and Woman Woman have their share of adventures, but I’m on the verge of telling you everything in this issue. It’s either the strongest of the bunch or it’s just been a few months since I’ve seen one of these and the humor is fresh and new again, although I’m almost certain it’s the best one yet. Check out the website and seriously, send the man a pile of money. A few of the jokes get lost in translation (like Man Man’s evolving record collection over the years, filled with groups I’ve never heard of), but overall it’s nonstop funny.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Old Website
New Website
Man Man and Friends #2
Another issue of stick figures and other assorted items. Has it gotten tiresome yet? Well, in my usual wishy-washy fashion, yes and no. There’s still plenty of funny in here, and we get to see a bit more of the “relationship” between Man Man and Woman Woman, an unpredictable paper clip, Ra Man, an unpleasant spoon, a prudish lightswitch, a shitting ghost, and a horny rubber band. The pathetic but happy life of Ra Man was one of the highlights, as was watching Woman Woman figure out why she was still with Man Man. Another few issues of this and the novelty will probably be pretty well gone, but Gareth has other sorts of books to go with these, so no worries there. Still worth a look if you enjoy funny but minimalistic comics, maybe you could get some sort of a deal for #1-3 and go nuts with the stick figures.
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Posted by Kevin
