April 22, 2010
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Tales From the Flat #4
Well, you just spent the first three issues of your series setting up your characters, giving them all distinct personalities and motivations. What do you do for #4? Stage a huge fight scene, of course! Last issue ended with our heroes going into the kabob shop, trying to figure out the story behind the hand in the deep frier. The newest hero, Fred, has a little trouble using his powers and/or being a productive member of the fight, so the whole issue is mostly Vicky vs. a giant demon. The end of hostilities was a bit of a cop-out, but I love the series so much so far that it’s something that’s easy to let slide. Other than that, not much really happened here, except they were kind enough to set things up in the end for future issues. After all, you can’t live on mayhem alone, right? Again, I have no idea on pricing, but as this is a single issue instead of a collection… $3?
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Tales From the Flat Collected Edition Volume 1
I love it when a comic completely makes my week. Generally speaking it hasn’t been a good five day stretch around here, but I was only about 5 pages in when I started to forget about everything else in the world, and by the time it was over, well, screw the rest of the world, at least things like this exist. This is the story of four people sharing a flat and their daily adventures. Sounds dull, right? Forget it. One of them turns out to have a super power, they already have somebody fixing to be a nemesis (you can tell by the beard, nothing has been revealed yet), there’s an evil cafe worker who’s cooking people, and just the faintest hint of a killer robot. The first few issues (this collects 1-3) are really about getting these people set up with their own distinct personalities, and Laurence and Oliver do a terrific job of it. We get to see which ones are the comic freaks, which ones are the gamers, and which one is the responsible one of the bunch, because how would anything get done if there wasn’t a responsible one? There’s also a lovely extended sequence dealing with assholes in a movie theater, and who can’t relate to that? This was a blast to read, through and through, and you can’t ask for more than that. Generally speaking I read these as I review them, to keep them fresh in my head, but it’s going to be tough waiting a few weeks to see what happens in #4-6. The only issue here is that I don’t know a thing about currency conversion, although I do know the dollar is generally worthless at the moment, so… $5 or so? It could be twice that and worth every penny, but I’ll bet they’ll be more than willing to lead you through it if you go to that website listed above…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Zine 55 #1
OK, I’ll admit it, I mostly got this comic for the cover. Come on, look at that and tell me it’s not funny. The inside is a little less funny, but still solid overall. It starts with a meandering piece about… um, his life, and filling up panels. Works a lot better when he’s working on self-reflection than it does when he’s commenting on his inability to fill panels, but that only lasts for a page. Then you have a couple of sketchbook pages of his trip to the dentist, followed by Baby Floot Poot, a large baby who destroys everything in its path in humorous fashion. Over-the-top slapstick, not really my favorite type of humor but done pretty well here. Then there’s a story about toast and a couple more random pages, and there’s your comic. I liked the ramble in the start of the book too, as he said the only reason he did it because he always liked it when other people talked about themselves. E-mail him to get a copy or see what else he has, it’s pretty cheap at $1.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Rubber Necker #3
Once again, I read the last issue too long ago to have any idea of what's going on in the main story. That's the main problem with buying the individual issues, I guess. If I wasn't living out of boxes (and so very, very lazy) I'd dig out the other two issues and put them all together. One of these days! Anyway, I wasn't as impressed with this one as I was with #2, but I was tremendously impressed with #2, so don't take that as a major step backwards or anything. There's the third part of the main story, Drop Celing, in which our hero follows a young woman to an art class and tries to deal with his crazy mother. I don't mean "crazy" as in "wacky", I mean just plain crazy. Then there's The Little Things, a wordless story about a young man and his daughter enjoying some "quiet" time together. Good lord, was that a pun? Oof! Then the last story is Overpass, a story that was originally in Expo 2000, but it's a good one to throw in here for fans of his work who might not have seen it. It's about a man who designed an overpass for its artistic value and has spent decades in seclusion before finally agreeing to an interview. A solid book at $3.50, this is still one of the very few series out there that everybody should keep up with.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Rubber Necker #2
The thing about regular series like this is that it's usually hard to tell if they're worth the trouble right away. That's the pessimistic view, of course, as You could always just assume that a good first issue means that the whole series is going to be fantastic. You'd be wrong a lot of the time, and a lot of the other times the series just ends right away anyway and what difference does it make? It seems like I had a point with all this but it's slipped away and I'm just digging myself a deeper hole here so... I liked this book. A lot. I'm going to have to dig up this issue when I move so I can read the first part of Drop Ceiling, but this part holds up really well on its own. Parfum, the story of a man and his journey into his own sexuality, is fantastic stuff. Quite the heartwarming conclusion. It's the kind of thing that you would see on billboards for comics if I was in charge of the world, but I'm not going to scan it here and ruin it for you. "There Was Something I Wanted to Tell You But I've Forgotten What It Was" was an interesting choice for adaptation, but the length of the title prevents me from talking about it anymore. Good stuff all around. I like these new series that have all kinds of random stories instead of just being obviously designed to be a graphic novel in a year or so. Not that I have anything against graphic novels or anything, it's just nice to know that there is a reason to buy the issues.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Catfight Part One
I swear I didn’t crumple that cover up, although you wouldn’t know by looking at it. It looks like MK has a varied array of comics available, which is always a good thing in my book. This one is about high school dynamics, basically, and about a female friend of the gang starting to date, which causes instant panic in the rest of the gang as they’re afraid of losing her. As that does happen most times that dating begins, it’s a legitimate fear. What you need in a book like this is an interesting, diverse cast of characters, and she pulls that off beautifully. I never had any trouble telling these people apart, and you’d be surprised how many titles have trouble with that. The backgrounds are a bit lazy (or nonexistent) in places, but the rest of the story was engaging enough that it was never a big deal. Personally, I can’t wait to see the next issue so I can find out how that lasagna turned out. This is, oh, let’s say $4, give or take a dollar either way. Check out her website! Update (3/2/04): remember the only real problem I had with the book, the lack of backgrounds? Well, MK has put out a revised edition with all kinds of backgrounds. I officially have no complaints!
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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The Masochists
I’ve heard a lot of talk about this book, ranging from it being the best thing ever to unreadable. I’m going to take the middle ground on this one, as there are parts of it that are incredible. The book is split up into three parts. The first one deals with a boy who trades in his nerdy cards to “get the girl”, but he’s also forced to choose between his friends and this new girl. I thought this part was kind of a mess, frankly. There was a good underlying theme there somewhere but it was hard to find. The second part dealt with making music and selling out. Also a bit of a mess, but better. It made a few good points without getting preachy, which can be tough to do. The third part is the reason that people should at least borrow this book from a friend. It’s the story of an overweight girl who’s leading a miserable, nothing life. I felt sick after reading the ending, if that tells you anything. Truly disturbing. So, $14.95 is a bit much fun one story, but what a story! And, honestly, the other stories might grow on me after a few reads, I’m just giving you a first impression here. He has a very unique artistic style. Give him a few years to get the hang of the storytelling aspect of comics and he could be a major talent.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Boswash
Once again, I’m torn. The concept for the packaging of this book is pretty interesting. It’s kind of like a fold-out map type of thing, numbered so you don’t get lost or anything. My copy is already ripped from my trying to zig when I should have zagged while unfolding it. Xeric helped to make this one possible, I think. The story itself didn’t do much for me. A man has a disagreement with his superiors about the boundaries in a war and gets himself “arrested”. That’s the easy, non-giving away explanation anyway. My problem with this was that there just wasn’t any background on any of the characters, so it was hard to care about the guy who was in danger of losing his life. There just wasn’t enough space here to make this good. Still, I’ve heard all kinds of good things about this guy, and he has samples up on his page of all kinds of comics. Give him a chance, just don’t get this issue. I’m planning on finding some more small stuff before I give up on this guy.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Plastic Farm #11
OK, at this point I’m just holding out to read them all together. That timeline in the front does wonders, don’t get me wrong, but I want to go back past the bullet points of who these people are and what’s going on. Many chapters in this, as promised, including that one diner everybody’s at, those cannibals, more clean-up from the trail leading to Chester Carter, that one guy who was waiting for his wife, a rich man who has to do some nasty stuff to get an inheritance, and then back to the diner. If that sentence doesn’t make any sense to you, it’s because you haven’t been reading this series, which must be because you hate comics, because this is everything an episodic comic series should be. Big old review for the next issue, as it’s the end of this storyline so I’ll be giving my opinion of the whole damned thing. I know, you can hardly wait, but I figure a good ramble will be in order after re-reading the first 300 pages or so of this saga. Oh, and Dave Sim sends a letter of advice in too, for those of you who were wondering if Dave was going to stick around in the comics field at least. $2.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Plastic Farm #6 Now Available! $2.95
Well, here’s the end of my pile of Plastic Farms. Does it make any more sense at #6 than it did at #1? Well, in my traditional wishy-washy way, I have to say “sort of”. Not that #6 is a magic number in any way, and he never said that things would be making sense at this point, this was just the number of comics that he sent me. This one is all about Chester, sitting in a bar and telling the story of his life. It’s actually fairly average stuff, at least for most of the issue: Chester getting adopted, growing up with a normal family, learning about baseball from his foster Dad, and trying to get a girlfriend. Of course, things start getting all kinds of bizarre by the end of the issue, which only serves to get me hooked even more. I think this is a really remarkable series and I think there’s a good chance this guy (Rafer, that is) is going places in comics, especially if he can keep up this pace. This is $2.95, contact info is up there and, while I might advise you to wait for the graphic novel if you want this to make any sense at all, this is really something that everybody should take a look at.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Trigger #4
I really need to think about getting a memory. I read so many comics that continuing stories, like this one, sometimes get hazy when I manage to get the next issue many months later. Still, I remember the gist of this one (I explained it in a very roundabout fashion in the other review) and it picks up from here. The man behind a lot of the strange things that have been happening is revealed and can I just say that this superhero is a real pussy? Sorry, I just wanted to get that out. Well worth a look, although I think I’m going to wait until a couple more issues come out because the story seems to be taking a little while to get started…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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BOP!
Just to make this clear right off the bat, this isn’t a new story, or a collection of new stories. It’s all the stories from the SPX anthologies, the 24 hour comic I reviewed above, a few pages from the comic over the years, and a story from something called Box Office Kolor Karnival. That last one was the best of the bunch. It was a longer story about Stephen and Jan (and the return of an old girlfriend), and Davie Shermans getting promoted and dealing with his new responsibilities. There aren’t many people out there doing comics who have a better ear for dialogue than Alex, so anything that’s new to me is welcome. Altogether, it’s probably new to most people, unless they’re all as obsessive about getting the SPX anthologies as I am. There’s also a tiny, tiny preview of his new work, Tricked, at the end of the book. He picked a great scene, where Clarice, a waitress, has an ex-boyfriend come into her restaurant with his new girlfriend. Get to work on that book, Alex! Just in case he’s paying attention. Contact info is up there, in case the Amazon link doesn’t work, as the new ones are kind of sketchy.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Trigger #3
Mike’s e-mailed me a couple of times now, telling me that Western Galaxy was something that never should have left his town and that he has something available that he’s much more proud of: Trigger. I don’t know, I didn’t think Western Galaxy was so bad, but Trigger is a whole lot better. It’s the story of a superhero called Everyman who’s being stalked by at least one person for reasons unknown. The first three issues are just setting this whole thing up, so I thought it was OK to just review one of them for now. I should point out that the first two issues do have short pieces too while this one is all about the main story. Anyway, it’s a compelling, if still somewhat confusing, concept. There are little clues left all over the place and I can’t wait to see if it really does all make sense. I think his art’s gotten better too, really solid stuff. The only thing I can complain about is one of my pet peeves of all small press comics, and that’s the whole “spelling and grammar” thing. Maybe if people just typed the dialogue on something that had a spell-check if they’re not sure of a word, I don’t know. Anyway, this series is definitely worth a look. They’re $2 each, contact info is above, unless you just want to e-mail him and see what he has around…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Western Galaxy
This is only half a mini, really. The other half is a story by Max Nordlie, about which more on another page. This mini has four parts to it. Not much there to get too excited about. It’s OK. Might have had a chance to go somewhere with some more pages, I don’t know. There’s the story of a turtle helping his recently deceased brother become used to being dead, a couple of one pagers that it would take longer to talk about than it would to read, and a tourist in Mexico City getting made fun of in Spanish. Why is it that so many mini people have so much trouble with some basic rules of grammar and spelling? Not that I’m one to talk all the time, but the difference between “too” and “to”, “their” and “there”… sorry, I’m just rambling now. If you want this comic, write:
Mike Bertino 3060 Suncrest Dr. #9 San Diego, CA 92116
Ask him if he put anything else out with some more pages in it…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Phang & Mak #3
Is it OK to pass judgment on a comic by the third issue? Before I start, as always, this is just my opinion and there’s an audience out there for just about everything, in theory. Here’s the thing: the art really isn’t getting appreciably better, the dialogue goes from bad to really bad, depending on the scene, and the story isn’t going anywhere at all that I can make out. When the dialogue goes “jive” it gets hilarious, but I don’t think that’s intentional. There was only even one fight scene in this one, so I couldn’t even recommend it for the mayhem. I’m not giving up on this series, mostly because Adam has been nice enough to send me each issue, but there’s really not much of anything in here for me to recommend it to, well, anybody. Contact info is up there, $2.95!
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Phang & Mak #2
So is it ever explained why that dog says “Bah!” all the time? For some reason it gets on my nerves, but maybe it wouldn’t if there was some reason behind it. More of the same in this issue, and I still have no idea where the story is going, if there is a larger story. Phang kills some cops and a banker, screws his ex-wife (after she gets all hot when she learns that he killed a banker), and talks to his therapist, who looks strangely like his ex-wife. The art still looks fairly sloppy to me, but there was a slight improvement in the writing in #2. It’s still not really my thing, but if you like a bit of mayhem in your comic, you could do worse. Contact info is up there, its’ $2.95.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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In A Lonely Place
There’s a fine line for me between a comic being cute and interesting, and cute but so cute that it’s almost unbearable. Unfortunately, and even with the sadness throughout, this one falls in the latter category. It’s the story of a snail and a slug going through life, each one of them alone and sad. They meet each other by chance, have a great time, and I won’t spoil what happens next. I like how the book looks, both in production and art, it’s just annoying to me sometimes to spend $3 on a book and be able to read it in about 1 minute. Well, I guess it’s obvious that this didn’t do anything for me. Neat idea, kind of depressing though. Check out the website. All kinds of stuff there to see, also some stuff from the fantastic Scott Mills.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Phang and Mak #1 (drawn by Jason Day)
About the only thing I can think of is that the Adam Beranek who did the other comic on this page can’t possibly be the same person who did this one. Still, the fact that I think that means that he can show some range, so good for him. Where the other book was cute and fluffy, this one has violence, drinking and the characters saying “fuck” a lot. This one is mostly about a vampire and his dog fighting crime, or at least fighting the elements of crime that they don’t agree with. I have a few comments for the creative team, and I hope they’re understood to be constructive criticism and not an expression of my hatred for them. To the writer, I have to mention that using punctuation here and there is a good thing. Not sure why so many people feel the need to leave it out but please, throw some commas in there now and then. Helps the word flow. To the artist, I’m afraid that this book should have been black and white, instead of colored. The colors highlight an obviously rushed page or two, or maybe I’m just being too picky. To the colorist, nice work. See? I’m not all negative. I’ll see where this story is headed when I read the next issue (it’s 12/15/03 as I write this and I’m running out of comics to review, so I’m breaking up individual creators) but for now it’s a jumbled mess.Let’s hope it gets better because there is potential here. I’m afraid that Phang is going to be a Cassidy clone from the Preacher series, so here’s hoping I’m wrong. Contact info is up there, check out their stuff!
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Toxic Comix #7 Now Available! $2
It’s been a while since the last issue, which means that the overall story here is incredibly hazy for me. That being said, this issue had significantly less of the problems that I bitched about last time, so aesthetically I have almost no complaints at all. The one thing I can still bitch about is the spelling as, while there are fewer errors, the ones there are really change the meaning of the sentence. Still, it’s greatly improved overall. As for the story, this one is mostly about Trinity (as you may have guessed from the cover), a goth girl who’s just trying to get by at her local school, along with her only friend, a devout Christian. That particular relationship isn’t explored all that much, as most of the book is devoted to some creepy boys from her school trying to convince Trinity to take a ride with them and the consequences of that ride, in this world and the next one. A pretty solid issue that makes me wonder where this is all going, and where on earth I put my back issues for this so I can check that out. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Silent Forest (with Christian Beranek, Nick Beranek & Chris Burke)
Finally, here’s a graphic novel of a comic that I didn’t like at all. Sorry, but it’s true. This one has the inhabitants of the Silent Forest reveling over their ousting of the evil golf course, which causes them all to remember something different as to how they got rid of it. Then they go wrestle (no, I don’t know why), which is followed by a bunch of strange dreams and a football game for the fate of the forest! OK, good news first. The art is MUCH better than the first time around, and I don’t think it was that bad then. Good stuff, all of the pages look great, and that’s saying something with this many pages. The characters are a bit more interesting this time around too, as they get time to help flesh them all out a bit. My main problem with this book is simple: puns. Now, I can usually let them just roll off my back, but the puns in here were so bad that I literally almost stopped reading it in the middle, and that never happens. When one the characters said “Holy cow!” only to have a literal holy cow drop down out of the heavens… oof. I think blood shot out of my eyeballs. Still, if you can get a dark marker and cut those things out, it’s far from being all bad. Pretty far from being all good too, but there you have it. It’s $11.95 and I think it’s out by now (I got the preview edition because I’m special!), so check out the website up there.
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Posted by Kevin
