Desperate #16
This one is a bit more scattered than the last issue, but still a solid comic. Mostly the same cast of characters, and it’s always refreshing to see real talk about sex in a comic. Notice that I didn’t say “intelligent”, not that it’s stupid or anything, but real people having real sex is a lot different from a lot of the portrayals you see. Anyway, boobs a’plenty in this one, it’s still $1 and worth checking out.
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Posted by Kevin
Faire #1
Here’s the first line from the book, and you can tell me what you think: “Like all other fairy tales, this one starts like all the others.” Now, class, can you break that sentence down and tell me what’s wrong with it? I don’t mean to pick on Juan, but I get the overwhelming impression from this that English isn’t his first language. There’s not a thing wrong with that, but if it’s in English, that’s what the majority of your audience is going to be reading, so get an editor! Ahem. The story is about a young, lonely girl who doesn’t fit into any of the cliques in high school, but she is into the dark arts. So, naturally, a “Pan” comes down to make her taller and her boobs much, much bigger. He also throws in some powers. Apparently these powers come with a price, but we’re not going to learn about that until the next issue. Pet peeve alert: in two sentences, one after the other, he uses “there” and “their” in “there boss” and “their queen”. Maybe he didn’t know which one was right and figured that at least he’d be right half the time, I don’t know. The art in this one is a bit better than the art in Esoteric Hunters, as there are only giant boobs on a few pages. Still, not much to recommend this split book at all. Here’s hoping they work the bugs out, get an editor and come back with a better second issue. Contact info is up there, but if you don’t feel like scrolling go here.
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Posted by Kevin
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Welcome to the Doghouse
Another short, short mini. I think I picked this one up at the comic shop after FLUKE, I think. Not that I wouldn’t have gotten in ordinarily, but this was after the show and I was already really broke. Anyway, it’s OK. Not great, but not bad either. It’s the story of a little girl who gets blamed when the family dog ruins a wig that her mother owns. The mother insists that if she is going to blame the dog, they’re going to have to treat her like one. It’s over before you know it, but the man can certainly draw a funny dog (that’s what the thing in the lower right hand corner is, in case you couldn’t tell). Send him, I don’t know, $1, if you’re interested at 475 Greenwood Dr. Athens, GA 30606.
You’re Not the Boss of Me
Jon was kind enough to send me a few more of his comics after he saw my last review, and they were certainly better than the first one. He told me that the previous one I reviewed was the first one that he did, so that explains a little bit. The other two comics will probably get up here one of these days, but they’re called Peckerhead and The Blow Up in case you want to ask for them by name. This one is about two little girls agreeing to boss each other around. One of them gets to boss the other around for a day in return for being bossed around for the next 20 years. A cute little story about kids, which is kind of hard to come by. The art still has a tiny ways to go, as he doesn’t seem to know what he wants in some cases with the background, but it’s improving with each issue (judging by the dates, that is). You could do a lot worse for yourself that to buy a few of these, that’s for sure…
;
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Posted by Kevin
(Note:I wrote this back in 2002, when I last reviewed an issue of his series, as that’s the last time he finished a damned issue. Still not sure if he proved me right or if he has bigger things ahead… 12/5/06)
This poor guy looks like he’s doomed to become a comics historical footnote (if there is such a thing), which is a damned shame. There was a time when a new Peepshow would get me running to the comic store, and it’s still that way, but he’s put out something like 2 comics in the last three years. He’s a victim of his own laziness and lack of motivation and I think he could have been a really important voice in the field. Who knows, maybe he’ll snap out of it he sees other comics people start to make some serious money (I don’t know how, maybe with all the comic related movies coming out soon). I sure hope so.
Peepshow: The Cartoon Diary of Joe Matt
Even if he never does anything of note again in comics, the world will always have this gem to remember him by. One of the funniest collections ever, this is a diary that he did for various publications for about ten years ago. This guy reveals everything about himself and his closest friends, which might explain why he has so few of them. This set the standard for autobiographical comics… well, maybe Crumb did that, but I think Matt took it a step or two further. This is one of those books that you can give your skeptical non-comic loving friends and I can guarantee that they’ll love it. OK, maybe I can’t guarantee it, but everybody I’ve showed it to has thought it was the best thing ever. No matter how screwed up your life is, you’ll always be more stable than Joe Matt.
I can’t imagine a better title for a collection of his work. This collects the first 6 issues of Peepshow, and these were the really good ones. A lot of people didn’t like his later work (when he retold a childhood story), thinking that he was ripping off Chester Brown, but I thought it was OK. It hasn’t been collected though, so maybe he thinks it’s bad too. Whatever the case, the “story” here involves Joe and his longtime girlfriend Trish. Anybody who has read the first book should be familiar with her. Anyway, after she reads the first issue (about Joe having a crush on a friend of hers), she breaks up with him, and the rest of the book is mostly about his emotional torment of going through the whole ordeal. Not as dense as the first one, but after you read this you’ll wonder why he didn’t keep going with this. Actually, you might not wonder because it might be obvious that him bitching for entire issues could only be entertaining for so long. Whatever the case, I wasn’t sick of it when he essentially stopped.
Another thing that isn’t on the D & Q website, but just e-mail them, I’m sure they haven’t gotten around to updating the site yet. A lot of people give Joe Matt a lot of shit about putting out one book every two years or so, but what a lot of people forget is how good his book is when he does put it out. Look, I can think of exactly one person that can make me read their entire run of books again with each new issue, and that’s Joe Matt. This one is all Joe, Chester Brown and Seth sitting around a table talking and it’s still one of the best things I’ve read this year. Kudos to the guy. I still think it’s a damned shame that the world can’t see more from this incredible talent, but maybe the books wouldn’t be as good if he was putting out three a year or so. He should just take his time and make sure that they’re all as good as this one. Oh yeah, and he has a fantastic response to all the people who call him lazy:
Peepshow #14
Holy Christ, Joe Matt has a new comic out! I dug up the last few issues of this series before reading this, as it’s the last issue of his current storyline, and #13 came out in February of 2002. That’s right, it took the man 4 and a half years to put this book out. For anybody who has any complaints about him personally or his work in general, he answers them all here, including going into excruciating detail about why he’s so unproductive and how his obsession with porn has left him a neurotic mess. Yes, even more of a neurotic mess than he was when he started the series. Individually, these issues felt closed in and suffocating, as a good chunk of the “action” takes place in his tiny apartment. Taken as a whole, this ranks up with the best of his stuff, even if took him over 8 years to finish it. It’s a great case study of someone who has access to all the porn in the world and two VCR’s to make his own “best of” tapes. If you think it’s all doom and gloom, well OK, this one mostly is. Things seem to be looking up for Joe though, as he moved to Los Angeles recently and apparently has all sorts of new adventures to tell us. Of course, we won’t get to actually read these stories for another year at least, as this issue just came out a few weeks ago and I just don’t buy the idea that he’ll have the next illustrated chapter of his life done any time soon. Still and all, even with my bitching, Joe Matt is one of the reasons I started reading independent comics in the first place and it’s comics like this that remind me why I stick around. $4.95
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Posted by Kevin
Interviews: One from Cartoons Forum. Somebody tell me if they can find more and I’ll put them up here…
If you like things that are even remotely outside the box, as they say, then you already know all about Jim Woodring. In my humble opinion, there isn’t a greater living comic artist. Nobody can combine the pretty pictures with the crazy words like he can. This isn’t the kind of thing that you read looking for a good story: beginning, middle and end. It is the kind of story you read if you’re mood is kind of off, if you’re tired of reading the regular pattern of story. Jim is part diary-like rambling, part comics, and part other random stuff. This is one of the books that should be kept in print for all time.
This is the comic that taught me how silly it was to distrust the wordless comic. Nobody has done it better before or since than Jim Woodring. Frank is a… cat… dog… creature of unknown origin who gets into all kinds of crazy adventures. There’s no better way to describe it than that, but don’t think of “crazy” in the cliche way it has been used for years, but rather go back to the root of the word, when it actually meant “insane”. Think back to the last truly insane thing you’ve seen. Not weird, not zany or wacky, but insane. Welcome to the world of Frank!
When I say “more of the same” for this volume, I hope you know that that is a very good thing indeed.
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Posted by Kevin
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Seriously though, has anybody out there not heard of Bone? It’s not one of the series that I follow though, and I’m not sure why. I borrowed the run that my friend has about three years ago, read the whole thing in a row for the first time ever, and loved it. Couldn’t wait for them to get the next book and borrowed it as soon as they were done with it. About six months ago they were all being reprinted and I toyed with the idea of getting them all myself, including the ones that I still haven’t read, but I couldn’t afford it. Here I sit now, without any of the big Bone books and just a few scattered issues here and there, and yet if anybody asked I would say that I like the series. Maybe I don’t like it as much as I think I do or (more likely), it’s just too annoying waiting for long periods of time between issues. As I’m not completely caught up in the storyline right now, it’s a perfect time to wait and get them all when I have some extra cash. It’s a lot easier to follow a series when you’re already caught up. Anyway, here’s what’s in print.
Bone Volume 1: Out From Boneville
Bone Volume 2: The Great Cow Race
Bone Volume 3: Eyes of the Storm
Bone Volume 4: The Dragonslayer
Bone Volume 5: Rock Jaw: Master of the Eastern Border
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Posted by Kevin
Samurai Bowling #2
You know what I like? It’s when the creator of a comic tells, in graphic detail, what they’re trying to do with a comic right there at the beginning. Sure, sometimes it’s better to be vague, but you have to love the fact that he admits right away that this book was done solely as an excuse to “draw a teenage samurai girl beat up a bunch of ninjas while working at a bowling alley”. Let me just kill the suspense here and say that he succeeds admirably at that task. It’s a two issue story and I picked #2 to review mostly because it’s bigger and there’s a zombie monkey in it. My only minor complaint was that it looked the second issue was put together in something of a hurry because of a couple of silly spelling and grammatical errors, but when a comic is this much fun I can let things like that slide. There’s also the slim possibility that this kind of thing might get old if all he does is have his samurai beat up ninjas at a bowling alley… nah. Word is that he has a bunch of web comics available at his website, and I swear that I will get some kind of a section for web comics up at some point in the future. I think it’s $1.50 for this one and $1 for the first one, e-mail the guy to get the whole story!
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Posted by Kevin
I don’t know how I missed this guy. I know people tried to convince me to buy this stuff years ago, but I think my impression that it must have been for children for some reason. I was horribly wrong and this was one of the better surprises I’ve read this year. I’ll tell you more about why later, but it’s cheap and it’s good. You can’t ask for much more than that.
Now that I know how good this guy is, here’s another book that I’m going to have to buy.
Brand new book that I just saw on Amazon. So new that it’s not going to be out until next year, in fact. If you like his stuff take a look at what they have to say about it. Until, then about all I can show you is the cover…
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Posted by Kevin
This is going to be an epic eventually, but it’ll be later rather than sooner. This book took something like 5 years to complete, so at that rate this is going to be done in… 2011? Is that right? Christ, we’ll all be dead by then. Pick up the pace, son, this is damned fine readin’!
No one should be allowed to put out a first book that’s this good. OK, it was two parts and they came out separately at the time, but still. It’s things like this that make people afraid to even try to make a first book because they know it can’t live up to this and Goodbye, Chunky Rice. Strive for mediocrity, you bastards!
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Posted by Kevin
Interview (from 1994)
I know, he was only the artist on this book and Alan Moore was the writer, but he deserves almost as much credit as Mr. Moore. The book would have felt totally different with somebody else drawing it. It probably wouldn’t have disturbed me nearly as much.
This collects a lot of the old Alec stuff. Alec, for the uninitiated, is part autobiography and part fiction. My second-favorite long running character of all time, right behind Cerebus. Not that you can really compare the two, as Alec deals with entirely different things than Cerebus does, but there you have it.
That being said, I didn’t like this one as much as I thought I would. The title struck me right away as being pretentious as hell, but he kind of dealt with that early on and dismissed it. He set a pretty high bar up for himself with Graffiti Kitchen and The Dance of Lifey Death (which are going to be released soon, along with another story, in one volume, and that should be the best thing ever) and, frankly, he didn’t reach it with this book.
His three best works to date, and that’s saying something: Graffiti Kitchen, Little Italy and The Dance of Lifey Death. Everyone who reads comics should read these, and now they’re all together in one book.
Bacchus Book One: Immortality Isn’t Forever
The story of the God of Spirits Bacchus in the modern day. It’s a shame that the comic series Bacchus no longer features this character because they were always entertaining, if too cartoony sometimes (notably when Eddie wasn’t drawing them).
Bacchus Book 2: The Gods of Business
Bacchus Book 3: Doing the Islands with Bacchus
Bacchus Book 4 The Eyeball Kid: One Man Show
Bacchus Book 5: Earth, Water, Air and Fire
My favorite of the Bacchus books, probably because it comes so close to the feel of his Alec work. Bacchus and his companions are trapped on an island and reflect on all sorts of things. Not much happens in terms of a story, which is probably what makes it the best of these books.
Bacchus Book Nine: King Bacchus
Egomania #2
I think there's been something lacking in Eddie Campbell's work for me for the last few years, and I've been unable to put my finger on exactly what that was until I read the first couple of issues of his new magazine, Egomania. It's just not fun for me to read his stuff anymore. What that can be based on is open to interpretation, but I just don't get the same feeling of joy and whimsy on every page that I used to. When I first found some of his books 11 years or so, they were all about fun. There were stories about real life that were used with more than a little artistic license. That was the first time I had seen the concept used in comics and it changed my idea of what they could be. This issue is mostly an interview between Eddie and Alan Moore. That's something that would have fascinated me a few years ago and should have held some interest for me today, but it seems like the only reason Alan is even still doing comics these days is to talk about his theories on magic. That's all well and good, but I'm here to have fun with the books! Maybe it's my fault for not really wanting to read a 32 page interview mostly about obscure theories on magic, but I was bored to tears. These two issues have also introduced Eddie's new epic on the history of humor. A lofty goal, sure, and one that shows some definite promise. If I can't get some joy out of a series dedicated to investigating humor, I'll know that Eddie has moved past my tastes and it's time to move on. That being said, I think I'm going to skip these magazines and get the collected version when it comes out. It's always more complete anyway and the filler bits in these two magazines (the in-depth history of a painting, the From Hell Hollywood premiere as described by his daughter, and in interview with an old comics hero of his) were just plain dull for me. If anyone throws a "PHILISTINE!" my way, that's fine, I feel like I should be appreciating this stuff more, it's just that it's all so incredibly dull these days. I mostly like quiet books, don't get me wrong. Maybe I should go back and read some of his older works so I can remind myself what I liked so much about the guy to begin with...
Comments Off on Campbell, Eddie | Reviews | Tagged: Alec: How To Be An Artist, Alec: The King Canute Crowd, Alec; Three Piece Suit, Bacchus, From Hell | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
Good listing of books available
There’s only one reason that David wasn’t one of the first people that I put up on the page, and that’s because he doesn’t have a website. Stupid, I know, and it takes away from the point of having most of the page be dedicated to small press stuff. What’s more small press than not even having your own web page, even if he is getting some kind of “mainstream” (it’s ridiculous to even use that word in connection with comics) acceptance? Anyway, I decided to sit down and read this whole series at once today, and I can longer accept not having him on the page. This was a long, good book from somebody who was already very good at telling short stories. This is a noir tale about a man who has his rich, aloof wife kill herself and the problems he deals with from there. It’s not as simple as that, obviously. He finds an old crush from high school, and there’s the current mistress he has to deal with. Throw in a private detective hired by his mother-in-law who wants desperately to see him suffer and you have a smorgasboard of deceit and betrayal. Nobody involved in this is an innocent in any way, and the story had me guessing right up until the very end, which is all you can ask out of a story like this.
Even with as good as this was, it was obvious that he’s still learning. He had this planned as an eight issue series and it ended up being nine, with the last one being twice as big. I thought it could have been shaved down just the slightest bit, so maybe he should have stuck with the original plan. Still, it’s tough to use a lot of the noir dialogue in the modern day, so it’s tough to say that it would have worked any better if it was wordier and shorter than it did when there were large silent chunks in this to tell you what was going on. This is a major work from somebody who is still learning his trade (don’t forget the fact that he’s prolific, which is so incredibly rare in quality comics), and I for one can’t wait to see what he does next. I’ll put a link up to buy this as soon as I find one, but until then you can always just contact the author if you’re really interested and don’t live near and good comic shops, as most of them would at least be able to get this: El Capitan Books P.O. Box 351508 Los Angeles, CA 90035.
Stray Bullets Vol.1
I think this reviewing thing is a virus sometimes. Here I am, sitting at work at the comic store. I realize that I haven’t read Stray Bullets in a while so I sit down, read it… and I realized that the section on my page for this book was blank. Damn you website, why can’t I just read one book without blabbing about it? Ah, my problems, they are serious. Anyway, I thought that maybe this book wouldn’t age well, what with the incredible work he’s doing these days with the series. It’s different, sure, but the kernals of what makes it so great now are right here. All kinds of familiar faces too, but I’ll learn more about that when I get through the whole run. In these days he mostly only did stories from issue to issue. The first story (unrelated to the rest except for the fact that it introduces the mysterious “Harry”) is about a couple of hired goons trying to dispose of a body. Nothing is ever that easy in this series, as you’ll see. The second story is about a little girl who witnesses a murder and has one of the most… what the word when it feels like your stomach just jumps out of your body? That’s what the ending is like. The third story is about a party after a job and it introduces all kinds of characters that come up later: Beth, Nina, and Monster that I can remember, and I’ve never read this stuff all in a row. The fourth story, well, I don’t want to ruin anything for you but it took the edge off one of the other stories in the book a little bit and has a completely unexpected ending, what with the theme of everything else in here. If you haven’t read this series yet, this is one of those cases where the first book is a perfect place to start. It’s only $11.95 too, so it’s not too expensive to just go crazy one day and buy the whole mess of stuff…
Stray Bullets 28
I don’t know why I’m not waiting until these are collected to tell you about this. This was the last part of the storyline and it should be out soon, it’s just… people need to know about this. I’m sure there are plenty of people who think this is too popular to be any good, and they’re just wrong. The utter lack of happy endings is kind of depressing sometimes, sure, but that’s about the only negative thing I can say about this. The art has become one of my favorites and he has the whole noir style of writing nailed. He’s kind of like Dan Clowes to me in that everything he’s done has been better than the book before, even when I thought he had peaked. The frustrating thing about this series right now is that I’m in the middle of moving, so half of this story is in Ohio and the rest of it is here. What’s the story about, you ask? What do you think this is, some kind of review? Well, without giving anything away, there’s a kidnapping, a runaway, a Monster, some killing… you know, the usual. I’m not sure if this will be #7 or 8 in the series, but I’ll let you know. If you’ve ever wanted to try this series but didn’t know where to start, here’s a good spot.
Stray Bullets #29
Did I say that that last issue was a good place to start? No, actually the best place to start would be at the beginning, that was only if you were broke and wanted to pick up one of the issues instead of one of the collections. Honestly, I’ve read this in chunks that have been too spread apart for me to know how coherent this has been from the start (I’m getting to it, really I am), but it’s really coming together now. This has become the best noir comic going and David even has the common decency to put it out on a regular basis. This issue is about the police trying to find Virginia Applejack, who you may remember from way back in the third issue (or the second), or maybe from other parts of the series that I’m too lazy to reference right now. Contact info is way up there but I’d still recommend that you get the books to see what’s going on here. There aren’t many comics out there that come out on a regular basis and are this engaging, so buy it already.
Stray Bullets #30
After what’s been going on in this series lately, this issue could almost be considered a break. And there’s a happy ending! You might think that I’m giving too much away, but the title of the story is “Happy Ending”, and how much does that really give away anyway? The story here is that Bobby takes a gun to school to impress his classmates. Not that much funny there, but there’s actually a funny line here and there. Compared to most of his stuff, this is almost lighthearted. Kind of a “break” issue in the big story (at least that’s my judgment, but what do I know), but that almost makes it a perfect comic to pick up and try if you don’t know where to try out this series. Why don’t I have the website linked anywhere up there? Oh well, it’s fixed now.
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Posted by Kevin
Legal Action Comics Volume 1 Now Available! $14.95
I could go on and on and tell you that the proceeds for this go to a great cause, and one that is vastly important to free speech in general. But if you want to know why Dirty Danny and Ted Rall are in court these days, you should go to the homepage of Danny Hellman and see for yourself. Or I could run down the stories and tell you what I thought of each one. Instead of wasting your time with that, if you read all about the lawsuit and still don’t think you should give money to this guy, I’ll just let you know who’s in this benefit, and this collection of talent should pretty much speak for itself. Tony Millionaire, Sam Henderson, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Renee French, James Kochalka, Marc Bell, Johnny Ryan, Steven Weissman, Ron Rege, Doug Allen, and Spain, among MANY others. I hadn’t seen most of the stuff in here, although I don’t know if it’s pulled from other stuff or mostly original. Whatever the case, it’s all really good, and I’d never had a chance to see Danny Hellman’s stuff before this and I like it quite a bit. Did I mention that this is over 250 pages? What the hell are you waiting for?
Note: The following is from Ben Durgin, and it was on a forgotten page here, put into limbo after a past update of the whole website. No idea how this came about or why it’s here (thank you brain, for losing that memory completely) but, as it’s a great synopsis of the actual legal case involved here, thought it best to put it on the “main” Danny Hellman page.
Danny Hellman is in a bit of a rut right now. In addition to being doomed in the highly unrecognized field of comics, he is facing a $1.5 million lawsuit. Well, we’re four years into this mess, and since the fall of 2001, I’ve had a wonderful lawyer named Erik Jacobs handling my case pro bono, says Hellman. For me, as a struggling artist, the most emotionally devastating aspect of the lawsuit was the expense, and thanks to Erik, these last two years of the lawsuit have been a lot less stressful for my wife and I than the first few.
The lawsuit is over an e-mail prank Hellman circulated and a cartoon he drew of fellow comic book author Ted Rall. Rall had written an article for the Village Voice boldly criticizing Art Spiegelman, the well-respected, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus. Hellman says the cartoon that he circulated came out a day or two before the prank.
The cartoon consists of Rall drawn as a small dog in a park, peeing on a statue of Spiegelman. The prank came after Rall and Hellman exchanged several private e-mails about Rall’s Village Voice article. Hellman says he found Rall’s e-mails to be snide and decided to write an e-mail mocking Rall’s article.
The e-mail, which is entitled Ted Rall’s Balls, featured a faux Rall bragging about his testicular fortitude, which he earned by criticizing Spiegelman, the chain-smoking Napoleon of comics. The e-mail welcomed it’s recipients to join a list serve where the topic of discussion would be Ted Rall’s balls. Hellman says he sent the email to approximately thirty people, most of whom were already well-acquainted with his juvenile jokes. Rall was also included on the list.
That e-mail was followed by a series of faux disgruntled responses from well-known voices in the publishing industry. They were actually written by Hellman himself. Within a couple of days of the Ted Rall’s Balls e-mail, I was receiving cease & desist letters from Rall’s attorneys, threatening legal action, and demanding an apology, as well as a five figure sum of money, he explains. I provided an apology immediately, but declined to offer any cash, (as I felt none was deserved). Within a few weeks, Rall’s attorneys filed a $1.5 million dollar libel suit against Hellman. In Hellman’s opinion the whole prank was completely harmless.
Regarding Rall’s article about Spiegelman, Hellman says, The Main thesis of the piece, (as I remember it) was a dark portrait Rall struggled to paint of Art Spiegelman as a petty, power-mad tyrant of the New York cartooning scene, without whose consent no aspiring cartoonist could ever hope to advance professionally. Hellman says Rall even attacked Spiegelman’s smoking habits.
Danny Hellman isn’t a millionaire who can easily pay a settlement to Ted Rall. So he has put out a benefit book called Legal Action Comics Volume 1. The second volume of his anthology is also available .I’d wanted to do a comics anthology for years. And had tried a few times to get such projects off the ground, with little success, says Hellman. I had done a mini comic in the early 1990s called Legal Action Comics, which reprinted two strips I’d done for Screw magazine parodying Superman and the Simpsons. So in a sense, there were precedents that led to 2001’s Legal Action Comics Volume 1, but I’d certainly had no plans to print such a book prior to the lawsuit. The anthology contains work from some very well-known people in the world of comics such as Robert Crumb, Sam Henderson, and Art Spiegelman. The second volume contains some returning contributors from Legal Action Comics Volume 1 and some new talents as well.
Hellman also has gotten some help from M. Doughty, former front man of the band Soul Coughing, whom he calls a very gifted writer (as one can tell from his lyrics). Hellman says he got acquainted with Doughty a few years ago at the New York Press offices, and at the newspaper’s legendary lavish parties. Doughty had been a writer and an illustrator for the paper for several years. Hellman says that Doughty was possibly the funniest writer the New York Press ever had.
When I got into legal hot water, Doughty and his band Soul Coughing were generous enough to headline a benefit concert the New York Press had organized on my behalf. (Soul Coughing disbanded shortly after that December 1999 concert, and I’d like to think that the sight of me in clown makeup had nothing to do with that breakup).
Danny Hellman doesn’t have any specific plans for the future. He says he has made a living as an editorial illustrator and hopes to have continued success in that field. I enjoy doing comics, and hope to do more of that, in spite of the meager financial rewards and limited audience. Perhaps he’ll continue to get by with a little help from his friends.
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Posted by Kevin
The problem with outdated websites is that you’re never quite sure if the author is still working on comics. Luckily you can still order his older comics even if he isn’t, so don’t worry. This is a disquieting tale of a man as he wakes up one morning after a drunken night out, trying to put the events together. He realizes that he made a fool of himself to his co-workers, slept with a random woman even though he was engaged and made out with a man at a party. His search to find out if his fiancee knew about what he had done uncovered terrible things about her, and this comic is about him facing death and trying to put the day behind him as quickly as possible. Heartfelt and honest contemplation is always a good thing, and there’s plenty of that in here. Check out the website, I don’t know if comics are still being made but this Xeric winner is worth reading.
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Posted by Kevin
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You can read in an interview with Dan from the fine folks at The Onion here.Or an older one over at Tight Science right here. Here’s one over at Hermenaut, another one from Cracked Machine, and one from Salon. Hey, he did do a movie, you know. There are all kinds of interviews out there with him if you just know where to look for them.
How does he do it? Seriously, how does he manage to top himself with each and every issue of Eightball? I remember thinking that about 8 years ago, when #13 blew me away. Every one since then has been better than the one before it. Whatever it is he’s doing, I hope he doesn’t stop. This is a collection of the story from the past three issues of Eightball called David Boring. His best work to date and right up there on the groundbreaking scale with Palestine and Jimmy Corrigan, this is something that everyone on the planet should read.
Soon to be a major motion picture! Well, a motion picture, anyway. Clowes worked closely on the film with director Terry Zwigoff (of Crumb fame), so I have high hopes of it being a good flick. If you haven’t read the story yet, do me a favor. Wait until after you see the movie, then if you’re curious, order the book. Tell me which one you liked better. I’m running an informal poll here. Oh yeah, it’s the story of two teenage girls and their views of the world. They drift apart and neither can seem to stop it, or to care about it. I thought it was kind of disjointed when I read it, but that’s probably because I didn’t read it in collected form yet.
Collects some of his better shorts from Eightball. If you already bought the comics like me there’s probably no reason to get this, but if you haven’t and you wonder who this “Dan Clowes” guy is that you’re hearing so much about, this is as good a place as any to start to find out.
Best story of a comic book dork ever. If most of the people reading this read comics when you were a kid (a pretty safe bet, I’d think), then there’s probably going to be quite a bit of this you can relate to, like it or not.
Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron
If Lloyd Llewelyn put Dan Clowes on the comic map, then this book was what made sure that he stayed there. Kind of a mess (by his own admission he had no idea how to end it), but still utterly surreal and fascinating. A relatively quick read but one that’ll stick with you for quite a while.
New Eightball out now! That’s all this “review” is really for, as how do you review somebody when you don’t have even the faintest hint of impartiality in your thoughts about their work? This book is $7, huge, and all about a man named Andy. Oh, and I found one (and only one) spelling mistake in here so, newsflash: Dan Clowes is human too!
Comments Off on Clowes, Dan | Reviews | Tagged: Caricature, David Boring, Eightball, Ghost World, Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Pussey | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
I’ve already mentioned to you that this is in my top three for required reading. There’ll be a review up soon where I’ll try to get a friend of mine to convince you of this fact. Past that, the man is the pioneer for gay comix. He’s been around the underground scene forever and this is his magnum opus. Read it.
Collects the newspaper strip all in one volume.
Collects a lot of his early work in one volume.
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Posted by Kevin
Shpilkes #1
I don’t see a number anywhere, but it’s the size of a real comic thanks to the Xeric Foundation, so let’s just call it #1, OK? If I see anything different I’ll change it. Random buy, and I had really mediocre expectations for this. What can I say, they were met. This was going to be a much more negative review before I went to his website though. There are a few pages there that are pretty funny. Not that the book is bad necessarily, just kind of dull. Stagger Lee didn’t do much for me (comics about songs rarely do, even folk songs), Cracked Actor (about a washed up child actor) was a little better, but I still wouldn’t buy the book for it. King Curmudgeon was downright good though, so the book is saved! Sort of. It’s the story of a grump out with some of his trendy friends, and he decides to mess with the head of one girl who can’t stop smiling and staring at him, no matter what’s said. Funny stuff, but short. The wordless story at the end (Automaton) was OK too. Overall, this is probably something that you can live without. I like his art a lot though and he seems to be going in the right direction, so I’ll buy whatever comes out next. Until then, read the comics on his page and see what you think for yourself.
Contact: PO BOX 12253 Berkeley, CA 94712-5253
Or e-mail him at fred_nice_00@yahoo.com
Comments Off on Noland, Fred – Shpilkes #1 | Reviews | Tagged: Fred Noland, Shpilkes | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Best Batman story ever. Word is that he’s working on a sequel. We’ll see shortly whether or not that is a good idea, I guess. One of the great things about this book was that it left things open in the end for you to make up your own ending.
How Batman got started. Not quite as groundbreaking as his other Batman book but still thoroughly entertaining.
The book that started it all for him, and to this day I’ve still only read the first three parts of this story. Those books are golden, I don’t know what happens the rest of the way.
I love his Sin City work, but this just blew that away. It’s (with a few liberties taken) the story of a battle between the vast armies of Persia and 300 warriors from Greece. One of the best things he’s ever done.
Ah, the first computer revolt. I had this whole thing written, forgot to save it, and me computer locked up at some point after that when I was doing something else. Oh well. This volume is the story of a man who leaps off a cliff to save the life of a young woman trying to commit suicide and what happens to both of them after that. Wallace and Esther… not exactly names that inspire fear, but Wallace is probably the most capable of all the “heroes” in these books. It’s nice to see one of these books where the lead guy doesn’t almost die half a dozen times before the series is over with. This is also the largest of the series, clocking in at 9 issues (the longest one besides that was 6 issues, and this one also had one double-sized issue to boot). As for where this story fits in terms of quality with the rest of them, I’d have to say it’s right in the middle. For a lot of series that would be a bad thing, but there’s not a volume of this that’s anything less than slightly above average, so that still makes this a pretty damned good read.
The most disturbing thing about this volume, honestly, is all the talk that’s gone on about Frank Miller lately. I’ve heard for sure that he’s doing a Dark Knight sequel (and I mention my thoughts on it somewhere else on this page) and I’ve also heard that he’s doing more Daredevil stuff. That’s all well and good for Marvel and DC, but it sucks for anybody who’s a much bigger fan of his Sin City stuff than anything else he’s done. Sure, I liked the superhero stuff when I was younger, but I’ve outgrown almost all of that, mostly because a lot of it is just bad. Granted, this stuff will be better, but these are still guys running around in spandex. You kind of lose the ability to suspend disbelief about that sort of thing as you get older. It’s his life, and I’m sure the money is fantastic, but I think he’s making the wrong call. Unless he’s only doing this so he’ll be free to do whatever he wants with Sin City for the rest of his life, then I’ll be happy. Back to this volume. It’s always fascinating to see who you can recognize from previous Sin City volumes, and that’s certainly true for this book too. All kinds of familiar faces. There’s also a “trippy” segment that has to be seen to be believed. See if you can spot all the other characters he’s ever worked with, and it’s in color too. Like I said, not the best of these volumes, but any of them can be considered more than good enough to spend an afternoon reading.
Dwight’s back at it again. He has a new girlfriend and the story starts off with his defending her honor the only way he knows how: by beating the crap out of everybody involved. I think Miller has a hard time drawing handsome male characters, because everybody in the book seems to think that Dwight is handsome as hell, but it’s kind of hard to tell when you look at him. Anyway, Dwight takes it upon himself to take care of the new problem that his girlfriend has, but she neglects to mention a vital fact about the guy who’s causing her all this trouble, a secret that could blow Sin City apart at the seams… don’t descriptions like that just bug the hell out of you? Anyway, it’s true, and it’s hard to think of anything destroying the “harmony” that prevails in Sin City more than the action in this volume.
It’s funny. This one has all the people that I loved in A Dame To Kill For and more. All kinds of action all over the place, Miho gets to really cut loose (although it could be argued that she gets to do that in Family Values), and it has probably the best ending of the series. What I can’t put my finger on is why this one isn’t my favorite of the bunch. It has all the ingredients, but it just didn’t completely blow me away in the way that some of the other volumes did. Which isn’t to say that it’s bad at all, as it’s a worthy edition to the Sin City story. It just seems like it could have been more. A couple of things bothered me, but they made sense in the story, I guess. Just kind of cliche when you look at the whole thing from the perspective of “all noir stories”. Saved from a bullet by a very obvious thing (not to give anything away) and the dead man having a conversation with him on a drive. I can’t see how the story would have progressed nearly as well without having the dead guy talk to him (it would have made for a dull car ride, that’s for sure), but… there’s just not anything in Dwight’s character so far to indicate that he would think he was talking to a dead man. It just didn’t ring true for some reason. All in all, a few minor quibbles keep this from being the best of the bunch. If you’re not as picky as I am (regarding what could be argued as a couple of very minor things to be picky about), then this could be the book that you like the best out of this series.
That Yellow Bastard: A Tale from Sin City
It’s funny. I remember this as being possibly my favorite in the series, but after reading it again I’m going to have to take that judgment back. Too many near deaths for my liking. You just kind of stop buying it after a while, you know? I’m willing to let Mr. Miller take me on a ride, don’t get me wrong. My disbelief has been suspended many times by that guy and it probably will be again many times, but there are only so many times per series that the main guy can almost die. If you can get past that, this is still a good one, but it was impossible for me to get past it.
This is the story of the son of the most powerful businessman in town brutally raping and killing little girls and getting away with it because of his connections. One man stands up to him and is horribly punished for it. There’s a lot more to it than that, but the fun of these series is in being taken for a ride, so I’m not going to give anything away here. Lots of sex and mayhem and the story has enough twists and turns to keep me happy, it’s just the little things that bug me here. Maybe if the protagonist wasn’t around 60 years old when the series kicks off (and a lot older by the end), then I could buy this a little more. Miller just doesn’t seem to be able to draw anybody besides the same type of male that he always has, and this guy should look at least a little different from all those people. Possibly if the series was in color, but one of the things that makes Sin City work so well is the use of black and white and a whole ton of the solid blacks. In the end, this is an OK addition to the series but that’s about it. I guess the lesson here is to never trust my memory…
Booze, Broads and Bullets: Sin City
A collection of Sin City shorts. As such, it doesn’t have the power of some of the other volumes, but it’s still good if you’ve read everything else and are just looking for more.
Frank Miller reviews are the easiest thing in the world to write. You either love him or you hate him, and nothing anybody says is going to change that. I happen to think the guy’s a genius. If you know the names Cain, Chandler and Jim Thompson, you’ll love this series. Comic noir at its best. This is the first one in the series and is the story of Marv, a pathetic character who falls in love with a woman who is trying to get him to protect her. He gets too drunk and she is killed while she’s sleeping next to him before he even knows he’s supposed to protect her and is framed for the murder, and that’s where the fun begins. The rest of the book is him trying to find the killer and the men responsible for it. One thing I don’t get, and I didn’t notice this the first time I read it: why was the girl, Goldie, killed? Was it just a matter of getting mixed up with the wrong crowd? Maybe I missed it, and I guess it isn’t a crucial element, but it seems like a plot point that should have been mentioned somewhere along the way. One possible knock on this series is that the main characters in a lot of the books are really similar. They’re all strong, imposing types who kick everybody’s ass while they’re doing whatever it is they’re doing in the series. I don’t think that’s true of the guy from A Dame To Kill For, but I’ll have to read them all again to let you know.
So do I think you should buy this book? If you like Frank Miller, yes. He’s at his best when he’s writing and drawing, and that’s what he’s doing on this series. I don’t know if he’s just taking a break from this to do the Batman book or if he’s done with this series. There’s only so many stories he can tell about this city before it gets boring, so I kind of hope that he moves on. I should also mention, without giving anything away, that this book has one of the best finales ever.
Family Values: A Sin City Yarn
It’s strange. Turns out that a lot of my preconceptions for this series are going out the window when I re-read them. I had this one pegged as being kind of slow and boring for some reason, but that isn’t the case at all. I’d say right now that this is my favorite of the bunch, short as it is. For my money, there’s not a better character in the series than Miho. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you read this, but she just exemplifies everything that Sin City is supposed to be about. She’s quiet, beautiful and deadly.
The story of this volume isn’t what it seems like at first, so I’m not going to give anything away. It starts off with a man looking to find out what happened at a diner the night before involving a shooting, but we don’t find out what he’s really after until much later. I like the shortness of this more than anything. I think that was a big problem I had with That Yellow Bastard: it was just too big. Too many ridiculous things happened, whereas if it has been a little bit shorter he could have told a tighter story and I probably would have bought into it a little more. This is over almost before you know it, but it’s basically just one conversation and one journey, with very little else slowing it down. I don’t know about it being the perfect graphic novel, but it’s the perfect Sin City book. Complex plot, plenty of action, and good dialogue. You sure wouldn’t know from reading these books that this is the same man who scripted Robocop 2 and 3, but the creative process is much different in Hollywood so I should probably cut the guy some slack Bottom line, this is the cheapest of the collections and, at this point in my re-reading (Sin City, That Yellow Bastard and this), the best. Hm, looking at the Amazon page, it looks like everybody disagrees with me. The hell with them, what do they know? They’re probably all waiting for Marv to come back and won’t be happy until he does. I insist that this one is tightly plotted and paced and is great. It’s a quick read, granted, but it’s good clean fun all the way through.
A Dame to Kill For: A Tale from Sin City
The best limited series in the Sin City line, bar none. It’s a more complex work than most of the other books in the series, and that’s not to say that the other ones are simple, because they’re pretty far from it. If I had one complaint about this series, it’s that the protagonist almost dies in every series. Shot to pieces, no way that he could be alive, but hate always keeps him going. It’s not a bad trick, but it would be nice if Miller didn’t use it in every series. Anyway, this one has it all: Dwight (the only character featured three times), Miho (I’ve already mentioned that she’s my favorite character in the whole Sin City world), Manute, Marv… Listen, I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who haven’t read any of these series yet and don’t know where to start. I don’t know why you’d be reading just one review, but if you’re reading this one, this book is the one to get. Or Family Values, if you want to be a cheapskate about it.
What’s it about, you say? Well, Dwight apparently went through a lot of bad shit back in the day, so these days he’s living clean and not letting “the monster” inside out. A visit from a past lover (Ava) has him rethink this plan, and finding out that she’s in trouble only makes him more convinced. After all, she tells him that she still loves him, and he never got over her. It’s one giant book of twists and turns after that, so I’m not going to spoil anything for you. One thing I really like about all these series is that there isn’t just a simple formula that Miller follows. I mean, you could read the greats of noir (like Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, James Cain and Dashiell Hammett) and, for all their brilliance, some of them got a little lazy. There would, more often than not, be a easily identifiable part of the story where you could see a plot twist coming a mile away, and that just isn’t the case with this guy. Not that I’m elevating him to their level, at least not yet. The greats of noir got to where they are in history (or at least for the people who still read books) by being prolific geniuses whose work has stood up to the test of time. It’s yet to be determined if the same can be said for this stuff, but it’s sure great to be along for the ride trying to figure it out.
Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller, Volume 1
Watch out! Frank writes precious little of this volume. If you really want to see his art style progress a little bit, then I guess you should buy this. Otherwise avoid it at all costs because the story is your typical superhero bullshit.
Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller, Volume 2
Now this one should be the absolute shit. His Daredevil stuff is probably still my favorite work of his (superhero fanboy geek that I am), and this volume has a lot of the issues that I never did manage to find. My copy should be here pretty soon and I’ll tell you all about it then, but I honestly can’t see there being anything wrong with this volume.
Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Volume 3
This should finish off the Frank Miller Daredevils. Gee, it only took them almost 20 years to get this whole thing back in print.
I hear that Elektra is alive again in the regular Marvel Universe. That’s too bad as I can’t imagine anybody else writing her as well as Frank Miller, and he did kill her when he was writing her. I guess that happens a lot in superhero books and it doesn’t mean much, but at least he had the common decency to leave her dead.
Gruesome mayhem. Do you need any more convincing than that?
Martha Washington Saves the World
An absolutely awful book. The first one of his (and as far as I know, the only one) that I really hated. I liked the first couple of books in this series, but this was just plain bad.
You know, after reading that last book I’m going to have to go back and read these again before I can say that I liked them. I liked them at the time, but that other book was so bad that it makes me question my response to the early works.
OK, I know I liked this series. I’ll read it again soon to tell you why, but this one was good.
I hear that Elektra is alive again in the regular Marvel Universe. That’s too bad as I can’t imagine anybody else writing her as well as Frank Miller, and he did kill her when he was writing her. I guess that happens a lot in superhero books and it doesn’t mean much, but at least he had the common decency to leave her dead.
Gruesome mayhem. Do you need any more convincing than that?
Martha Washington Saves the World
An absolutely awful book. The first one of his (and as far as I know, the only one) that I really hated. I liked the first couple of books in this series, but this was just plain bad.
You know, after reading that last book I’m going to have to go back and read these again before I can say that I liked them. I liked them at the time, but that other book was so bad that it makes me question my response to the early works.
OK, I know I liked this series. I’ll read it again soon to tell you why, but this one was good.
Comments Off on Miller, Frank | Reviews | Tagged: Martha Washington, Ronin, Sin City, The Dark Knight Returns | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
This won just about every award last year, and I don’t think anybody out there had a bad word to say about it. That being said, it wasn’t until I was most of the way through it that I saw what an amazing piece of work that it actually was, so I’m going to hold off on the full review until I read it again. Thanks to my roommate for being kind of enough to let me borrow it, though. Until then, I can say with all confidence that this is one of the best things ever done in comics, and if this doesn’t bring some much-needed respectability to the field, nothing will.
Quimby the Mouse (Acme Novelty Series)
The new book by Chris Ware. I’m guessing that this is going to reprint the Quimby the Mouse strips from Acme Novelty Library (call me a master detective, but the title should be some clue). While these didn’t impress me as much as the Jimmy Corrigan stories, I’ve also never read a whole bunch of them at once, and his attention to the minutest of details has to be seen to be believed. My copy was delayed, so I don’t know if this will be out soon or what the story is. As always, when I hear something you’ll be the first to know… Here’s a website with a bunch of ordering information for Acme Novelty Library, along with a lot of old stuff. Covers too!
Comments Off on Ware, Chris | Reviews | Tagged: Acme Novelty Library, Jimmy Corrigan, Quimby the Mouse, The Smartest Kid on Earth | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
Ace Fedora: Private Eye (with Jason Rainey)
Chris seems to have a pile of people willing to do all kinds of different comics with him, which is pretty much always a good thing for a guy just starting out. This is a short one at 8 pages, and I think it mostly done so Chris could say “dame” a few times. It’s a parody of hard boiled stories. You know, James Cain, Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, those types of people, which everybody on the planet should read in between comics. This one is about a private eye who’s checking on a man to see if he’s cheating on his wife, although there’s a secret behind his “wife”. It’s was an OK book, over before I knew it. It looked great though, Jason obviously took some time on this one. Contact info is up there, it’s $1.
Comments Off on Gumprich, Chris & Rainey, Jason – Ace Fedora: Private Eye | Reviews | Tagged: Ace Fedora: Private Eye, Chris Gumprich, Jason Rainey | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
Bipolar #1
This one is a lot more raw than the third issue I saw. You could tell that they were just getting a feel for what they were doing. Not necessarily a bad thing, as it was still a pretty good issue (and it’ll probably be even better when I can connect it with the other two when they get here). It starts the story of the afterlife where everybody there has killed themselves and has a couple of other random tales. One is about a superhero or a fantasy, and another is a random series of images strung together, unless you’re smarter than me and can make sense of the whole thing. The website is linked below, check out all the lovely samples…
Comments Off on Hanuka, Asaf & Tomer | Reviews | Tagged: Asaf Hanuka, Bipolar, Tomer Hanuka | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
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