New review for Extreme Lost Kisses #1 by Brian John Mitchell and Nick Marino. Yes, it’s exactly like a regular “Lost Kisses” but with guns. Exactly! As for that Burning Building Comix fundraiser that everybody here knows all about, did I mention that you can get a copy of the collected edition for a donation of $20? Because I have to imagine that the book will cost at least that much, and getting it for $20 would be a steal. Of course, donating more money gets you more goodies, but I’ll get into those later in the week. In the meantime, give the man some money!
Update for 8/9/11
August 9, 2011
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Posted by Kevin
Mitchell, Brian John & Marino, Nick – Extreme Lost Kisses #1
August 9, 2011
Extreme Lost Kisses #1
It makes perfect sense. After all this time with various Lost Kisses that were mostly personal stories or quiet, contemplative pieces, the comics world was needing a good old fashioned shoot ’em up. The story behind this is that the nameless badass gets surrounded by baddies, takes them all out and eventually looks for and finds a stolen nuclear device. I loved the fact that the internal monologue never stopped, not even when the leader of the baddies was maybe making a few relevant points to the situation. I don’t see any way that this crew (or any crew) could keep this concept interesting or entertaining for more than a few issues, but Brian has proven me wrong on such things before. If you like stick figure mayhem, well, look no further. As for me, I’m looking forward to seeing how this one fits in to the eventual, inevitable crossover involving the storylines from all of these comics colliding. Oh, don’t tell me you never thought about it… $1
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/8/11
August 8, 2011New review for Monty Comix #4 by Kayla Escobedo. Sorry about the accidental vacation, but these things happen. At least I wandered off when the thing at the top of the page mentioned Jeff Zwirek’s fundraiser for his collected Burning Building Comix. Last time I didn’t get into what YOU could get for donating money, but I have to point out that if a person exists out there who has $400 for this, they can get their very own sort of prologue to this story! That’s right, Jeff will produce a 19 page comic showing the story of the janitor who lives in the basement of the burning building. Ah, if only I was rich. Plenty of other goodies available for much cheaper, which I’ll get into as the deadline for this fundraiser gets closer. But for now, I stand by my story that all it will take is for everybody reading this right now to give the guy $1 then he’ll be able to pull this off. $1!
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/3/11
August 3, 2011New review for Brain Dead Phylum #2 by Kyle Nolan. I also got an e-mail from Jeff Zwirek, and he’s asking for donations to help get his collected Burning Building Comix published. It’s a bit more expensive than usual for these sorts of things, but Jeff is looking to get this produced in the way that it was intended to be read: as a literal burning building with different, interconnected things happening on every floor. I tried combining my copies but it ended up being a bit of a mess (and my cat kept jumping on the pile, making reading them like that impossible), so I would absolutely love to see this released in its intended format. If you have any spare dollars and are a fan of truly innovative comics, you should go to this site and help the guy out. Seriously, this site still gets pretty decent traffic, so if everybody reading this just gave him $1 it might push him over the hump. There’s also the fact that I’ll be pushing this until he meets his goal, so if this sort of thing annoys you then it would be in your best interest to help him reach that total early, right?
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Posted by Kevin
Nolan, Kyle – Brain Dead Phylum #2
August 3, 2011
Brain Dead Phylum #2
I mentioned something in my review for the first issue of this series about how the next issue could go either way. Well, the next issue is here and the way that it went is fantastic. Things start off with our heroes (two robots named Parker Lewis and Quasar) talking about “religgen” and how you don’t actually learn about the ‘bibble” by eating it, but rather that you’re supposed to pretend to read it. It’s not often that I’m 100%Â behind a comic after the first page, but Kyle managed it with that bit of dialogue. Then we get to see the people behind the religion in this strange land while our two heroes try to find their way to the city. After a slight detour they make it to town but are shocked and horrified to discover that caffeine is no longer sold. Their reaction is a thing of beauty and if I had the technology to easily change the sample image below I would do it in a second. I have to stop myself before I ruin any more of this, but I do have to say a few more things: Pabst Blue Rocket and the incredulous reaction of the religious guy when he saw that he might actually be getting his message across. If I was undecided on the last issue, I’m totally decided on this one. Visually inventive as can be (while still depicting everything as dirty, seedy and run-down), dialogue that got at least a few honest chuckles out of me, and a story that’s more than engaging enough to hold your interest. Sure, there may have been a cheap plot point or two, but who cares? Here’s hoping Kyle keeps going in this vein for a long time to come. $2
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/2/11
August 2, 2011New review for Life is Good #5 by Steve Seck, which is a flip book so it automatically comes with #4.
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Posted by Kevin
Seck, Steve – Life is Good #5
August 2, 2011
Life is Good #5
Steve went and snuck in an extra comic along with #5, as this is a flip book that also contains #4. If you already bought #4, well, tough luck I guess. You could always give your original copy to somebody else who might like it to try and get Steve another regular reader, or you could just silently fume about it, but there are plenty of worse things to be mad about if that’s the way you wanted to go. Anyway, this issue, as you could probably tell from the cover, deals with Unity Flower and Dr. Peace Rock. Just the two of them, so if you’re looking for that elusive character development of the main characters, forget it. If you’re looking for development of these side characters (that may blossom into main characters, what do I know about it?) then you’re in luck! Unity Flower is, it turns out, desperately lonely. She’s been having a really rough time of it in the online dating world, so when a hippie comes into her bookstore and takes an interest in how she runs the place, she naturally becomes way too trusting way too fast. Dr. Peace Rock has his own ideas for an ideal bookstore, and they tend to equal very few people actually buying books at the store. Other than that the issue is a descent into hippie madness, as being a vegan was declared to be not pure enough and selling fiction books in her bookstore was considered to be morally indefensible. From there it’s all about Unity trying to figure out if not being alone with somebody that she was gradually starting to hate was worth the trouble. No sense in totally spoiling the ending, but Steve finally referenced back to that scene in #2 with these two stumbling across the drinking pond. The trouble is that that exact scene was a little hazy in my mind (I do read a lot of these funny books and my memory has never been the greatest), so I could have used a bit more of a refresher than an instruction to buy #2 if I was interested. It’s around here somewhere, and that’s a minor complaint anyway. There are also a few extra pages of content to make you slightly less cranky if you already bought #4, but if you decide to make this issue your life’s cause then I guess you can just wait for the hypothetical collection to come out. That’ll show him! $4
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/1/11
August 1, 2011New review for Hot Little Cut by Carrie Q. Contrary, but watch out, it’s for adults only!
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Posted by Kevin
Contrary, Carrie Q. – Hot Little Cut#1
August 1, 2011
Hot Little Cut #1
OK, so maybe Carrie Q. Contrary isn’t the author’s actual name. So what? I have my doubts about Dexter Cockburn too, but I thoroughly enjoy his comics, so who cares? Besides, the modern world still hasn’t quite caught up to the fact that you can write and draw stories with sexy bits strewn about without being considered a pervert at best, so why not use a pseudonym? There are two longer stories in this one and one short piece. It starts off with the daydream of our heroine as she imagines growing to gargantuan size, shoving a writhing guy into her vagina to serve as a living dildo and an army of men who are willing to service her. Yeah, it’s also explicit as all hell, so watch out for that/enjoy, depending on your level of sexual maturity. The short piece has a nice little punchline that I’m not going to ruin, and the second longer piece deals with Carrie’s discovery of her own sexuality. It all started innocently enough, as these things generally do when kids get so little instruction about those feelings from authority figures, and progressed to her late grade school years. Which means that it remained pretty damned innocent for the duration of the book. It’s a damned solid comic, although if naked people and sex offend you then you should run for your sad, fragile innocence. Three cheers for Dexter and his Comix Company (although I could have done with a better company name) putting together generally smart and sexy adult comics, and this one creeps dangerously close to informative at times. Keep up the good work, you dirty, dirty perverts! $4
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/29/11
July 29, 2011New review for Window #10 by Dave Lapp, happy weekend everybody!
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Posted by Kevin
Lapp, Dave – Window #10
July 29, 2011
Window #10
Stupid Window comics! It’s all their fault for constantly getting buried in the perpetual mound of comics on my desk. For anybody who hasn’t read any of the previous nine reviews (and go ahead, that’s why I keep the archive easily accessible), Window mostly deals with Dave’s life as an art teacher in an inner city school. Things start off with a beating in the hallway, as Dave tries to figure out what to do about it (the beaters are two giant teens who are bigger than he is). He’s not the only one wondering what to do, but the beating takes its course and the scene moves to a game of jump rope outside. The jump rope game, as Dave says, “really is a sweet scene,” but it gets a little uglier when the giant teens join in. Other stories include a confrontation about a hat, the “reason” behind the beating at the start of the comic, and another one of the giant teens taking a real interest in art. Much as I hate to ever give away the endings to these things, I have to at least mention that Dave’s befuddlement when confronted with a very casual signal for a fist bump was a thing of beauty. I don’t know if Dave has the resources/contacts necessary to put this Window series out in any kind of collected form, but the world would be a better place if such a thing existed. I think they would be handy teaching aids, not to mention a compelling collection of stories for regular old readers. As far as I know these things are still mostly out of print, but if I ever get my rental thing off the ground… ah, who am I kidding. I’d need some kind of a grant to get that thing started or I need to suddenly become wealthy, two things that seem distinctly unlikely. Anyway, hunt these comics down if you can.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/27/11
July 27, 2011New review for Man Man and Friends #5 by Gareth Brookes. I was able to scan a couple of dozen new comics for review today (as the saga of the scanner not working on my good computer continues), so if you’ve sent me books recently and I still haven’t reviewed them in the next few weeks, send me an e-mail so I can search around for them.
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Posted by Kevin
Brookes, Gareth – Man Man and Friends #5
July 27, 2011
Man Man and Friends #5
Ah, three cheers for comics that never fail to make my day. I’d say that this issue of Man Man is maybe a little behind past issues, but it’s a very tiny difference and an issue of Man Man that’s slightly less than perfect is still better than most other things going. My main problem was that his spelling and grammar was all over the place, and that’s not generally a concern for his work. Maybe he was making an artistic statement that I missed. Anyway, you people should know the drill for this comic by now, or at least you should if you’ve been smart enough to order some comics from Gareth. Stories in this one include the shitting ghost, a severely misinterpreted party invitation, Man Man being too drunk to have sex and his excuses for it, the wisdom of getting one of those permanent grocery bags in the shops, leg shaving sound effects, Valentine’s day, Man Man proving that he’s cool and Man Man grading himself on how many of his life goals that he set out in 1994 he’s actually accomplished. This issue also has a rare three page story depicting the inevitable marriage of Man Man and Woman Woman that was pretty much perfect. What were my earlier complaints again? Yeah, there are a few misspelled words and at least one “to” instead of a “too,” but that’s not worth discarding the whole comic. If you like his previous stuff then there’s no reason to skip this one, and if you haven’t read his comics yet, you’re in luck! By now there’s quite a backlog of comics that you can enjoy from the man. You should probably get to it. $2 (ish)
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/26/11
July 26, 2011New review for SF Supplementary File #1 by Ryan Cecil Smith. Has anybody panicked about all this debt ceiling nonsense and taken all of their money out of the bank yet?
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Posted by Kevin
Smith, Ryan Cecil – SF Supplementary File #1
July 26, 2011
SF Supplementary File #1
Just to make it clear, it helps tremendously if you read SF #1 before reading this supplementary comic. That seems like common sense, but I’m just throwing it out there. That being said, it’s not 100% required reading. This comic tells the tale of Gorum, the rough outdoorsman of the SF group. But where does he come from? How did he get so rough and outdoorsy? How did he attract the attention of the SF group in the first place? All of these questions are answered here in what ends up being a surprisingly satisfying comic. Surprising because you never know what to expect from these “supplementary” type comics, as sometimes they’re just cranked out for a convention and they don’t stand up very well a few months after the fact. This ends up being another piece of the puzzle that Ryan is building with the whole SF storyline. I’ll just say this again because it bears repeating: keep up the series. Seriously, don’t tease the readers by putting out one regular issue and a supplemental comic and then moving on to different things. Well, unless Ryan gets hired by one of the big publishers that will be willing to pay him serious bucks, in which case go for it. But I will fly to Japan just to punch this guy if it ends up being two years from now with no new issues. Note: punch will be easily avoided due to jet lag and the fact that I haven’t thrown a punch in 20+ years. That and I almost certainly won’t go through with it. But still: threat of punch! It’s all his fault for getting me hooked on this story so early in the series. I’m just setting myself up for disappointment. $2
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/25/11
July 25, 2011New review for The Eternal Conflict by Brad W. Foster, also available in the store for those of you who like buying comics.
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Posted by Kevin
Foster, Brad W. – The Eternal Conflict
July 25, 2011
The Eternal Conflict Now Available! $1.25
How much effort have you ever put into eating the last pea on your plate? At least I think the object of Brad’s frustration is a pea, it might also be a matza ball or some other perfectly round edible object. The title for this mini tells the tale, as each page is a wordless panel of Brad (actually most likely Brad’s stand-in) first trying to eat the pea in a civilized fashion, then combining utensils to try and get the food to his mouth, before things start getting ugly. That’s it, really, but I don’t want to just gloss this over as “man tries to eat pea for the entirety of a comic” to leave you with the impression that it’s worthless. His comedic timing is perfect, and if you get me to laugh a couple of times during a comic you’ve done something right. $1.25
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/24/11
July 24, 2011New review today for From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. I’ve been meaning to get to this one for weeks now and my apologies for the lack of a sample image. Stupid non-functional scanner. I recommend typing “From Hell Eddie Campbell” into the Google image thingie and seeing what you can see, on the off-chance that this book is somehow entirely new to you.
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Posted by Kevin
Moore, Alan & Campbell, Eddie – From Hell
July 24, 2011
From Hell. Christ, talk about a nostalgia overload. I first saw From Hell in any form when I picked up a copy of Taboo #4, which I believe had the third chapter of the story. This was probably in 1993, so this along with the suggestions of Dave Sim led me to hunt down everything I could find from Eddie Campbell (I already knew all about Alan Moore, as Watchmen was one of the books that got me started down this independent comics path). Eventually I picked up a few more issues of Taboo before that publishing company went under, then over the years I successfully managed to get all of the individual issues when they came out for Tundra and Kitchen Sink Press, two more companies that are no longer active. The point of this extended introductory ramble, outside of letting you all in on what this book means to me, is to point that this is the first time I’ve read the book in its collected form. Sure, I read through the comics all in a row once, but that includes all of the letters pages and asides that come with individual issues. Reading this all in a chunk is a revelation. I remembered loving the book, obviously, but it’s only when you have it in a chunk that you can really see all of the tricks that Moore was trying to pull. For those of you who have never heard of small press comics but have somehow hit this review, From Hell is Moore & Campbell’s version of what happened with the Jack the Ripper murders. I say “Moore & Cambpell” because even though Moore is obviously the writer, this book would have been something else entirely under the hands of a different artist. Eddie’s depictions of the steady rains, foreboding shadows and the brutally graphic murder scenes is what I think of even today when somebody mentions Jack the Ripper. If you’re a history buff and think you have a good theory on who committed the murders, might I suggest reading the lengthy appendix with Moore’s notes? These things are meticulous and list his thoughts practically page to page, and they answered every question I had about why he went in certain directions. Most people are content to call it a day after 400+ pages, but Moore instead offers a peek into his writing process that feels like a necessary epilogue instead of a tacked-on filler piece. As for the execution of the story, again the word I would use is “flawless.” The idea that nobody in authority was able to figure out these murders was always a little hard to swallow, so Moore has come up with a more plausible explanation. He’s the first to admit every step of the way that this is all fiction, but he also clearly took the time to learn all of the fine points of the murders and the investigation. If you’re reading along and have noticed that I’m not going into any kind of chapter by chapter analysis, that’s for a reason: this is in my personal top 10 (probably top 5) and I’m thrilled that Top Shelf was nice enough to send along a review copy. Picking it apart piece by piece would take weeks and kill some of my enjoyment of the book, so why bother? It’s an entirely different experience from reading it issue to issue, and it’s also clear that they fixed up a few panels here and there. Oh, and just in case this giant book with a lengthy appendix isn’t enough content, they also included the rare “Dance of the Gull Catchers” story. If you’re a fan of this medium and don’t already have this book on your shelf, the only excuses I can think of are excessive poverty or ignorance. One is more easily rectified than the other, granted, but there are always local libraries that tend to have this on the shelf if all else fails. $35
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/21/11
July 21, 2011New review for Lost Kisses #21 by Brian John Mitchell. I need to scan a batch of new minis, so I may or may not have reviews up tomorrow. Probably, though.
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Posted by Kevin
