April 23, 2010
Website for the Kitty Litter comic
Kitty Litter #1
Why on Earth is this #1 when it seemed like the other one would be a #1, especially when the other comic they sent me is #3? Who knows? Better yet, who cares? Just another minor thing that I noticed, but there’s no big continuing story here, so it doesn’t make a bit of difference. What’s this one about? Well, you have more mayhem with the cat, of course, this time when she runs out of milk. She knows where milk comes from (refridgerators, of course), so she has to go out and make a machine that will bring the machines to her. Not as much fun as the robots running amok, but then, that’s a pretty high bar to set right off the bat. You do get to see refridgerators flying through roofs, so it’s hard to find too much to complain about here. $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website for the Kitty Litter comic
Kitty Litter #2 Now Available! $1.00
Getting a new comic from these two pretty much always makes my week, so you can imagine my elation at seeing TWO new books. The other one will be up here later, of course, but how about this one? Well, have you ever wondered what would happen if your cat got really bored one day while you were at work and decided to make a machine that produced robots to take care of every single thing in your life? Of course you have, we all have. Well, Ryan and Nathan decided to let us all live that dream for the span of this short mini. You’ve probably already guessed that things didn’t end well with the robots, but I’ll say no more to avoid ruining the finer points of the story. And, as a little bonus, there’s a terrifically gruesome little anecdote in the back of the book about nature. Sort of. $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website for the Kitty Litter comic
Raise the Dead
Can you ever go wrong with zombies? I don’t think so. This is a short one and it further convinces me that these guys have their collective act together. The premise is simple: Nathan and Ryan are making enough noise playing Resident Evil that the Mom is yelling at them that they’ll “wake the dead”. Sure enough, zombies come to the door and a very brief conversation and struggle ensue. Hilarious stuff, and who knew that zombies could be adorable? $.75 is all you have to pay for this and it’s worth every penny. Contact info is up yonder…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website for the Kitty Litter comic
Slackmatic #5
OK, it has to be said: #5 is a lot duller than their other comics that I’ve read. Not that that’s a horrible thing, and everything else I’ve read from them has either had zombies getting chopped up or someone losing an eye, but this is a relatively quiet comic. The bulk of it is about their trip to SPACE last year, rancid gas station bathrooms and all. Then you have a series of one page strips about stapling, magnets, killings worms, pterodactyls, monsters, werewolves and puking cats. Pretty good stuff all around, don’t get me wrong, I was just expecting more gratuitous violence. Damn you Ryan and Nathan for growing as artists! Or maybe just unconsciously toning it down for an issue. How should I know? Contact info is up there, it’s a measly buck, you cheapskates!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website for the Kitty Litter comic
Slackmatic #4
You just can’t beat fun comics. This series is already at #4, and this is where my “sampler” approach at cons hurts me. I can only afford to get one or two issues from everybody (even that’s pushing it), unless they are one of the few people who know who I am and want to give me free stuff. That works great when I don’t like the comic, but when something is as thoroughly entertaining as this, it’s disappointing that I didn’t get more. Anyway, this one is about their trip to a con. It’s been done, I know, but it’s always funny when it’s done well. That and the rant on the first page about porn is worth the price of admission. Once they’re at the actual con nobody goes to their table, so they decide to start working on the next issue of their comic. The artist (Ryan) shakes his pen because it won’t work, it slips out of his hand and into someone’s eye, and hilarity ensues. Meanwhile, the writer (Nathan, but they both write it) comes across a creepy man selling anime porn and gets some Sailor Moon stuff. Hey, hillbillies and eye gougings are always funny, so there’s a lot to laugh at here. Three cheers for them getting to #4, keep it up together as I don’t think this would work as well without both of them doing it. Go to the website, see what you can see…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website for the Kitty Litter comic
Slackmatic #3
I stumbled across this older issue at SPACE this year (2004), so I’m guessing it’s still available. It’s tiny (that cover is actual size) and it’s all about them buying an evil DVD player from the mad scientist down the street. Why is it evil? Well, from what I can tell, it’s because it doesn’t play anything. I don’t know what it is about these two, but I really like everything I’ve seen. They’re just so obviously having a blast doing these comics that it’s hard not to get sucked in. Like I said, this is tiny, so I’m guessing this is around $1, and everybody should get a few comics from these guys if you have a sense of humor. Contact info is down there!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website for the Kitty Litter comic
Slackmatic #1 Now Available! $4.95
If I wanted to keep everything on this website all neat and technically accurate I’d put this below the other Slackmatics, as it came out later and actually includes most (if not all) of Slackmatic #3 and 4. But who cares about stuff like that? If anybody who’s a big fan of theirs can’t tell that this fancypants, comic sized edition is different from the long out of print mini comic version of the original Slackmatic #1, well, it’s their loss. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a big excuse to reprint a lot of their old stuff in a better format just because they put some of their best work in here, as the first half of this is all new material. Like what? Glad you asked. There’s a big story to start things off here where the two of them finally have a bloody battle while trying to come up with a comic story. Hey, it’s been a long time coming. Next is a wonderfully paranoid story about a car parked outside of the post office. Why has it been there so long? Why is it rocking? Finally there’s the story depicted on the cover, dealing with a slime monster from outer space. Yes, it is just as adorable as it looks from the cover. As for the second half of the book, check out the reviews below this one, as everything you need to know about them are in there. Kudos to these guys getting the full size treatment, the experience is much like the one you get when watching a great movie on a giant screen tv for the first time. Sure, it’s still good on your crappy, tiny tv at home… but wow, that difference is huge. Also, I don’t know how they do it, but these two remain just about the only creators out there who can screw up “your” and “you’re”without consistently getting on my nerves. Must have something to do with the fact that their stories are consistenly hilarious…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Awakenings #2
You know what’s good to have on the inside front cover of an ongoing series that takes about a year (I could be wrong on that, but a while at least) between issues? A synopsis of what came before it. Don’t get me wrong, I remember bits of it and I always have my old review to reference, but why not spend a few sentences? It might even help clear up a few things that are murky from the original issue. Just a suggestion. Anyway, the story continues here. No werewolves this time, and it was honestly difficult to keep track of everything with the flashbacks mixed in with the current footage. Combine that with my poor memory and I spent most of the issue just trying to keep up. The art is tremendous, the dialogue is crisp and realistic. I guess my biggest concern is that this seems like something that is going to be tough to take in episodic doses. Maybe I’m being too pessimistic, and it’ll be a lot clearer by issue #5 or so. Time will tell, as those fortune cookies say. Contact info is up there, it does seem like a fascinating storyline, although I’d say that you should buy the issues in chunks. $2.99
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Awakenings #1
How much can you tell from the first issue of a series anyway? Well, usually only negative things. Sure, the art or the writing could blow you away, but how much of that is due to the fact that this first issue took the creative team three years to complete? On the other hand, if the art stinks and the writing is sophomoric, chances are it’s not going to get a whole lot better. Or is it? Maybe the first issue is just working the bugs out. Do you see my dilemma here? I liked this book. It’s the story of a man who may or may not have killed his son. He’s in jail for the crime and everything is told through flashbacks mixed in with ongoing events. Oh, and I think there are werewolves wandering around. How is all this going to come together? No idea in the world, which is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Still, this issue is good enough to get me excited about the prospect of a #2, which is about all you can ask for. Here’s an e-mail address, this is $2.99.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Florence of Arabia #2
Ever read one of those comics where you just don’t have any idea what to think about it until it’s over? This is one of those. Not individually, though. The two issues Eli sent me were short but interesting, it’s just that he’s heading towards a conclusion and it’s not here yet, leaving my opinion about the whole thing in limbo. I like what I’ve seen. A disembodied head, a snail disguised as a camel and a naked scientist from the future all lead up to, at the very least, an interesting story.His art is what they call “easy on the eyes” as well. Kind of resembles Scott Mills, if I had to pick anybody, but more layered and complex. Not to be putting down Scott or anything… Anyway, these (this and #1) are worth a look, but you might want to wait until the whole thing is done so you can tell just what the hell is going on… Contact info is above, in case you’ve never seen my page before.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
The Therapist
A great wordless mini about couples going into therapy, with a revolutionary technique to get couples to stay together. It’s a good idea and he does a good job of it with this, and you can’t ask for much more than that. Oh yeah, if you don’t want to use your computer to get these, you can always write the guy at: P.O. Box 420596 San Francisco, CA 94142-0596.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
An Inside Job #3
Formerly known as Eli Bishop, he will now foverer be known as Hob on this website, only a few years after everybody else has already been calling him Hob. That’s this website, always with the up to the minute info. Anyway, it’s been far too long since there’s been a new issue on An Inside Job, and the whole genre of dream comics seems to have mostly faded away, or at least faded from the comics I seem to be reading. Themes in here include death, zombification, werewolves, failure, flirting, scandal, mystery, murder (eventually), a squat-boy. a survival game, and the ever-popular peeing in your sleep. Of course, picking just the theme of the little stories tells you a tiny bit, but there’s so much more to be gained from reading them as a whole. If you asked me what it was I’d run screaming from the room rather than try to nail it down, but trust me on this one. $4
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
An Inside Job #2
Sometimes, in my paranoid moments before I fall asleep at night, I think that Eli only sends me his comics to prove how crappy my scanner is. I can fiddle with that thing as much as I want and I still can’t do his comics justice. Anyway, it’s another interesting dream comic. Feel free to buy it and psychoanalyze to your heart’s content, I know how bizarre my dreams are and prefer not to start that sort of thing for fear that people will ask me what I dream about. Things in the dreams include broken legs, pot, sex, snowballs, Senators, and urination. Go to his website and send him a couple of bucks, OK?
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
An Inside Job #1
Eli wonders on his website whether or not the world needs another comic about dreams, and for good reason. I thought they were kind of rare until I started seeing minis all over the place that were all about dreams. Luckily it doesn’t matter because the world can always use another good comic, and he’s managed to pull that off. There are a half dozen dreams in this little book and he manages to make it feel surreal, which is pretty necessary for this type of thing. Is it odd that we’ve both dreamt of “fly-seats” though (flying seat cushions)? Maybe it’s more normal than I thought. Anyway, this one is a couple of bucks and it’s well worth checking out. Look at his website for samples and a fantastic links page, among other things. By the way, his comic doesn’t really have a rainbow colored border, it’s just plain grey. But for some reason my scanner thought it looked like a rainbow and I thought it was pretty cool, so here you go.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
One of the Johns Preview
You know when preview editions are great? When they have at least a few new things that, even once the actual issue comes out that you’re previewing, will still be unique. Or maybe they’re just crap that’s left over from unfinished comics, but if I’ve never seen them they’re new to me! In here you have a story about another Pixies song (Gigantic), the aforementioned preview of One of the Johns and a story about the two title characters beating the crap out of everybody at an emo show. In the title story a couple of punk rock kids pick their nose, beat up an old lady and talk to the town drunk. If that sounds boring I’m just telling it wrong. It was pretty great stuff all the way through, as it’s hard for me to choose between a story about a Pixies song and a crowd of motionless emo kids getting the crap kicked out of them. Not that I have anything against emo in theory, I guess. Anyway, it’s $3, contact info is up there and you should be reading whatever you can find from this guy on a regular basis. Oh, and here’s a website.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Headache
What a great comic. It seems like the “collection of short stories” style of comic is getting harder to find these days, or maybe I’m just getting a bunch of single theme comics these days. Whatever the case, this is a bunch of short, mostly autobiographical pieces from a guy who’s currently in school studying sequential art, so any hint of the amateurism (misspellings, bad grammar, sloppy art) that creeps into so many minis is missing here. The comic starts with an incredibly disturbing story about a walk in the woods, and my only piece of advice about that is maybe it should have been at the back of the book, but apparently that’s the mood Jonathon wanted to start the comic off with. Then you have a story about making a mix tape, which might seem like the kind of thing that’s been in almost every mini, and it’s sure been in a lot of them, but the ending makes it all worthwhile. Then there’s a story about a one night stand and all of the fallout, which is interesting if a bit self-indulgent, but hey, it autobio, right? Kind of silly to dock points for being a bit self-indulgent. Next up are a couple of shorts about a ring and a headache, respectively, with one telling the story mostlty in text and the other being a silent piece about an exploding head. Sort of. Last is a story about a man in jail and his lover on the outside, inspired by a Pixies song, and the fact that I can’t think of which song it’s been inspired by (even though I remember some of the lines) is driving me nuts. Good stuff all around, I don’t know what Jonathon is going to do with that degree in sequential art, when he gets it, but the classes are doing tons to solidify his grasp of the basics (unless he was a genius when he started or something), so here’s hoping he stays in school! Here’s an e-mail address and a website, this is $3.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Coyote Buckley’s Wild West
Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven forever changed my opinion of all things Western, but I still get a bit leery when I see a comic with a Western theme. I’m always afraid that it’ll be a silly, cowboys and Indians kind of thing. It’s great to see something like this that proves me wrong. The story here is simple. A cowboy nicknamed Coyote Buckley, angry at what he sees as the relentless forcing of “progress” down his throat, decides that he’s going to convince the country that the values of the Wild West are what’s important. He holds a contest to see who is the most skilled at various cowboy-related things for the sake of touring the country, and that’s the bulk of the issue. The art’s simple and clean, the writing is suited for all ages without being noticeably dumbed-down for adult readers, and it’s a fast-paced, interesting story. Good work all around. My only minor complaint is that some of it seems a bit too simple at times, but it’s only minor bits of dialogue here and there. The whole picture is interesting though, and I’m curious to see where it goes from here, which is all you can ask of from something like this. Contact the writer or the artist, or check out the website for ordering information (it’s $3).
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
The Fifty Flip Experiment #9
Damn, and this one got off to such a good start. This comic starts off with a funny strip (sampled, you can make up your own minds), then a mildly funny strip about the nature of art and pretension, then things went off the rails. See, if you’re going to have one long story in a comic that’s usually about short funny pieces, it really has to be able to hold your attention, and this one just went on and on and on… and even promises that it’ll be continued in the next issue! Blech. What’s so awful? It’s really not that bad of an idea for a strip, and you can tell the theme for the cover. Things start with it being a parody of an infomercial, with everybody over-excited to be drinking tears and wondering where they come from.  Then it goes on to give rejected criers, uses for the tears and a reaction from an art snob. Unless he’s planning on making this into a continuing story and somehow manages to make it funny and interesting again after running it into the ground, it’s safe to say I’m skipping #10. Not that the whole issue is a wash, there are still four single page strips after the long piece, but it’s not enough to save the comic. Check out some of the other issues for some genuine funny, but unless your sense of humor is entirely different from mine (that’s entirely possible), skip this one. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
The Fifty Flip Experiment #6
Here’s a note for aspiring cartoonists everywhere: if the character on your cover can touch the inside of his wrist with his index finger, you might still need a little work drawing hands. I’m crapping on this to start the review because there’s plenty here to like, so why not get the bad stuff out of the way first? Dan is doing a bimonthly comic (he’s up to #9), is engaging the local comics community of Champaign-Urbana Illinois to help out with various panels and gags, and has an excellent sense of humor. The trouble is that it’s absurdist humor, and that sort of thing takes some work before a person is going to get it down. He lists Tim & Eric as an influence and they’re damned near brilliant, so that’s a good place to start, but this issue is uneven at best. Future issues look more coherent (he samples 2/3 of every issue on his website), which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your perspective. I tend to subscribe to the Picasso theory of comics: learn everything there is to learn, then feel free to fuck around with the concepts. So, by that theory, if later issues are more coherent, once he gets the hang of that he’ll have a better grasp of the absurd. So what’s in the actual comic? There’s the man on the cover getting into a philosophical discussion with a hobo, an anime joke (I think) that is lost on me, a hilarious bit with snakes getting their own parachutes, how to interpret a sneeze, the inspired mundaneness of Yelena, a philosophical discussion in an asylum, dead Zorro, the memory of elephants, clown sex, air guitar and a hill of beans. Some of the pages are sideways (these are the ones that always seem to be “too busy” and look fainter than the others for some reason) and some of the jokes go nowhere at all, but the funny bits still make this worthwhile for a buck, and for the sake of supporting someone who seems committed to sticking to a schedule. Good behavior like that should be rewarded. Oh, and an early contender for the non-existent “title of the year” category would have to go to “Slice of Life Strips are Very Lazy”. $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
That Poison Bunnie
Who likes funny? And all sorts of mayhem and gore, of course? If it’s you, chances are you’ll like this issue. If you like your humor a little more highbrow, move along please. This is a series of mostly single panel comics about Bunnie (either a poison or a zombie bunny), Smokey (a lit cigarette) and Bear. Bear is the center of most of the stories, as well as the one who causes most of the mayhem. In here you have stories about zombies, a day in the life of Bear, and more three panel comics than you can shake that proverbial stick at. Also a whole bunch of random violence, usually placed for maximum comedic effect. And, as you probably know, random violence is almost always funny unless it’s happening to you. It’s a hodge podge of shorties, so there’s no sense in getting every little nook and cranny, but it’s worth a look if you like this sort of thing, and you should get a good idea from the sample down there. Oh, and there are the usual stupid errors (“their” instead of “they’re”), but only a few and they didn’t bother me this time around. Could it be that I’ve finally mellowed out over that particular bit of stupidity? I hope not. Anyway, this is a buck or two, and you can find out a whole lot more at that website.
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Posted by Kevin
