April 27, 2010
Listing of books at Fantagraphics
Hey, Wait…
Dylan Horrocks says on the back of the book that this will break your heart, and I can’t think of a better way to describe this. This is the tale of two young children and their adventures in the first part and dealing with adult life in the second part. My stomach still hurts from the end of Part One. You could kind of see it coming, but I really can’t remember a more powerful scene in comics. If you’re like me, you’ve heard good things about this book since it came out. I’ve heard good and bad things, but let me come down firmly in favor of this book. My preorder page for comics had this and his newest book but I only got this one because I hadn’t read his work before, and man do I feel stupid now. This is only $9.95, get it, lock yourself in a room, read it, and think about where you are in your life.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Department of Art Now Available! $6
How was your work day? Did you explore the office at all? Have you ever? This comic takes some preconceived notions of working and office life and makes them do back flips. This comic starts with a seemingly average office worker, hard at it in his cubicle (which is inside of an extensive maze), who is soon interrupted to make sure that he is working hard enough at his art. Hey, at least he gets to make art all day. Along the way he tries to avoid the usual distractions, then eventually has to make his way to the break room. After a brief conversation he takes a smoke break, using an air vent to get some privacy. Once he’s in the air vent he decides to go exploring, and that’s where the fun really starts. This is probably about as misleading of a review as I’ve done, as for all you know from that description this is all about Dilbert. Dunja makes this comic all about the visuals, and the claustrophobic sense of being constantly trapped is palpable. The main character seems to mostly be trying to get by, not particularly looking for adventure, which doesn’t prevent him from getting stuck in awkward situations. This is one of those comics that has to be seen and not so much talked about, and at least this is one of those cases where the website has plenty of various comics to help you make up your mind. $6
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Cat -n- Monkey #1
That monkey has to be one of the more obnoxious characters I’ve ever seen in a comic. This is a simple book about the adventures of a monkey and a cat. The cat hates the monkey, but somehow feels compelled to hang out with it endlessly. As for whether or not it’s worth a look, it’s hard to say and I’m being wishy-washy about it. The first half or so wasn’t that great, but I still wanted to kill that monkey and that must count for something. Alan seemed to find his stride a little bit in the second half. A funny part here, a funny part there, it got a lot better. And there is something to be said for the simplistic and crappy art. Just to clarify here, I don’t mean “crappy” in a bad sense, if that’s possible. It’s obviously intentionally pretty basic and it works well for what he’s doing here. Ah, e-mail him to throw him a couple of bucks and find out for yourself. It at least provokes a strong reaction…
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Pyromania #2
I’ll admit it, I am occasionally won over by the cover to a mini alone. It doesn’t necessarily save a crappy book, but it’s usually enough to save a book where I’m wavering. This is a collection of odds and ends but it’s all new to me, and that’s all that matters for these rambles. First up is a short silent piece about a curious young man (John?) wandering around outside and looking at the stars. Yes, I do in fact always miss some of the subtleties of the silent pieces. Next up is a great piece about John trying to find his way in California, where the kids were divided up between skaters and surfers (John was neither). He goes through plenty of other phases, trying to make his own way in the world, until eventually he goes to college in Ohio and finds that people are back to asking him if he’s a skater or a surfer because he is, after all, from California. It turns out (spoiler alert!) that he’s still a work in progress, as are we all. John goes on to tell the story of how he almost burned down the school making special order sweatshirts, as one of them got caught up in dryer and it was too far in to get out. He built up a nice sense of impending doom, even if the story did start out with you already knowing what happened. Next up is a shortie about the process of making t-shirts put to lyrics and, even though I’m not generally a fan of this type of story, this is how it should be done, with the main action taking place and the lyrics complimenting the action. Finally there are a few one page stories called “Susie the Potato Theif” and seriously, if you’re going to take the time to make a recurring character, PLEASE take that extra step to make sure the damned thing is spelled correctly. Curmudgeonly reviewers like me tend to get seriously annoyed at such an easily corrected mistake. The stories themselves are fun, as they detail the mayhem causes while stealing potatoes, and who can’t get behind that? It’s still a pretty good comic even with that stupid mistake, and this is from 2005 so it stands to reason that the man has only gotten better since this. That website linked above has plenty of comical goodness and also links to his other websites, so if you’re at all curious about the guy you have plenty of places to go. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Ultimate Peanuts
Have you ever wondered what the Peanuts gang would look like when they were all grown up and strung out on drugs? Well, look no further than this delightful comic. Also, if you’re one of the people who think that the Peanuts characters are sacred and shouldn’t be made fun of past a quick joke here and there, run for your lives? Charlie Brown is a pothead, Snoopy is near death and dreams of being Hitler, Patty and Marcie are lesbians, Pigpen is a drug dealer with a creepy obsession with porn and snuff films, Linus is retarded after a tragic tractor accident when he was sleeping in the pumpkin patch, and Schroeder is the gay lead singer in a goth band. You’re either going to love this or hate it, plain and simple. I thought it had quite a few funny parts, which is all you can ask for from a parody, and it’s free. It looks like you can either find Ian at a con and ask for a copy or send him an e-mail and see what happens…
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Media Play #1 (with Tavi Luxveraldi)
I do love the webcomics. Well, not really, as I rarely visit them online, but it does make it easier for the purposes of review to say “Don’t believe me? Well, why not click on the website and check them out!” Makes me almost useless, to be honest, which is fine by me. All that being said, I didn’t think much of any of these strips. They’re all about one page long, and I’m guessing they’re all on that website up there. And they mostly have spelling errors, too/to problems or any of a number of things that drive me crazy. Come on, look at that cover. This looks like a professional operation. Then you open the damned thing up and it’s a mess. Strips in here are about gaming (computer and dice varieties), Helen Keller, and a lot of Star Wars stuff. Oh, and at least a few strips that don’t make the slightest bit of sense, but not in a good way. Like I said, check it out for yourself. It’s possible that I’ve finally reached my tolerance level for mediocre stuff. Some of the artwork here is great, don’t get me wrong, and there might be great stuff still coming from these people in the future. This, however, is not that great stuff. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Vogelein #1
For whatever it’s worth, I was very pessimistic about this book and ended up liking it quite a bit. I flipped through the book a few months ago and saw rain, a sad fairy and more rain and figured that it was just another goth comic about elves or something. What saves certain books from that purgatory is originality of thought and execution, and this book has plenty of that. It is about a fairy, of sorts, but it’s about a clockwork fairy that was made hundreds of years ago and passed on to Guardians for generations. She needs to be wound to live, you see, so she can’t ever wander off on her own for long. The book starts off with Vogelein’s Guardian dying suddenly in his sleep, leaving her no one to look after her. It’s #1 of a five issue series that was already completed when it was originally published, so I feel kind of silly only talking about the first issue. Still, it’s all I have to work with, so bear with me. The art is gorgeous, as she says she’s not very good at inking, so has decided to paint everything. It would probably look incredible in color, but I’m guessing she’s not independently wealthy. This issue shows a lot of potential. Where it goes from here is anybody’s guess, but I’m definitely curious to find out. You might even like this if fantasy isn’t really your thing, as it’s all set in the real world. Check out the website, for all I know she’s already taken over the world. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Savage Daisies #6
Another one from the long list of people who were recommended to me ages ago, it’s great to see that Jesse fully lives up to expectations. Most of this mini is his interpretation of the Snow White fairy tale, and it’s one of the better adaptations that I’ve seen. The first part is available here, the whole thing (which looks huge) is available online at Modern Tales, along with stories from all kinds of small press folks. The good news is that there’s a ton of stuff there, the bad news is that it isn’t free. Still, most people can handle $2.95 a month, right? There are also a couple of shorter stories in this mini (one a hilarious “how to” about mini comics and another about meeting aliens) that work as well as the larger story. Frankly, I don’t know why I hadn’t heard more about this guy before this. It’s a funny, expertly done book and his name should be right up there at the start of conversations about the best of the small press. It may seem odd for me to say this after only seeing one book, but this book is flawless. Even if his older stuff is worse than this, unless he got a brain transplant or something, it’s bound to be at least entertaining. Check out his website, even though it doesn’t look like it’s been updated in a while and it has really crappy background music.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Satyr #1
That’s one good thing about picking up comics from three years ago at a convention: if you like it, chances are that there are plenty of newer issues with which to feed your habit. Judging from the website, there’s at least a whole graphic novel (of the first four issues and a new story) out there, so that leaves plenty more to look forward to. What about the comic? Oh yeah. This is heavily based in mythology, and most of this issue is the retelling of the The Cyclops story by Euripides. I love the panel layout, with the satyrs holding up panels, jumping in to interfere when they feel like it and just causing a general feeling of mayhem. The ongoing story here is that Dionysus has come back to life for 24 hours but is captured almost immediately. Nothing really happens with it in this issue, just a general meeting to decide what to do about it. I only brought that up in case you got the idea that this was just a string of retelling myths. Um, anyway, good first issue, and the fact that he kept going and has a library sitting there now is a very good sign. Here’s that website again, this one is $2.95.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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The House
You know, I liked this book a whole lot better before the last page. Here’s your list of descriptive words: creepy, gothic, disturbing, surreal, haunting. How’s that? It’s a skewed retelling of Little Red Riding Hood and I’m not going to give away any more than that, even though that’s exactly what the author does on the last page. In stories like this, where it’s the case of a traditional fairy tale being retold, you can get away with a lot that doesn’t have to be explained. Up until that last page I was fairly perplexed and was about to start reading it again just to try and get a better understanding of it, then he spelled everything out. I kind of like having the ability to fill in the blanks in stories like this for myself, or at least I do when the author spends the rest of the book making me figure out everything for myself. That being said, there’s still plenty of stuff that I’m mulling over about it right now, so it’s not like it’s terrible by any stretch of the imagination. My personal preference is that I would have liked it better without a tacked-on explanation at the end. Still, the art is good (reminds me of Charles Vess and Barry Windsor-Smith) and I’d love to see anything else this guy has done. E-mail him to see what else he has laying around.
Chris Staros over at Top Shelf told me that although the Mini Burger set isn’t available on the web page, you can still order it through their online catalog. Just go to the ordering page, click on #4 at the bottom (additional comments) and write in that you want the Mini Burger set for $19.95. They have it in stock, they just haven’t updated the site in a while. From what I’ve read, it’s worth it. There might be two bad ones in this bunch and a couple of mediocre ones, but the good ones are good in ways that you don’t usually see in this country.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Vermin
The intro comic to this book has a character saying “This way… to contrived bullshit without context”. While Brian is being a little too hard on himself, that is a more or less accurate description of his comics. This is a collection of a dozen strips covering a wide variety of subjects, often not making a whole lot of sense. I was hoping that his website or his blog would have more examples of his comics, but could only find one strip on his main page. An archive of some sort would have been helpful, but I’ll just stick to commenting on the stuff in the actual comic instead. There’s the combination of pussy and pastrami, fun with rhyming, the merits of a threesome versus a foursome, images of homosexual penguins, a conversation-stopper of an answer to the question “Where do you see yourself in five years?”, and being robbed of manliness. These strips fall more into the category of headscratchers than being laugh out loud funny (except for the pussy/pastrami joke and the comic on the cover), but everything is gorgeous and that’s a ton of variety for 12 strips. Maybe if you dig around his website more than I did you can find more samples, as I didn’t see this book for sale anywhere. I’m sure if you contact him he’ll find a copy, and he also mentions on his site that he’s willing to draw anything for anyone. Any rich people out there willing to test him out? No price, so I’ll randomly call it $2.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Comics on Fire #1
Three cheers for short, funny comics! Well, mostly funny anyway. This is Paul’s first comic and it’s a series of unconnected strips and gags that end up being a pretty funny comic. Stories in here involve a sentient robot searching for alien life, a goldfish searching for food in the vastness of his bowl, a head on a skateboard, a yeti (?), cat adventures (with comically cute eyeballs), watch-face funnies (it’s just what it sounds like), the utter confusion of a robot zombie, and various gag strips. He also has a few bigger pieces (OK, more panels) on understanding body language, a listing of his physical ailments, and actual responses to the question “What’s your greatest fear?”. Sure, a couple of the gags fall flat, but this is a damned funny book, even funnier when you remember that this is Paul’s first comic. Worth a look, and this man may have some serious funny in him in the future. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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All in a Day’s Work
24 hour comics are a real mixed bag. Sure, it’s an interesting idea, and a great exercise for cartoonists, but it can be ugly. One thing that could really fix this problem (I don’t know if this is legal with the guidelines) would be to at least go over the lettering and clear it up a little bit when the comic is done. It looked like all the lettering was done with about 2 minutes left in the 24 hours. I know it’s kind of supposed to look rushed, but it would be nice to be able to read it. The story here is pretty simple. A young boy is trying to get a cheerleader at school to notice him without success and later sees an ad on television to make his dreams come true. A neat little story, I’m guessing that his art is a little better than this when he’s not under a self-imposed deadline, which goes back to that whole “mixed bag” thing. Worth a look, although you might be a little better off checking around to see what else he has available that wasn’t so rushed. Go to this great website, there’s all kinds of cartoonists there that I hadn’t heard of.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Pigeon Toad #1
Who likes poo? Or at least stories and/or funnies about poo? If the answer isn’t you, it might be in your best interests not to pick this one up. Of course, if you did that, just flat out skipped this comic, you would miss other delightful stories that have nothing (or very little) to do with poo. Like what, you ask? How about a discussion about the meaning of cool, what cool things are, and how you should really start using the word “cool” on a more regular basis? Or the story of a lonely frog, who waited and waited for something to eat, only to come to a (spoiler alert!) tragic end? Or the two pages dedicated to short gags, one of which made no sense at all (the bird got its leg blown off, but I don’t know why), one of which was so bad it was good purely for the punch line, and a couple of which fell squarely in the category of “something to chuckle about later with no prompting, causing the people next to you to wonder if you’re crazy”. Then you get into the poo, with an ode to refuse from a fly and a verbal beatdown of a dump roach by a turd. I loved it, what can I say? This is apparently Gubba’s first comic effort, to which I can only say: more please. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Thomas Wogan is Dead
You know what’s still woefully underrepresented on this website? Comics from countries other than the US. Granted, that’s due to the fact that I haven’t been able to travel outside the country for years and the most reliable way to get comics to review is to buy them myself, but I’d love to balance the scales a bit. This one comes from the UK (no address given, so that’s as far as I’m able to narrow it down) and is at least mildly brilliant. Thomas Wogan wakes up to find himself in a stark white waiting room, holding a number (which is in line to come up on an LCD screen in the room), with a pigeon, sea urchin, frog, bat, catfish and egg. Thomas quickly discovers that he is dead, and all the creatures tell the story of their death, except for the egg, as what does an egg have to say? As far as the story goes, granted, a bunch of creatures locked in a room without any answers isn’t the most original take on the idea, but this book shines in the tales of their deaths. There’s a last grand stand against encroaching capitalism, distracting a predator from attacking their family with their life, the more common ways that creatures die as a matter of course, and then there’s Thomas. You can probably guess from the cover that he’s not the most adventurous sort, and the day of his death ended up being the best day of his life, but I’ve spoiled more than enough about this comic. It’s a blast, although the muted kind of blast that comes with being all about the inevitability of death. What with dollar being worth what it is these days, this is probably $3, but a hefty thing for a mini comic.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
The Rumbling Underneath
Yet another totally random purchase with no idea what I was getting myself in for. I liked the story in this one. A wandering, aimless man in a big city. His girlfriend supports him but he insists on keeping his job, and still he has much more time than he knows what to do with. The art wasn’t great… certain panels looked like they were drawn a couple of years ago or in a hurry. I don’t know, a few more minis and more time spent on the issues and he might have something. It’s an interesting story, he’s just not there yet.
Jeff Guarino PO Box 2059 Huntington Beach CA 92647
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Second Guess
Yes, it really (more or less) does have two covers. See, the wolves are actually on a slipcase that goes over the picture of the sheep. It also gives away the ingenious twist in this story, if you can read between the lines. Most of this comic is about a sheep who sees a wolf sneak in while wearing the skin of a sheep, kill his mother and then get shot. The sheep, in shock, decides to take his (her?) revenge. It’s a silent story so it’s a quick read, but it was completely entertaining all the way through. That and kudos to the guy for being able to draw such realistic animals, as most small press artists that I’ve seen seem to have a lot of trouble pulling that off. After that there’s a short story about the proper etiquette of removing a piece of food from between your teeth in a public setting and some sketchbook pages. The price is a bit steep at $6 but this is a gorgeous book, which makes it a bit easier to swallow. Check out his website to see for yourself, but I thoroughly enjoyed this comic.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Problems With Solutions #2
Dammit! Here I am, all set to start off the new year (2008, in case you’re reading this years from now) blasting away at mediocrity instead of being so wishy-washy, and the first comic I pick up out of my pile has a set excuse for being so-so: this is a continuation of the first issue of the series, which I haven’t seen, and these piece are “B-sides” from that issue. So there are instantly lowered expectations and not much of a standard to strive for. Oh well, better luck tomorrow. If the first issue has the best of these stories, then this could be a worthy companion piece. If they’re all like this, it’s a fairly mediocre comic. Stories in here include Ian working in class, getting a grade back on a Shakespeare paper, watching a friend play Mario 3, bemoaning the state of free radio, chatting with friends, “dressing up” for Halloween, and a long, extended story at the end about the general state of voter apathy. I’m ignoring the stories that are just long walks with song lyrics as text because dude, that’s cheating. Like I said, it’s OK overall, the art is a little sloppy but decent and the lettering could use some work, but as a collection of B-sides it works. Of course, the fact that the website hasn’t been updated since right around when this comic came out isn’t a good sign… $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Pacho Clokey
Wow. I was starting to think that all these Robot Publishing books were going to stay right around the mediocre to good level, and this one blew the rest of them away. It’s a critical analysis of the late work of a dead cartoonist. Using rough pencil sketches and dialogue that was probably just temporary, Nate deconstructs this guy and the main character, Pacho Clokey. The only problem with that is that I’m pretty sure that this Cesar Spinoza guy (the creator of Pacho Clokey) is fictional, which makes this comic all the more fascinating. Looked at from that perspective, it gives a lot of the older, stereotypical comics a haunting self-awareness of what happens to them in any given week and the futility of struggling against it. A unique and fascinating work. I have no idea where this guy is (no contact info in the book), but you can order it for a couple of bucks from the fine folks at Top Shelf.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Are We Having Fun Yet?
I’ve never been able to articulate my thoughts about Zippy, which probably explains why I’m just now putting this stuff up on the page when I’ve had it since I started. Here goes: I like the stuff, really I do. It’s just… it’s the kind of thing that I like a lot more in theory than I do in practice. Kind of like that horrible new movie with Sean Penn playing the retarded guy. I want to believe that all he needs is love to raise his daughter, but I know that he’s retarded and all the heart-wrenching music in the world won’t change the fact that he’s incapable of it. Maybe that’s a bad analogy… Anyway, this is still one of the best daily strips running, if you can find it anywhere. It is, for reasons unknown, something that I don’t pick up when I see it sitting there in a comic store, and I don’t order it when I see it on the preorder page. The couple of things I have were purchased on incredibly cheap deals, otherwise I wouldn’t have any at all. What this says to me is that, no matter how much I protest to the contrary, I just don’t like it all that much. I liked his old Griffith Observatory stuff a lot, and there are a lot of genuinely funny things in here, don’t get me wrong. It’s just always left me kind of cold. I know I’m in the extreme minority on this one, so go on without me. Here’s his webpage, where you can find all kinds of samples and various other Zippy-related things. This book has Zippy turn into a beatnik, carve Jack Palance into Mount Rushmore, and talk to Ernie Bushmiller (the guy who started Nancy). You know, I wonder if I would have had the same opinion about this guy if Fox had approached him years ago instead of Matt Groening. I don’t know why I say bad things about this guy. Reading his stuff has obviously set my brain in a different direction that it usually goes…
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Posted by Kevin
