April 26, 2010
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Zod #6
Tell you what: just scroll down and read the reviews for #7 and 8 of this series. I loved them both, thought they were everything a comic like this should be, and when my main complaint about something is that it verged on being too adorable, well, that’s not much of a problem at all, is it? This issue, on the other hand, is a dream of (I believe) Lloyd, as he imagines a young man seeing a cute girl walking around, then again at a coffee shop later in the day. It’s still adorable, but this one manages to cross over that line into being obnoxiously cute. Or at least it is for somebody as bitter as me in that regard, but I think it may be universal. Luckily this marked the end of this “storyline” and 7 and 8 started something much bigger and better, so let’s just sweep this one under the rug and pretend that it never happened, OK? It’s not like it’s the worst thing in the world or anything, but later issues made me expect too much out of this earlier work. That probably doesn’t make much sense, but there you have it. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Website for Crocodile Man
Everyone Laughs at the Crocodile Man Book 1
At last! A book with nothing but the Crocodile Man. Where does he come from, where does he live, how does he get to work in the morning? And why doesn’t he go on a rampage and kill everybody in his office� OK, some of those questions remain things in my brain and unanswered in the comics world, but others are answered here. We get to see Crocodile Man’s roommate, the general confusion he strikes into the hearts of people at the bus stop, and what exactly he’s drinking when he’s sitting at the bar. Yes, it is as disgusting as you think it is. Seriously, kudos to Steve for putting this thing together. I like most of his stories in 30 Eggs just fine, but I think the world was ready for a concentrated dose of Croc. And did I mention that it’s all in color? No price on this, but let’s say $3, and everyone who likes funny should have a good time with this.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Website for Crocodile Man
Nobody Can Eat 50 Eggs #32
I call foul! If you’re going to have one of the better zombie covers that I’ve seen in all my years of reading zombie comics, you at least to have more than a panel covering said zombies. Oh well, the fact that the zombies wrap around to the back cover makes up for it. Here’s another solid issue from Steve, even if it seemed oddly lacking compared to some past issues. Let’s go through this and try to figure out why that is, shall we? It starts and ends, as it has for a little while now, with a strip about Crocodile Man, and he seems to actually be keeping a story going with the guy. Crocodile Man overhears a coworker bragging about his alligator shoes. This leads to a fairly brutal death for the guy, and that carries over to the strip at the end. Also in here you have the origin of the famous art-eest (who legally changed his name), a survival guide to monkey world domination, an angry mouse, cheating rhinos, warning signs your neighbor is a terrorist, man boobs, Colonel MacTagart, a guide to lame monsters (which is where the vegetarian zombies come into the picture), rise of the machine, and wacky whackers. The Colonel MacTagart stories just don’t do a thing for me, but everything else in there was either moderately amusing or hilarious, so maybe he just set the bar too high by being funny on all his other books. Mostly great stuff, and that wraparound cover is worth the price by itself. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Website for Crocodile Man
Nobody Can Eat 50 Eggs #31
The haphazard reviewing of these issues continues, but in the grand scheme of things all these numerical holes will be filled anyway, so why be all neurotic about it now? This is another issue that’s almost all comics (except for a delightful text piece about how to catch a Bigfoot), which is great news to me, as his art is pretty damned good when it’s not trapped in a rushed, journal comic format. The story running through this issue in small chunks is Lizard Love, dealing with two roommates learning to love their new pet lizard. It helps that the reluctant roommate runs into a pretty girl outside walking her lizard, but this story is as close as I’ve seen this series get yet to sweet. Also here in here are comics about the thoughts of goons, the obvious fact that your boss is a creepy alien who secretly eats people, an angry rhino in couple’s therapy, cavemen inventions, a snooty artist trying to pay for coffee with a sketch, Crocodile Man drinking and signing a birthday card at work, and a mostly useless piece with a couple of explorers that is saved by the wonderfulness of their moustaches. Good stuff again, and the sheer consistency with which these issues are released continues to impress me. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Website for Crocodile Man
Nobody Can Eat 50 Eggs #30
How can you not love that cover? I’m getting to like Steve’s art more and more, which is odd considering that he started sending me these zines when they were mostly text. This is the issue where Crocodile Man began his career as a recurring character, with a piece at the beginning and end of the comic: fantasizing about killing a coworker and engaging in some bathroom humor. Sandwiched between those are all kinds of goodies including a pretentious artist sitting in on a grade school art class, warning signs that your cat is possessed by Satan, an attention deficit monkey, how a tiny umbrella saves the day, how to deal with dangers at the park, a terrible football coach, and some genuinely awful (but hilarious) advice on how to get out of trouble with your girlfriend. There’s also a text piece about Oprah becoming president and another one of those pieces involving the explorers from #30, which I’m just going to ignore as it once again didn’t do a good thing for me, but why let that bring down an otherwise solid issue? I think Steve would be perfectly suited to a Mad magazine type of venue, if there was a funny Mad magazine type of thing currently being published. In the meantime he’s doing just fine here. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Website for Crocodile Man
Nobody Can Eat 50 Eggs #28
Gee, I go to all that “trouble” of opening the site up to zines, and now Steve decides to do an all-comic issue. Oh, and #27 is noticably missing at the moment (6/13/07) due to the general chaos of my apartment, but it’ll turn up sooner or later and I’ll add it to the page. Anyway, this is a journal comic from 9/16 to 10/11 of last year, in case you can’t read the scan. Steve deals with a long distance “sort of” girlfriend, sort of falls for an internet friend he finally meets in person, sells t-shirts at an outdoor art festival, gets drunk, bitches about the other shift not being productive at his job, and deals with getting new glasses, among other things. It’s an entertaining enough journal comic, if unbelievably sloppy at times. Well, almost all the time. Steve fesses up in the intro to doing these all in pen, in a sketchbook and mostly meaning them to be seen only by himself. He’s done, by his count, 1800-1900 of these comics by now and he’s just now decided that he wants some of them to be in his zine. He also says he’s chopped out the more boring and bitchy strips, so kudos to him for that. Not everything done in a journal comic is really worth seeing, and it’s great that he gets that. He was also going to go back and patch up the general sloppiness but wanted it to be unedited, as it was written. I think it would have been fine to at least make the lettering legible in some cases, but what do I know. Overall an entertaining issue, unless you’re a neat freak and/or really can’t stand journal comics. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Website for Crocodile Man
Nobody Can Eat 50 Eggs #26
Look out, it’s a zine! Well, half zine and half comics, but screw it, the site is now open to zines. Why� Mostly because this one won me over, and the only reason I hadn’t bothered with them in the past is that I already had my hands full with the comics, which seem to be coming out more and more sporadically these days. So I’ll take my independent, free-thinking acts of artistic expression any way I can get them, thank you very much. Like I said, about half of this is comics, mostly fairly sloppy drawings about dreams, unrequited love, and some madcap fun involving a gun and an agile monkey. The meat of the book, though, is in the text pieces, specifically the one entitled Get Rich The Easy Way, a nice step by step tutorial on how to marry a rich old man and sneak your way into his will. Steve details the whole thing in detail, including the fact that you may have to get a sex change to marry an old guy, but old women tend to live longer and, at the end of the day, the sex change will have been worth it. He also deals with a much better death scenario for the Crocodile Hunter (is it still too soon to make fun of that? Oh well), stereotypes at weddings, evolution gone wild, alternate hunting weapons and the seedy underbelly (and knees) of the Amish. Something made me chuckle on almost every page here, and it’s hard to come up with a better recommendation than that. Also, the fact that he’s at #26 is impressive as hell in this day and age. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Peeps Et Beans
Do you read French? No? Well, this is still a funny comic, but it’s all in French. It’s the battle that you’ve all been waiting for: Peeps versus jelly beans! Mayhem all over the place, for the duration of the little comic, involving an epic battle and a microwave. Funny stuff, like I said, but there’s not too much to say about a comic where I only “got” about a quarter of the dialogue. It’s $2, contact info is up there and Ben has more comics available than you could possibly imagine!
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Take Your Licks!
This one combines the old Tootsie Roll commercials (you know, the one where the kid tried to figure out how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll lollipop… now that I think about it, it might have been for something else, but you know what I’m talking about) with the Jack Chick tracts about converting heathens into the good graces of Jesus. The kid runs into a drunk owl, an angry tortoise, and a raving philosopher, all trying to help him with the meaning of life. I’m not going to give away the punchline or anything, but it’s another funny book from Ben. It’s $1.50, contact info is up there and you can always request a catalog, as he has more stuff available than probably anybody else on this website…
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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The Passion of the Breast
Yes, that title is combining two of the most controversial things currently going: Janet Jackson’s boob and Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion (as of 4/18/04, although give it a few months). I’m not sure what The Passion has to do with this story (although it does make a fantastic cover), as it’s all about her right boob going off to make its own fortune in the world. There are more bad boob puns in here than you can shake a stick at (“You’re the tits”, “We can’t just milk this”, etc.), so if you’re not a fan of puns, watch out! Still, it’s a funny, timely book that was the absolute hit of SPACE of 2004. The story in here, such as it is, is about the boob deciding that it should run for office. Lots of little sight gags throughout the book about how thoroughly guys are fixated on boobs too. Is it possible to say “boobs” more times in one review? Boobs! Whether or not it’ll be funny in two years is up for debate, but who cares? It’s funny now! $1.50, contact info is up there.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Get Bent #8
All that being said, I didn’t like this one as much. Bits and pieces of it worked, but he freely admitted that he was really sick of dealing with the main characters in this by the time he was done. I’m not much into ska either, so a lot of the little in-jokes are lost on me. I get the dork stuff well enough though, sadly enough. All the ska stuff looks like it came from Evan Dorkin to me too, even though I know it’s just the result of my untrained eye… Anyway, some of this is pretty good. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the stuff that doesn’t work so well. Here’s what you can do: send him $5 and have him send you what he thinks are his best comics. E-mail him, check out the website or send him some money at P.O. Box 7273, York, PA 17404.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Get Bent #5/Unshaven Chi #0
I’m continuing my 2010 project of going through some of my old minis, and it turns out I have a lot of comics from Ben that I never reviewed. Not entirely sure why, but I’ll try to add a few “new”ones here from time to time. I also managed to update his website, at least a little bit, or at least to a site where you can buy some of his minis. Not many, considering how many he’s done over the years, but if you contact him through that website above I’m sure he has some extra ones lying around somewhere. So how about this comic? It’s a flip book, and this is the issue where Ben gets tired of his ska guy storyline and starts to wander a bit. In the Unshaven Chi part (the short end) we get to see him finally shave his beard (for a job) and resort to a moustache, all while we learn about his new job, why he still lives at home (at the age of 36) and how he’s unlikely to ever find a job in his chosen field in the area. The bulk of the comic is in the Get Bent section, as we get the continuation of an older story (with a nice recap for the new readers) involving jail, hilariously offensive accents (although, as he argues convincingly in his intro, they do seem accurate), hoarded food, a plane crash and a jailbreak by a giant robot. His short pieces involve the one sampled (and I would love to get ahold of one of those things), a piece about how he’s nobody famous and an obsessive reordering of flash cards. It’s a solid comic, even if the main story meandered a bit. It still had enough funny moments to make it worthwhile, and the shorter pieces were solid. I didn’t see any sign that he’s still making comics, but part of the idea behind reviewing older books is that I’ll be doing a bit more research for future, older issues in this series. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Unshaven Chi #4
OK, Ben sent me a whole bunch of books this past weekend. Instead of putting them all up here (a bunch of them don’t appear to be in print anyway), I thought I’d just go with the two most recent issues so you could get an idea of what the guy is all about. I’m mostly just posting covers too, just because I like some of his covers. A general overview of his stuff: it’s good. There’s so much variety that it’s hard to make a blanket statement like that, and I didn’t like all of the stuff he sent me by any means, but he’s prolific, so he can work through weaknesses a lot faster than some people and I think this one was the strongest of the bunch. Autobio done well, and that’s always good to see. He has a deal going on where you can send him $5 and get a bunch of his older comics. That’s the best overview for what he’s done, but for the best look at what I think he’s capable of you should get the issues of Unshaven Chi and give him a chance to experiment.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Unshaven Chi #3/Get Bent #7
Well, at least there’s a break this issue from that endless ska story in Get Bent. Luckily this review is being written about ten years after this issue came out, which is about 9 years after that ska story stopped anyway, making any complaints I have about it kind of stupid. In Get Bent this time around we have Der Red Pumpkin (based on the Red Skull, with a hopped-up German accent), having just gotten his hands on a cosmic cube, wake up in the middle of space. He’s confused, but things only get worse when a cosmic creature confronts him and declares itself “A Jew with the power cosmic”. This concerned Jewish mother then sends him to the perfect punishment and wanders off in search of sex, which this old lady can have at any time because hey, power cosmic. This half of the book also has a section of palindromic gag panels, my favorite being “Ammo, my poor droopy Momma?”, but they get bigger from there. The flip side of the book, Unshaven Chi, keeps up its theme of sticking with the autobio. Stories this time around include Ben’s effort to improve his drawing of hands (and he includes a profoundly awkward attempt at hitting on the cashier in the bookstore) and Ben’s public service announcement to the slacker/stoners of the world to get off their asses and join the ranks of pizza delivery men (which includes another awkward tale of him delivering a pizza to a drunk woman who throws herself at him). Based on my complicated scientific formula for such things, I believe more than enough of this falls in the land of “funny” to warrant a purchase, assuming you can find this thing in Ben’s con appearances or perhaps through the wonders of the internet. If you can find it it’s probably still only $2…
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Unshaven Chi #2/ Get Bent #6
Ah, the flip book. It has made a real mess of this page, that’s for sure. This review is above Unshaven Chi #4, as it should be, but also above Get Bent #5, which makes no sense. Ah well, who has time to fix such things? And to add to the confusion, I sampled the Unshaven Chi cover and took the sampled image from the Get Bent story. OK, maybe it only bothers me. The Unshaven Chi chunk of the book (unless it makes to the staple it’s not officially a half) deals with Ben’s new ability to grow a beard at work (after he just shaved it to a moustache to fit with store policy), how he’s lost a little weight and it’s getting noticed by people other than him, America and its collective acceptance of mediocrity, and how easy it is to make an autobio comic. As for the Get Bent portion, most of it is a fairly ridiculous continuing story about former ska musicians stuck in space (with a cosmic cube parody), which might make more sense if I had the brains to read these in order instead of randomly, and usually spread out over a period of years. Still, this story is saved by a digression at the beginning involving the death of DeForest Kelly and Ben’s own near-miss at becoming a Trekkie as an adult. The whole thing is worth a look, but you could tell even he was getting sick of the ska space story, as a good chunk of the pages were full page splash dealies. Is it still available at this late date? Probably not, but you never know…
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Evenfall Volume 1: Lay Me Down
Here it is, the first four issues of this series all in one tidy package! I complained in one of the reviews about the self-censorship and how that sort of thing always gets on my nerves. Well, this time around there are “fucks” a’plenty, so either he listened to me or (more likely) it’s just some bizarre policy on the part of Slave Labor that you can’t use the foul language in comics, but you can in graphic novels. Who knows? Better yet, who really cares, besides me? I already reviewed #3 and #4, so just check up there if you’re curious about them. The first two issues do wonders in setting up the whole story and the character of Phoebe, and the story flows smoothly from beginning to end. Not much to complain about here, really, other than the fact that I noticed while reading them all in a row that all of the issues have a similar ending: heroine in peril. Well, three out of four anyway, but that’s a tiny, tiny thing to bitch about, as Pete’s probably just setting up the world and the problems she’s going to have to face in the future. Still, the ending for the whole book is just mean, in terms of cliffhangers. Check this out, the art is scrunched down just a bit from comic size (but nothing too obnoxious) so that it’s in a more affordable $9.95 price range. As for the series, it better still be going at a good pace, because I want to see what happens next…
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Evenfall #4
This issue is the end of Part One of the story, so if you’re waiting for the first book to come out to check this series out, you (theoretically) shouldn’t have to wait much longer. Another solid issue, another chance for me to only have the vaguest idea of what’s going on. Still, it’s absolutely engrossing and I have no idea what’s coming next. This issue is, again, about Phoebe trying to figure out what’s real and what’s in her head unless, of course, the whole thing is real. There’s also a bit more interaction with her roommate and she finally goes to visit her Mom’s grave. I have definite fears about this series wandering into cliche territory, don’t get me wrong. There’s every chance in the world that the villains in this will be stupid and that it’ll all fall apart once we get down to the nitty gritty about who’s pulling the strings. I haven’t seen anything to lead me to believe that that’ll be the case, but it’s always a concern. $2.95 and, like I said, this certainly looks like the end of one phase of the story, so now’s the time to hop on board the bandwagon. Contact info is up there…
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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Evenfall #3
I could see this book being the next big thing, along the lines of a Strangers in Paradise or Stray Bullets, in a few years. There’s a solid, fast-paced story that has you always wondering what’s coming next (and what came before, although that might just be because I missed #1) and some incredibly detailed and lavish art. The story here is that it’s about a year after a woman named Phoebe’s mother died of cancer. She finds that reality is slipping away from her at times, leading her to see demons and blimps, among other things, and it shows glimpses of a rich, complex world. At least I hope it does, as the possibilities for this seem limitless. This seems to be coming out on a regular basis, so I’d say wait a few months or so and get the first collection (isn’t there always a collection of issues?), but this is definitely worth checking out. That all being said, I guess I’d better throw in a complaint. Why censor yourself? I’ve never gotten the point of saying “F—” instead of “Fuck”. It’s done by Slave Labor, and it’s not like they’re that strict on that sort of thing. I mean, when you have a character randomly go over to the house of an asshole, fuck him and then tell him in the crudest possible terms that she’s used him, do you really have to worry too much about saying a bad word? Most people might say yes, but it’s always seemed stupid to me. Anyway, once I get off of my soapbox, there’s a lot to like here. It’s $2.95, you can find it on the Slave Labor website or you could probably just e-mail Pete.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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The Herbivores #3
When in doubt, draw a big old fight between a T-Rex and a giant squid monster. Kudos again to James for throwing in some interesting marijuana facts at the start of the issue, this time dealing with cannabis and religion. I’m not sure how well sourced these facts were, as they’re all taken from one book, but they were interesting regardless. In this issue the dinosaurs devise a plan to get inside the temple: have their recently domesticated T-Rex kill the squid monster. Problem is, the big old dinosaur isn’t quite the killing machine he used to be. The solution? Build the biggest blunt they can find and make the T-Rex smoke, as marijuane makes you hungry. Not to pick at a plot point here or anything, but while I won’t dispute the fact that marijuana makes you hungry, I seriously doubt that it would improve your fighting prowess. Anyway, the rest of the book is a detailed fight scene with a surprise ending that I’m going to ruin right now: ninja. No idea where it goes from here, as they still haven’t made it inside that damned temple, but I am at least curious to see where the ninja fits in with all these dinosaurs. Worth a look, especially if you like big gruesome fight scenes. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
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The Herbivores #2
James does an excellent job with some facts at the start of this issue, putting up some figures that everybody should know. He lists the number of deaths each year from smoking, drinking (even leaving out all the drunk driving deaths), overdoses from illicit drugs, and ends with the number of deaths each year from marijuana usage: 0. It’s really no wonder this country is more or less bankrupt when we waste so much money on something so stupid. This issue is an attempt to get to know the characters a little better, as it’s all time spent making their way to the mysterious temple and talking about the dinosaur society. I still can’t tell the members of the band apart, even if they do have different hats and/or hair, because they’re essentially all the same person. Er, dinosaur. The flashback in this issue also shows the results of their previous trip to this temple, the creature that almost came out of it and what has happened every time they’re tried to send somebody back in. One other thing I’ve missed reading the first two issues: why exactly are they going to this place, as it’s so clearly deadly? Ah well, maybe the third issue will clear that up. James also has a backup story this time around with a robot and a computer talking like drunken, robotic teenagers. It’s funnier than it sounds, trust me. All told this is fun series, the art’s pretty great but I’m not at all sure that the story is anything other than an excuse to have stoned dinosaurs wandering around. The third issue will decide all that, I suppose. $2
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Posted by Kevin
