April 26, 2010
Website
The Monkey-Head Complaint
You know, there’s a downside to my usual method for reviewing these comics. To the curious, here it is: I read the comic, go the computer and write a review. Some days I take more time than others, but mostly it’s a pretty simple formula. There is occasionally a comic like this one, however, where as I sit down to write it feels like the story is still blooming in my head and, in this case, increasingly making me uneasy. Not in a bad way; for the story involved that means Sean/John succeeded admirably. It’s just a solid hint that my usual instant reaction to these things is probably going to be lacking. This is the story of (and I’m cribbing this from the back of the comic) a jaded couple, a contrary mother and her oddly troubled son. The husband of the couple Frank, sees the son (Jack) out shoplifting a couple of times and, vaguely knowing the mother, decides to stop by and try to talk some sense into the lad. Most of the story here is told by the couple sitting at a table and chatting, and the idea to have them tell the story in a smarmy and literary manner (while the husband briefly bitches about it) was brilliant. Soon after this talk the mother ended up dead from a self-inflicted wound, or so everybody thought. Frank decided that perhaps his visit set something off in the boy and he needed to find out if that was the case; meanwhile the wife is worried sick after not hearing back from her husband. If this all seems vaguely creepy, Sean/John did a great job of making the story seem almost casual as I was reading it, even with a vague undercurrent of dread that was always around the corner. Still, the tone of the conversation alone kept things light, which is how they managed to make everything that happens next even more shocking, while still managing to make perfect sense in hindsight.  This doesn’t even mention the monkey-head, which is the sampled page anyway, so read it for yourself. Hell, read the whole thing for yourself. If we want comics as a whole to get smarter things like this are going to have to lead the way. Subtle horror is damned hard to come by in comics, or anywhere else for that matter. No price but John usually keeps these things cheap, so I’d guess $2-3. Send extra money and just get a bunch of his comics to be on the safe side.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Newtown P.D. #2
This poor guy was stuck at one of the corner tables at SPACE, so I doubt that many people even got back to talk to him. He’s a cop, and this is a comic about things that have happened to him on the job. He told me that it’s all true, and nothing is really that outrageous to lead me believe otherwise. The art reminds me of early Hepcats stuff, but I think he’s using some kind of computer program for the art (Microsoft Paint is about all I know of, but I’m sure there are plenty of them) because everything looks kind of smudged. Not messy, as everything still looks pretty good if you don’t examine it too closely… you know, like computer generated characters in movies. Anyway, the highlight of this book is definitely the writing. Realistic, funny stories told from a cop’s perspective, along with a rant here and there begging people to make sure that they have an actual problem before they call the police. It’s an engaging book, and also encouraging to know that not all cops are like the ones that pull me over for speeding. Here’s hoping that he keeps this up. Send him a few bucks at: P.O. Box 92 Campbell, OH 44405.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Newtown P.D. #1
I’m actually reviewing this issue after I did the second one (this is 5/12/03). so I already have a pretty good idea in my head of what I think of this concept. Scroll down to the second one if you’re curious. This issue is the first day on the job for Carlos, from his worrying about how he looks in his uniform to wondering what he should say when he’s stuck in the elevator with the Chief. One of the things I like the best about this series is that Carlos never seems to lose sight of the fact that he’s not inherently superior to the people he’s writing about, and that’s something I wonder about a lot of cops. It’s a pretty quiet day in general. He has to deal with somebody running away when the cops chase him and a couple of domestic disputes. My main problem with the series is how messy it looks, but this was his first issue and the second one does look better, if still kind of messy. It’s still fun to read and should be even better when he works the minor bugs out. Check it out if you want to see cops portrayed as human beings, contact info is below…
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Chloe Now Available!$10.95
Words fail me. Seriously, I usually try to take a comic, break it down without giving too much away (because why should I ruin it for anybody else), and let people make up their own minds, but this needs to be seen to be believed. Unless you’re easily offended, or nauseated, then you should probably avoid this at all costs. It’s the story, I guess, of Chloe, a disaffected teenager who finds a mysterious dwarf in the forest while looking for her lost dog. Said dwarf is a follower of the Underbrain, something that is only vaguely defined for most of the story, until it comes into crystal detail later. Somewhere in all this there’s also the normalcy of the high school, her father and various other people who try to help her (or at least communicate with her), but the heart of the story is the cabin in the woods, the dwarf, his cats and all the horrible things he’s growing outside and inside. Reading this was a bit like watching insects crawling around inside of a dead thing for about 20 minutes, but in a good way, or at least in a “I can’t look away” kind of way. If you’ve ever wondered about the potential of the medium and what it can be capable of when somebody lets every dark corner of their brain shine for all the world to see, this is as close as it gets to required reading.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Chrome Fetus #6 Now Available! $2.50
Before I even start in on the comic, Hans printed a letter from an old teacher as a sort of an introduction to the book. She’s absolutely mortified at the work she’s seen in his sketchbook (one can only guess what was in there 17 years ago) and it trying to convince his parents to get him to toe the line. Luckily for the world at large he either ignored those warnings or got over them. This is a regular old mini comic, or at least it is in the sense that there are a few different stories in here rather than one consistent tale. Cochlea and Eustachia play a large part in things, as Eustachia goes missing and Cochlea wanders into a strange house to find her. There’s also a fantastically creepy tale about a retarded, monstrous leader that everyone is forced to follow, no matter how many horrific things he does. Cochlea and Eustachia also star in a series of one page stories, and I would love to find the newspaper that would actually publish them. Trying to describe his work never does it anywhere near justice. For the people who have already read his comics and somehow missed this one, it’s absolutely indispensible. For those of you who haven’t read his stuff, unless you have an especially weak stomach or just can’t stand to be disturbed, Hans is one of the more talented people working today. If those samples won’t convince you, nothing will… $2.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Chrome Fetus Comics #5 Now Available! $2.95
What an absolutely unique comic experience. Robert Young (from The Comics Interpreter, something everybody should be supporting) had told me, but wow. The only person that comes close to his uniqueness and insanity would be Jim Woodring, but it does a disservice to them both to be compared, as they’re both completely doing their own thing. Panels in this seems perfectly normal, like it’s just a guy going about his day. Then you see something wriggling in the next frame, or a little baby with a rhino head getting its head scooped, or a screw being driven into a bloated body with a turkey head, or a man with the head of a bird pissing on a large crowd, and you realize that you’re looking at something that’s never even crossed your mind. He has a vast body of work, which is music to my ears, because that means there’s tons more to discover. I hope the scan does it justice, but he also has some of the most detailed panels that I’ve ever seen. Every single person in this drawing had some serious time and effort put into them, and that’s a fairly incredible thing to say about a crowd shot. Other things in here include small children dropping cinder blocks from the top of a tall building, a man entering the anus of a large rat balloon, a hairy lollipop and effluvial spurts. It’s $2.95 and indispensable to the expanding of your brain.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website (broken as of 4/4/10)
The Chaotic Duo #1 mini-series
You know, this has to be one of the least chaotic comic books that I’ve ever seen. They duo decides to make some havoc, seeing as how us readers are sitting here staring at them, so they go to Antarctica. Once there, they realize that there’s not much to do and they actually might starve or freeze to death so it’s a pretty calm comic. Then suddenly they find a robot guarding a bunch of food, so Dubya decides that he has to come and blow it up. Hey, it’s chaotic, what do you expect. Overall, this one is OK, but I liked the other one better. And he’s still 13, and will be until January. Just think, he’ll probably do more comics by the time he’s 14 than Joe Matt has done yet! Not sure where that cheap shot came from, but it’s sadly true. Contact info is up there, $1.50!
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website (broken as of 4/4/10)
The Chaotic Duo #1
Well, Matt has to be 14 by now, so I think that means he’s too old to do comics and he’s all washed up. Oh well, it was a fun ride while it lasted! This comic, as you might be able to tell from the cover, is all about chaos. It most resembles Milk and Cheese from Evan Dorkin, but he points that out himself. It’s kind of messy, but when can you go wrong by showing a couple of kids beat up clowns, mall employees, bullies, goth kids (he’s punk, you see), and random bystanders. It’s not Hamlet or anything, but it’s a fun book and putting characters in all kinds of these random situations is great practice towards his future career of being a comics mastermind by the time he’s 20. It’s $2, pretty big, and is perfectly suited towards people who can relate to some slapstick, gory humor. Contact info is up there!
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website (broken as of 4/4/10)
Jorge the Robot #6 Now Available! $.50
This one seems a bit smaller than the last one, but that could be just because I’m not remembering it right. In this issue Jorge wins a trip to the Super Bowl, and hijinx ensue! Sorry, it’s too small for me to say any more. I hate to keep repeating myself, but you guys do know that Matt is 13, right? Maybe if enough of you buy his comic he’ll think that he can make money doing comics and drop out of school. Then he’ll be rich! OK, maybe not, but you should still check out his book. It’s fun, and it’s punk comics! Remember when you were all young enough to still call yourselves punks without seeming silly or just plain sad? Contact info is up there, check it out!
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website (broken as of 4/4/10)
Jorge the Robot #5
I need to mention something here: this guy is 13. 13! How on earth does he even fold and staple these things, not to mention everything else? Color me amazed, unless he has a few people helping him, and I don’t think he has adults helping him because he uses the word “shit” a few times. Doesn’t he know that no adult has ever said “shit”, thereby making it not cool to say? Anyway, the comic. The biggest problem is the lettering, as it’s sloppy. Other than that it’s a fun book. The first story is about Jorge going to see a movie, with all the hijinx that usually come from going to the movies. The second story is about Jorge getting a job, until he realizes that robots don’t need jobs. Altogether, it’s a bit unpolished (I did mention that he’s 13, right?), but keep it up, Matt! You can take over the the world by the time you’re 18 if you keep this up. Website! $1.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Achilles in Death and Love
It’s a comic book and a record, all in one! Granted, you probably don’t have a record player, but Grant’s kind enough to put a web address in here with all four tracks, so you can just listen to them on your computer. I don’t do music reviews, so all I’ll say is that the songs didn’t do a whole lot for me. Maybe they’ll grow on me after a few listens (this did happen with a good number of my favorite albums), or maybe my first impression was correct. How’s that for ambivalence? As for the comic, it’s gorgeous. It follows Achilles in hell, as everything is stripped away from him but he can still remember his love, Briseis. So, while undergoing grotesque transformation after grotesque transformation, he endlessly searches hell, looking for his lost love. This is probably the most disturbing thing that Grant has done, and I say more power to him. He should revel in ugliness like this more often. This costs a bit more than your average mini, what with the color cover and record included, but I still think it’s worth a look. $6
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Singularity (with Al Burian)
Ah, here’s another one of those wonderful shorties where, if I talk too much about what’s going on, the whole surprise ending gets blown. This is apparently an ongoing story in The Skeleton News, a newspaper I’ve never heard of out of Chicago, so it’s probably not a surprise ending to a few people. Still, best to stick to the known information. This one starts off with a spaceman of some kind putting a flag on… Mars, maybe? It’s not the moon because we get a shot of the moon in the sky next to the Earth. Anyway, said astronaut settles down to a newscast from Earth, which is oddly cut short by a blast of static… or is it only static? I’m all for mayhem in space, which appears to be what’s coming here, so three cheers to the both of them. Some form of this story published in a format that people outside of Chicago could see would be nice too one of these days, but who knows how many future parts have been published…$2
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
To The Mouth Of The Source
Grant has this wonderful ability to take a genre that I mostly don’t like (if you can call translating song lyrics into comic form a “genre”) and turn it into one of my favorite things. He’s able to mix in silent panels with the lyrics so that everything seems natural and linear, and that impresses the hell out of me. Most people who try this seem to just draw a page for every certain number of lyrics, but this is definitely the way to go. This is based on a song by Joanna Newsom about a dog and his bone, a train, tadpoles, and… aw, screw it, this one is completely visual now. It reads like an old blues song, although I have no idea who Joanna Newsom is or when she wrote the song. This may be the best of his comics, although my memory is for crap and I could be glossing over other stuff. Either way it’s a great piece of work on its own, so if you like Grant and/or comics, well, you know what to do… $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Smaller Parts Now Available! $5
Here it is! The perfect chance for you to see a whole bunch of Grant Reynolds all in one bundle. In case you thought the other minis were too small, that is. If you thought they were too expensive at a buck, well, there’s probably something wrong with you. Anyway, lots to get to here. There’s the circle on life (if your circle involves a rabbit, a wolf and a gun), a poem about monotony and despair, a couple of shorties about returning to the womb, one about missing children and a failure to hold onto important things, and a couple of pieces that appeared in Animal Wrangler, up yonder. That sentence contained more nonsensical interpretation of the meaning of stories then I usually write in a week, which is exactly why I don’t usually write that way. Overall, this book made me want to pull the covers up over my head and just think for a while. Not altogether in a good way, but in this world, who can argue with something that inspires thought?
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Mover User 2/Oh, Goodness Now Available! $2
That’s right, two minis stuck together with one of those high tech pieces of tape. What a bargain! The first part of this, Mover User 2, is an old John Lee Hooker song about moving to L.A., breaking up after getting there, being forced to sleep on floors and trying to get through it in one piece. It must be an incredibly powerful song because it really hits you when you just sit down and have it presented as a story like this. Great stuff all by itself, but then you also have Oh, Goodness, one of those random minis that’s mostly about Grant and his girlfriend Kristy. It’s only about six pages long so I don’t want to give anything away, but he deals with horniness, vaginas, sleeping and snuggling. Huh, that makes it sound a lot more erotic than it actually was. Oh well, there are worse things in the world. All in all a pretty solid package. It’s $2, there’s contact info up there or you could check this out in the online store…
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Snowglobe Now Available! $2
Remember that fire in Rhode Island last year when all those Great White fans died? Well, this comic is tangentally about that, as well as the wrath of god. Or God, or GOD, depending on your beliefs and/or terror. This is another short book, but it looks incredible and it’s a perspective of the the whole thing that I honestly hadn’t thought about, which is always a good thing. Whatever happened with that, anyway? Did anybody ever go to jail for that? Just curious. Anyway, contact info is up there, this is a bit tiny for $2 but it’s a good read.
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Animal Wrangler
Here’s a tiny book from Grant Reynolds. Two stories in this one. The first is about an underwater hunter (I have no idea what the fish is called but you’ll know it when you see the sample) and the second is illustrated lyrics to a Solomon Burke song. The art looks phenomenal, although I wish it was a bit bigger so I could be sure. Oh well, maybe next time. This is an incredibly quick read but worth a look, if you like comics. Here’s an e-mail address, ask him what he’s up to!
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Hot & Cold Running Ghosts
I do believe that Grant has reinvented a genre. Which comic genre specifically he’s reinvented I’ll leave for the surprise ending of the review, as it sure came as a shock to me after reading the comic. This is the story of Grant trying to interpret his dreams, drunk-dialing a friend and getting a little too gushy with the praise, and generally trying to pull together bits of his life (if I may interpret his dreams baselessly for just a moment), or at least keep them from crumbling in his hands. It’s a genuinely brilliant read, from his seamless transition from dreams to reality and back again to his notable lack of whining in a story that could have easily turned self-indulgent. Really not a comic to be missed, and probably somewhere around $3. And the kicker to all this? It’s a diary comic. Grant removed all the dates and kept it with only a few distinct themes, but this blows out of the water and idea I had about the daily diary format being too constricting. Clearly there are all sorts of directions to take this genre before dismissing it out of hand…
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Couch Tag #2
I’m stunned. Jesse Reklaw really didn’t have his own page on this site until mid 2009? He’s on at least three other pages in anthologies, but no minis of his own. Well, consider that fixed. Also, before I even get to the comic, I should point out that he sells all sorts of minis at his website from a variety of people, and at a casual glance it looks like some of the best folks out there. Get on over there and give those people some money. So, since I ‘ve read his stuff in various places over the years, how does it hold up as one basic story in his own mini? Really freaking well. This is the story of 13 cats that either Jesse owned or were in his family from the time he was a small child to more or less modern day. If you’re a cat person (as I suppose I am), this is already a thing of beauty, as he tells the story of birth to death for these cats with some obvious emotion… and other times he’s more than a little bit detached. Which makes sense, he was always on the move as a kid and cats came and went with regularity. The beautiful thing about this mini, outside of the cats, is how he manages to work in some powerful personal history. His rocky relationship with his father, playing with the cats with his sister (and watching her drift away from him as she got older), even the time of his life when he went back and forth between living with his mother and his father. What I’m trying to say is that it succeeds on every level. He tells stories of sad kittens that never manage to grow up, of old tomcats that hang around a bit too much, of extreme acts of kindness and a few acts of cruelty, as he was essentially a kid on his own a lot of the time. Everybody out there probably already knows all about Jesse, but if you don’t this would be an excellent place to start. Let’s see if I can’t get a few more of these minis up by the end of the year to make up for lost time… $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 26, 2010
Website
Blue Fuzz the Hero Now Available! $4
I’m taking a guess on whether “Blue Fuzz” is one word or two, but as it looks weird all lumped together I’m going with two. Another fascinating glimpse into the things I actually think about! This, clearly, is the story of Blue Fuzz, who just so happens to be a hero. He fights evil, or perhaps people who spill his beer, but things start to go wrong for him when he overhears some people badmouthing the king. Blue Fuzz, being a hero and also being unfamiliar with general griping, kills the king, and this gets him in all kinds of trouble. He chased out of town by an angry mob, has a chat with a fire he builds (the fire goes on to tell him the history of how people first got fire), descends deep into a mountain and has all kinds of adventures, cross-dresses (but for a very noble reason), tries to figure out a decent gift for the old gods and eventually lives happily ever afterish. I’m OK with spilling this large amount of beans because it really doesn’t matter. The joy in reading this comes from Jesse’s offhanded descriptions of the heroics, the full page color illustrations before and after each “chapter” (the look on his face as he stabs the king in full color is worth the price of admission) and the general awesomeness of the comic. Yeah, it’s a cheat for any reviewer to just say that a comic is great, but screw it, this comic is great. Fantastic and wonderful even. Not a bad piece or illustration in here is what I mean, and the writing is perfect for these little adventures. Buy it already! $4
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Posted by Kevin
