April 24, 2010
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Love Dreams #3
I should mention right away that all of the stories in here involve either Rick or his brother Al Limacher in some way. This is a collection of dream comics involving love in some way or another, sometimes obviously so, sometimes not so much. Rick experiments with a couple of different artistic styles in here, showing more than a little bit or range. Stories in here include living with robots, having anal sex with Canadiens, Bill Miller talking with women from personal ads, Jack Bertram drawing a variation of the Beauty and the Beast theme, Tom Ebelt’s dream of a cowgirl, Dave Butterfield with a lovable werewolf and a fishy tale from Al. It’s an interesting mix of stories, which is exactly what you need for a book like this. It’s worth a look at (probably) $2, that’s for sure. Contact info is up there!
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Energons #53 (written by Sherman Burnett)
Ick. Sorry, I like to be as diplomatic as possible about these reviews, but this was just awful. Granted, it’s #53 in a series (which is impressive all by itself) and I’m missing most of the backstory here, but the fact that I didn’t care about it at all should tell you something. This is the story of a very, very gay team of superheroes (I’m talking about costumes here, and I mean “gay” in the schoolyard insult sense, not in the ordinary human being sense) and a guy in jail. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if there was a decent piece of dialogue anywhere to be found. What I kept thinking while I was reading it (and it’s tiny, so it’s not like it took me too long) was that this book would probably be really cool if it had one of those old radio show soundtracks behind it. You know, where the music would swell at the appropriate moments? But it didn’t, so it wasn’t. Cool, that is. Here’s an address, it’s $.50: 210 Wayne St. Monticello, KY 42633. I had to make this sample huge so you could see the awful dialogue…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Fluffy #1
It took me about 10 pages to really love this book, but once I got over that hump, I was hooked. See, it’s about a bunny who thinks it’s a little boy, and it can be alarmingly cute at times. Once you get into it though you also get to see a complex man who’s not at all nice to his female partners, or maybe it’s just the one partner. In any case, I was enthralled by the end. It’s the first part of a four part series, so there’s a lot more yet to go, which is fine by me. The art, while being deceptively simple, conveys a whole lot of feeling. I’m guessing this is $5 (I’ll know for sure in a couple of days), and Simone was kind enough to send me a few copies for the site. This is something that’s really worth checking out, in case you were wondering. Here’s a website, wander around and see for yourself what you think.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Second
A terrible comic from London, OH on Monday is followed by a sweet and funny one from London England today. I’m not sure who does what here. I’m guessing that Tom writes and Simone draws just because that’s usually the order of the names, but it doesn’t really matter. They’re both essential to the success of this book. That might not make all that much sense when you consider that the art is very simple and uncomplicated, but it just works perfectly. Let’s see here, there’s a sweetcorn kernal, some wrestlers, a rabbit, a monkey nut, bread, bhagi, relationships… Lots of food stuff I guess, but this has it all. I defy anyone reading this not to be cheered up when it’s over with. $5, go to the website to order it. OK, if you don’t like this sample you don’t have to order it, but good luck not liking it.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
The Gypsy Lounge Now Available! $13.95
This book makes so much more sense as one coherent story. Look, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m fairly sick of most superhero comics. There are exceptions, of course, but not many. And I’m especially sick of most indie attempts at superheroes, as they’re usually so much like the real thing that it’s pathetic, or they’re just parodies. Parodies were fun for a while, but they’re so easy to do and there are so many of them that you really have to do something different to stand out in the crowd. Anyway, all that being said, I was pretty surprised with how much I liked this comic. Scratch that: I loved this comic. Every once in a while I would come out of my state of awe from the art and read the dialogue, and then that would impress the hell out of me too. Let’s focus on the art for a second. I hope my crappy scanner does it justice, but what you have are fluid, cartoony characters combined with pictures. I wouldn’t have thought that it would work, but it’s incredible. The dialogue is as real as can be under the circumstances, and there was never a moment that I lost the impression that this could all be happening, which is saying a lot considering some of the circumstances. Jason says in the back of the book that this is something that he worked on for years, tweaking certain things, discarding others, building up others, and it shows. This reads like a labor of love and just about everything in it is done confidently, which makes all the difference in a book like this. If you’re going to do superheroes in this day and age you have to know what you’re doing and it helps a whole lot if you have something new and fresh to add, and Jason has both things going for him. Have I mentioned the story yet? A young girl, the daughter of a failed superhero, decides that she’s tired of being poor and becomes a supervillain. She steals the assignment of an established supervillain because she figures the payoff will be bigger, but finds that she can’t go through with it. This leads to her being targeted by every supervillain around, and the rest of the book is basically one long chase scene, but much, much more complex. I’m not sure how many more good things I can say about this. I really thought that I would be mildly amused at best, but this really blew me away. Did I mention the dynamic cast of characters, most of which are either still around or “unaccounted for”? I hope he keeps this up, and if there’s any justice in the world doing so will make him rich and famous. Check out the website, or just e-mail the man and send him a pile of money. This one is only $13.95 for a pretty thick book, you know.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Gypsy Lounge #1
First off, as far as production goes, wow. This guy must be independently wealthy or something. It looks professional as hell (I think I noticed one spelling error), he did a great job with it. The comic itself is one of the busiest I’ve seen, with countless little panels inside of the bigger ones. This worked for the parts with the insane super hero, but mostly seemed confusing in the rest of it. And the characters all suffer from a certain sameness. Not necessarily the characters, I should clarify, but the look of the characters. The insane man in the beginning looked suspiciously like the daughter of another superhero later, for example. Still, the story was intriguing, about some different heroes and villains, although we don’t really know much about them yet. Maybe the drawing style would get obnoxious after a few issues (or maybe it would grow on me, who knows), but past that it’s definitely worth a look. No website or e-mail address that I could see, which is odd these days, but go ahead and send $3 to P.O. box 264 Pgh, PA, 15230-0264 if you’re curious. Here’s an example of those busy pages…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Broads and Monsters Now Available! $3
Yes, this is a sketchbook. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything, Pat mentions the fact right there on the cover. Generally speaking sketchbooks don’t do much for me one way or the other, and they’re damn near impossible to review, what with not having a real story and all. This is a collection of, oddly enough, broads and monsters, with the occasional broad/monster hybrid mixed in. Most of the sketches are fully formed images with a few naked women thrown in, and it’s not like you weren’t wondering about that, you pervert you. There is one story in here, Pat’s version of the Bloody Mary myth that adolescent girls always seemed to try out. You know, the one where you say Bloody Mary X number of times into a mirror and a monster her face ripped off jumped out of the mirror and ripped your face off too. So, it’s up to you. Is a cute story, a chunk of sketches and your general love for the rest of Pat’s work enough to pick up a sketchbook? He is quite good with the rest of his books, you know, and the man sure can draw. Oh, and he also uses this as a chance to plug his hardcover graphic novel called The Claws Come Out, so I suppose you could always go straight for that.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
One Horse Town Now Available! $2
Huzzah for Western comics! Or at least huzzah for Western comics with this many frying pans to the head. Works every time. This is the story about a remarkably incompetent sheriff and an unfortunate boast by the town mayor when he says to the sheriff “even your horse would be a better sheriff than you”. The town is momentarily thrilled about this idea, or at least they are before they have time to really think it over. It gets a bit more complicated from there as the bad guys make their move and a new sheriff hits town, but don’t worry, there is also a showdown at high noon. Funny stuff all around, and you sure can’t beat that cover…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Prowl Now Available! $1
Mankind has long wondered: what would happen if aliens kidnapped a young woman and turned her into a werewolf? Well, that question has finally been answered with this mini. It’s a wordless story of a young woman walking home from a date who is suddenly taken onto an alien spacecraft, where they have apparently perfected the process necessary to bring about a werewolf. Much havoc and chaos ensues, and you have a fun little way to spend a few minutes of your day. This one is only a buck, contact info is up there and this is also in the online store…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Hideous
Just in case you don’t get it from the cover, this is a parody of Clumsy by Jeffrey Brown. This details the beginning, middle and end of a relationship between a very promiscuous girl and, well, a monster. They meet over the internet, she sleeps with the monster’s roomate, they date for a while (and she learns fascinating things about monster anatomy), then things end in tears. The book is done in 1 page strips, just like Clumsy, and even has a lightly bearded character who looks a bit like Jeffrey, except for the hair and the body. OK, fine, just the beard makes it look like him. All of you can ask for out of a parody is that it’s funny and at least slightly true to the source material, and this one fits the bill for both of those.Great stuff, contact info is up there, this is $2 and you can also find it in the handy-dandy online store…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Giant-Size Office Funnies
What better time to draw comics then when you’re getting paid for being at work? That’s the theory that helped make this comic, a collection of funnies (although it’s one story) about talking a man down from a ledge, looking at porn at work, using the company copy machine to put together a comic, sticking it to the man, and exploding. Not necessarily in that order. It’s drawn stick figure style, and the rest of his stuff looks much better, but there’s a certain charm to minimalism like this. It’s a short, funny book, so it’s hard to complain too much about that. If you’re looking for a modern comic classic, you’ll probably want to go elsewhere. If you’re just looking for a decent comic for a buck, you’ve found it! Contact info is up there, and his other comics are available here, but not this one…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
AAAA Action Team #1 Now Available! $2
I’ll say one thing for Pat: I don’t think I’ve ever seen him at a SPACE without at least one new book available. The fact that they’re all pretty much excellent books doesn’t hurt a thing. This is the story of two aliens who make a bet, as one thinks that our planet will last longer than ten years before destroying itself, the other thinks it won’t be that long. The “defender” of the Earth, in an attempt to win his bet, assembles a team of heroes based on alphabetical order, and their abilities consist of being able to function on 4 hours’ sleep, an affinity for burning things, a former forensics expert and a dog given an alien chip to allow it to speak. As you can see, only one of those things is all that useful, which makes for one awkward superhero team. In their first test a giant robot is set loose on their town and they have to figure out how to stop it. It’s assumed that the robot is set loose by the alien who wants the planet to end before the ten years are up, but that’s never confirmed in this issue. I love the fact that there’s no grand plan here. The aliens either want the planet to live or die based on the equivalent of $3.96 but have no malicious or benevolent intent, and the humans (and dog) pick up the hero gig mostly because none of them have anything better to do. Funny stuff, and well worth a look. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
P.S. Comics #2
Here we have more tales of fruit, yorkies, and various condiments in distress. The bulk of the comic is taken up by the love of two of the yorkies, Quincy and Cleopatra, and how this evolving relationship hurts Cleo’s current roommate, Lucy. It’s a tale of sniping and personal attacks that’s as old as time, unless of course you tell it from the perspective of dogs. Melanie also deals with the vagaries of high school life when everybody decides not to go to the prom, leading one of the fruits to make other plans for the night… until the rest of them decide to go after all. The highlight of the book though, even though it’s only a short two pages, is the story of the affair between salt and sugar, told in excruciating detail. She goes through the hesitant beginning to the true love in the middle, all the way to the inevitable ending and seeing other, um, “people” when one still hasn’t gotten over the whole thing. Top it all off with a wonderful summary of a tour of the Celestial Seasonings factory and that’s there’s a pretty damned good comic. Also, it’s a handy book to keep around on a coffee table for nosy relatives or friends, who will flip through it, thinking it’s adorable and maybe you’re not as deranged as they might think from your other choices in comics, even though they wouldn’t think that at all if they bothered to read the damned thing and not just look at the pretty pictures. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
P. S. Comics #1
That cover is supposed to be a bit more purple, but my scanner seems to be having a rare revolt. There are four stories in here, three of which are too adorable for words… until you get past the images and actually read the stories. There’s an embarrassing roommate situation with the Yorkie dogs, trying to balance not having any friends vs. only having friends who are assholes (as played by various pieces of fruit), an awkward visit to a house with a crazy abusive mother (back to the Yorkies) and finally the heartwarming tale of the “I Love You” mug. Hey, I thought it was heartwarming anyway. The underlying sadness and angst of these stories put up against the overwhelming cuteness of these dogs and that fruit was a great idea for a comic. Because, let’s be honest, angst in comics is pretty well represented these days, and a fresh approach to the subject is always welcome. Not that this is all angst or anything, as there’s some really funny stuff here, I’m just saying is all. $2.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
P.S. Comics
I’m changing the name on this creator because, well, she used a different name on her cover. That and “Minty” is an awesome name. Finally there’s a collection of this utterly unique comic available, and I swear it’s a giant coincidence that yesterday I was talking about the flawless record of Secret Acres… and today I’m reviewing another one of their books. Sizable chunks of this are available in the first two issues, which I already reviewed below, so I’m not even going to mention those stories. Pretty much everything mentioned below is in this, except for the tour of the Celestial Seasonings factory. New stories include making “friends” with the tour manager of a band while on vacation alone, a piece about two people making a connection at work over donuts and making a rat tail for a costume (one of the rare pieces in the book featuring actual humans), the hopeful tale of a family dog lost when their car was stolen and what Minty would like to think happened to it, and the disintegration of an office relationship and dealing with the new woman. There are also two longer pieces making up the end of the book, one all about preparing for a crafts show and still managing to fail miserably and one about maintaining one quiet place at work, getting to know the new temp and being horribly disappointed with her as a human being. Um, strawberry, that is, as almost everything in here is either a piece of fruit, a dog or a cat. I doubt all of these stories would work as well as they do if they were all told from the perspective of humans, even though Minty has an uncanny ear for dialogue, especially the stuff involving self-pity. How she manages to make a heartbroken pear both funny and immensely sad is a mystery to me, but it’s clearly the work of someone with some serious talent.  She manages to make you think about all of these situations in an entirely different light through a simple change in representation, and let me tell you as someone who remembered during an argument that I was using the same line as a crying apple that it can be both revealing an extremely disconcerting. In other words, Minty has done her job her admirably. It’s $11 but there’s a hefty pile of stories in this one.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Untitled #2
Here’s another issue of this sketchbook series from Jeff. One minor complaint: he has a listing at the start of the book indicating where all the drawings are from. That’s fine, but he lists pages for all of that, and then doesn’t put page numbers on the actual pages. A minor thing, as you can figure it out without too much trouble if you can count to 40, but I’m a lazy man and I want it all itemized! Dammit. In here he has drawings of airports, jazz musicians, and basically just all kinds of little things he saw in his travels and daily life. Interesting stuff, but I’m still a bigger fan of the stories. Contact info is up there, $2!
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Untitled #1
One of the great things about Jeff is that his style is always changing. Sometimes its clear straight lines, sometimes it’s more realistic, and sometimes it grimy (I mean that in the best possible way) like this. It’s a book of pictures, from the looks of it little snapshots of his apartment and all the stuff he has laying around. It’s not my favorite thing he’s ever done, but I like most of his stuff a lot, so take that however you’d like. He has a new website, which I linked to a few times up there, but here you go in case you don’t feel like scrolling. I still think everybody out there should buy all of his comics right away. I guess I was looking for some dialogue in his book (why I was looking for anything is beyond me, but there you go), but this is still a great, quiet look at the orderly chaos that is the average apartment. I’m guessing this is $2, it’s on his website!
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Watching Days Become Years #4 Now Available! $5
More quiet tales of Jeff’s life in issue #4, and he even gets briefly political this time around. I’ve also often wondered how most people in the country are able to so completely disassociate themselves from the violence that is done in our name all the freaking time. Other subjects in here include a lack of time, the value of being awake versus sleeping, a quiet day at home out of the heat, trying to get calmness from trees, the incremental nature of profit sharing at work, and one awesome punchline that I’m not going to ruin here. There’s also his drawings and impressions of places and trying to be content with the little things, and as usual it’s a tossup as to which is his better work. He’s a master of the one page “diary” type strip, but there are also few people out there better able to document the little things about places. The inevitable conclusion, as I’ve been saying from the beginning on this page, is that everyone should still order all his books and give him as much money as humanly possible. I’d love it if I was able to help him, in even a tiny way, get the gift of more time. $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Watching Days Become Years #3 Now Available! $5
Again with the long gaps between reading his comics! Full disclosure: I “grew up” reading his stuff, from his Destroy All Comics magazine to No Hope to all the little minis in between. Of course, “growing up” in this racket means that he helped form my high opinion of this medium in my late teens/early 20’s when I was making the transition away from superhero stuff to actual quality work. Not that there’s not SOME quality superhero stuff, kind of… OK, I’ve gone off the rails. This comic, as is the case with most of his work, defies reviewing. Jeff seems to wander around town, finding things to do on his days off (or happily deciding to do nothing at all), and documenting in very specific detail what he’s seeing. What’s often missing in his books are other people, as he’s more than content to document his surroundings, the growing pile of books and DVDs at his apartment, and his personal thoughts. Oddly, although he mentions in this issue that he’s had the same job for 7 years (as of 2006, judging by the dates on the strips), I’m not sure that he’s ever mentioned exactly what he does. It’s just not important enough in the grand scheme of things to warrant mentioning in his comics when there’s so much (or so little) else to talk about. My quest to make this guy rich continues, so buy his stuff, show some love for a genuine artist. $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
Website
Watching Days Become Years #2 Now Available! $5
It’s been entirely too long between my Jeff Levine fixes, although one look at his website tells me that he’s put out 5 issues worth of strips from his website. Turns out that there’s all kinds of new stuff available, I’m just not looking in the right places. Anyway, on a purely personal note, it’s been fascinating to me to watch how my life parallels his, or at least when it does on those occasional long and pointless nights, when it seems like the whole damned thing is a waste. This is a great book to read the next time it’s three in the morning and you’re thinking all kinds of deep thoughts, because a whole bunch of them are mirrored right here. And I can’t help but notice that in spite of my pleas for everybody to buy all his books and make him rich and famous, that still hasn’t happened. Or maybe everybody who looks at this site already has bought all of his stuff and it made him $10, I don’t know. All I can say is that there are few people I look forward to reading more than this man. Oh, you want to hear about the actual issue? Jeff captures a few quiet moments, take a trip to San Francisco to see a jazz legend, and saves the world from elephants. One of those things is quite possibly not true… $5
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Posted by Kevin
