April 23, 2010
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The Three Keys #1 (with Paul Schultz) Now Available! $2.75
You probably know already: do you like fantasy comics? I like fantasy books, on occasion, but the comics have always left me kind of cold. Purely a personal taste, as I’m aware that most mainstream comics have at least some element of fantasy to them, and a whole bunch of them do quite well. This is the story of a battle, told from the point of view of the three main characters: a magician, a rogue and an archer. Or possibly those aren’t the technical terms, I’m a bit rusty at the terminology. Anyway, the dialogue is more than a bit cheesy, but as they’re all telling increasingly fantastic tales, I think that’s perfectly OK. The art was great for the wacky sort of thing that they’re trying to do here, but the whole thing didn’t do much for me, as these comics usually don’t. Still, if this is sort of thing you’re into it’s a pretty fun comic.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Agent Z #1 (art by Federico Zumel) Now Available! $2.50
Want to get somebody hooked on a title right away? Shoot the main character in the head and leave him for dead. Then shoot him even more, but he just keeps on ticking. Why? What the hell is going on? I’m intrigued for #2 because of all that, so kudos to the crew. This is about an agent and his partner checking out some shady dealings at a lake. One of them gets shot, so the other agent, under fire, leaves him there in the lake. But the isn’t dead, and nobody knows why. Or maybe Agent Z (I’m just guessing that the guy who was shot turns out to be Agent Z) knows and isn’t telling anybody? Like I said, I’m intrigued. Good art, good writing, now all they need to do is keep this thing going so they can make a real story out of it. Worth a look, if you’re into the mystery/espionage stuff…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Syndication     Now Available! $4.99
Ah, the anthology. Practically always a mish-mash of good and bad, but it is one of the few places where you find new voices (or, in this case, new teamings) doing different things. To me a 75% success rate in these things is all I hope for, and I define “success” as either a genuinely great story or something that looks like the people involved have some serious potential. This one, I think, cleared that hurdle. It starts off with a genuinely thoughtful introduction by Ben Avery, in which he honestly lays out all the reasons why anthologies aren’t popular and don’t “work” (but why he loves them anyway) and then follows up with a peek into the basic contradiction at the heart of most artists. Note to anthology editors: an intro like this works wonders, as I was curious to see how these people worked together after he described some of the issues in getting these pieces in and how some of these people will probably work together in the future… and some of them certainly won’t. First up is a piece by Jedediah Walls and Gloria Hollier, dealing with the nature of narrative sequence and comics as art. Things get much more traditional from there, as mostly everything else is monster or superhero-related, starting with The Ballad of Dr. Ecula by Alan Schell and Jamie Hood. This is a surprisingly moving piece about two foes and their constant struggle, and how the villain deals with it after he finally gets the upper hand and kills the hero. Kelly Heying and Ron Schell Jr. are up next with a fairly standard piece about a former crook turning hero after his child is born, which is followed by a piece by Nik Havert and Ryan Sargent (in what is probably the best looking piece of the bunch) dealing with a young girl and her quest for revenge. This shows her first time out on her own, trying to kill 6 Spaniards in the early 16th century. Ben Avery and Mike Murphy follow this with a confusing piece (probably because the format shifted to sideways art and the binding of this book makes it tough to see tops of pages that way) about trying to kill what appears to be an alien. Jon Kulczar then has a thoroughly random two page story where his characters mostly complain about the tiny amount of pages they get and can’t seem to figure out what to do with it. Christopher Penzenik and Joey Allen are next with a story about a man who sacrifices himself for his tribe and in the process becomes a giant evil monster… who still seems to have pieces of the good guy left. Finally there’s Tim Kelly’s Bunnyman, which was thoroughly baffling. I tried flipping through it again, but there’s a hero (Bunnyman), a princess who’s in some sort of distress (who is saved by induced vomiting (?)) and a monster that seems giant in certain panels and the same size as Bunnyman in others. Seeing all these stories laid out like this it’s possible I was too optimistic in thinking this passed the 75% test, but it’s close if it didn’t quite make it. Bonus points for that intro too, so I’ll give it to them.Â
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Tales to Demolish #3 Now Available! $5
This particular page on ye olde Optical Sloth has sat idle for far, far too long. Tales to Demolish #1 and 2 were tremendous things, a joy to read for completely different reasons. Of course, this did come out a couple of years ago, meaning that it’s me who wasn’t on the ball, but the wait was worth it. This one is in full, gorgeous color (hence the jump in cover price) and has a pile of different stories. There’s the one from the cover, dealing with the eternal war between mammal and reptile (and Eric was kind enough to show us the inspirations for the cover). This takes up the first half of the book, all told from the perspective of a guy watching a show on tv, and you just can’t go wrong with punching through somebody’s head. Next up is The Gunslinger, quite possibly my new favorite comic story, with exactly the perfect mix of dialogue and violence for the subject matter. And even after all that there are still 4 more stories, dealing with a campy midnight movie about a killer tree, a neighbor, the real story of Santa Claus, and the unfortunately named Dr. Arcanus. The coloring in this book is tremendous; everything jumps off the page, and it fills me with sadness once again that the world isn’t arranged so that the vast majority of the small press books can look this good. At any rate there’s not a bad story in the bunch, and it would be nice is Eric were made rich immediately so that he could concentrate on making comics. $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Tales to Demolish #2 Now Available! $3
The name of the story in here is “I Killed Dan Clowes”. What, I still have to write a review? Isn’t that enough on its own to make you curious enough to buy it? Well, what am I supposed to do now? This is a short book and each surprise in it was better than the one that preceded it, so I don’t want to give anything away. It’s $3 and I’d never seen anything from this guy (that I remember anyway, maybe something in a random anthology somewhere), but now I’m sold. Does that help? His art was tremendous, perfect for this adventure story. I mean revenge story! Oops. As you can probably tell by the title on the cover, there’s plenty of mayhem, death and God. I’m not even going to tell you who else gets killed in here, or if Dan Clowes actually dies. Check out the website or send him an e-mail, I’m sure there are samples there that will tell you more than I’m willing to. Hey, what can I say, I like a good surprise, and I’m not a fan of ruining it for others. Look, even the sample isn’t going to give too much away…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Tales to Demolish #1 Now Available! $3
This series only has two issues in it that I know of and it’s one of the best things ever. This one is all about a man (a “glaciolologist”) who discovers a giant monster in a glacier. Huge, even. The monster eventually catches up with the guy, and I’m on the verge of giving too much away. These are tiny books, but I love the one track minditude of these things. He focuses on one thing in each book and just nails it, simple concept or not. This one is $3 too, you could probably read both of these in under ten minutes, but what a ten minutes it is. Contact info is down there!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Misanthropic Cavalcade #5
Joe seems to be moving away from the humans more and more, as this issue is 100% “A Scientific Fact” stories. Not that that’s a bad thing at all, as who doesn’t like mostly silent tales of various animals in emotional and/or physical distress? All that really matters is, once again, how it took me ages to pick out the proper sample, as almost anything in here could have been used due to sheer awesomeness. Stories in here include the revolving door of breaking up and drunkenly calling back, the cow with gills, getting bored already after a random girl agrees to go out with you, the taste of Mountain Dew, how lovesickness is cured, misidentifying a slug, a flying buffalo, being cured of a desire to kill yourself by a pretty girl, an unsatisfactory gift, the futile suicide attempt of a T-Rex, bug courtship, the anatomical impossibilities of the birds and the bees doing it, abandonment issues, a frightened sheep, commitment issues and what an actual tiger would do with Frosted Flakes. There’s also one story about a young woman who finds an old picture in her desk and how it unleashes a flood of memories, one of the rare thoughtful pieces in the book. For a book of humorous one-pagers, I don’t mean this as a bad thing. As always, it’s well worth checking out, and if the carefully chosen samples on this page can’t convince you of that fact, the pile of free strips on Joes’ website should do that nicely. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Misanthropic Cavalcade #4
Another pile of comic strips from Joe, and this one almost has a coherent theme going, as Joe takes various preconceptions (and made up stuff) about various animals and calls the strips “A Scientific Fact”. Subjects include the woodpecker in nature, bat relationships, penguin intimidation, the usefulness of an ostrich sticking its head in the ground, the similarity between grenades and coconuts, raising a baby lizard, dinosaur fights, drunk dialing, a lack of calcium, using a Kroger bag as birth control, dating a mermaid, a cloud falling in love with a sheep, and a stork falling down on the job, among many others. There’s all that and a whole pile of other comics that aren’t related to that theme at all, but it’s probably best if I leave something for you to discover upon buying the book. Or possibly upon reading all these strips for free, as his website still has a pile of free stuff. I think you should read a few for free and then send him some money for the books, but that’s just me, and that’s just assuming that you like things that are funny. I wish any of our local papers carried anything half as funny as this, that’s for sure. $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Misanthropic Cavalcade #1
What a great title for a collection of mostly one page strips. These were all apparently in a local (to Athens GA, that is) paper called Flagpole, but I don’t live in Athens, so they’re mostly new to me. In here you have the dangers of leaving a baby unattended outdoors, starving, paleo-boxing, Santa vs. an airplane, rabbit hunting, a bad break-up, fascinating facts about Joe, and a discussion about thresher sharks. Good stuff all around, as “good stuff” for page long strips mostly means to me that I laughed out loud a few times during the reading of the comic, so this definitely passes that test. Also it was tough to pick just one sample, which is another good sign. Its’ $2, here’s his website, which has more comics of his for you to read, if you need more convincing, or maybe just want to spend some time at work laughing.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Aim to Dazzle
There’s plenty to be said about Dean’s dynamic, incredible art. I mean, one look at that cover and you know that you’re about to read something great (and he’s apparently working on a Thing mini-series for Marvel, which I really can’t wait to see). But the main area that really shines in his books is his utterly fascinating and unique use of language. Read my sample page if you don’t believe me, but there is nobody you there who even comes close to Dean on dialogue of characters. No, it’s not necessarily stuff that the average person would say (unless you’re as cool as Billy Dogma and Jane Legit), but it makes my brain tingle to read it. This is what the language could be, if everybody was as traveled and as smart as him. All that gushing being said, I preferred the longer stories over this book, as it’s basically a collection of short works, but there’s not a chance that you can go wrong with any of his books that I’ve seen. If you haven’t jumped on this bandwagon yet, hurry up already.
 
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Hutch Owen: Unmarketable
Don’t worry, I’m keeping track of all these titles that get online without the benefit of a decent scan and plan on fixing that when I do get a new scanner. Until then, sorry about the fuzzy lifts from other sites. Other than that, what you have here is a new Hutch Owen book, which is great for people like me who mostly didn’t read the online strip, at least not in any organized fashion. And this blurb from the cover (from The Comic’s Journal) says everything I think about the character in a much less rambling, much more coherent way than I ever could:”Owen is the consummate outsider…His call to individual liberty and self-fulfillment is the foundation of the comic’s philosophy…” So, why keep going with my review? No reason,really. This book has two hefty stories (Aristotle and Public Relations) as well as short pieces (some sketchbook strips (or at least that’s what they look like), the story from the 9/11 benefit book, Consumer Confidence Level, The Executive Hour and one strip without Hutch Owen, except for a cameo. Why do I keep having this horrible mental image of Hutch on all sorts of t-shirts and mugs in ten years as some kind of “rebel” advertising blitz? I think Tom Hart’s just about the last person in the world who would let something like that happen, but I can’t get the thought out of my mind. You know, I just read some of Tom’s daily strips in a hopeless effort to try and give this review some cohesion and I think I like those more than this collection. Go figure. I do like this collection quite a bit though, there are lessons in here to be learned (or at least reminded of) for almost everybody in this country. Contact info is up there, you can find this for $10 if you look but the cover price is $14.95…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
The Collected Hutch Owen
Review from Chris Clark
Hutch Owen’s Working Hard is a perfect stand alone comic. Tom Hart has taken the standard narrative structure of western story telling and turned it on its ear. The story’s protagonist (and title character) doesn’t appear until several pages into the book after a lengthy introduction of the antagonist, Denis Worner. Hutch ultimately succeeds only by losing to his enemy. No pat happy ending here. Yet the reader comes away feeling somehow empowered and joyous. The writing and artwork is poetically vulgar; expressive and pretty without being polished. One of my very favorite comics. That is why I was so disappointed in this collection, Hutch’s introduction is so terrific that it cannot likely be topped and certainly wasn’t in the later stories. By the end of the book Hutch’s cynicism has defeated his joy of life. I cannot imagine the Hutch in “Stocks are Surging” offering advice on hideout construction or quoting Hamlet to children. The artwork gradually gets worse by getting better, if that means anything. It looks nicer and cleaner but somehow less beautiful. Anyway. Buy this book, read the first story and let it soak in, read it a few more times, wait a few months and then read the rest of the book. It’s all ok. I just wish Tom Hart had left the poor guy alone.
From me:
Collects a couple of the best mini comics ever done along with some other stories that were done for various anthologies. There’ll be a review of this up pretty soon but it won’t be by me, which is odd because this is one of my favorites. What can I say, I wanted an unbiased review. Or maybe it will be by me, because my other reviewer fell through, but here’s what “straight from the horse’s mouth” means, as told by A Hog on Ice and Other Curious Expressions:
When we hear someone say that he had such and such a piece of information “straight from the horse’s mouth,” we know that he means he received it from the highest authority, from the one person whose testimony is beyond question. The expression comes from horse-racing and has to do with the age of the racers. Scientists tell us that the most certain evidence of the age of a horse is by the examination of its teeth, especially those of the lower jaw. The first of the permanent teeth, those in the center of the jaw, do not begin to appear until the animal is two and a half years old. A year later the second pair, those alongside the first, begin to come through, and when the animal is between its fourth and fifth year, the third pair appears. Thus, no matter what the owner may say of the horse’s age, by an examination of its lower jaw an experienced person can get his information at first hand, straight from the horse’s mouth.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
New Hat Stories: Banks/Eubanks
Is there anybody out there who doesn’t know who Tom Hart is? If so, stop reading this and buy as much of his stuff as you can. He’s in my personal top 5 and he’s been there since the first time I saw his work. I only wish more of his minis were in print. Love Looks Left, Wodabe Comics, Manana, Henke (though more of a diary or a zine than a mini comic)… he put out tons of the things back in the day. Seriously, if anybody knows where to get them now, let me know. I’d pay a high price for the few that I missed. Anyway, he’s continued on in works like this one. It’s the story of an old man and his miserable existence. Bleak and depressing at times with very brief spurts of pathetic joy, this, like all of his work, is a unique experience. Go to his homepage and bug him about either putting the minis back in print or putting them all into one big book. All that good stuff shouldn’t go to waste. In case I haven’t made it clear yet, he has one of the best comic websites out there. He’s constantly putting up new stuff and he’s more than willing to share his very educated world views. Give it a click, won’t you?
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Love Looks Left
If anybody wants to see my idea of the perfect mini comic, this is it. I’m continuing with my “why, back in my day” series of looking at older books, and yes, it turns out that in some ways things were better back in the day. Case in point: Tom Hart was still making mini comics. This is a collection of short pieces over a three year span, and they all have something to offer. There’s Tom in the future chatting with his child about how ridiculous it was that we all had to work for 40 years before retiring (which is how things are all the time in the future), his B.U.M. fantasy (a line of clothing from back then; kids ask your parents), how he called up a strange woman to his new apartment and ended up with a bald head and some serious inner peace, Tom and Snufkin playing music that turns into flowers (the only piece that didn’t do much for me and it was a short one), Tom shopping with his “kid” and trying to make it the perfect day, Tom as an old homeless man who plays with his dick all day and talks philosophy when he can be bothered to do so, and his fantasy beating of the man who was sleeping with his ex at the time. All this is wrapped up by his “kid” pleading for his dad to come home to him, that all is forgiven. Funny and insightful, I might not ever get tired of it if every mini comic I saw was just like this. Sadly it’s one of those comics that’s out of print, but you can probably find a copy with some digging. If not, it’s just one more thing to whet your whistle for when you’ll eventually be able to rent things like this from me to read for yourselves…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
WebsiteÂ
The Most Powerful Gate
I wonder how many 24 hour comics Tom did back in the day? This is another one (from 6/24/95), and all of the comics I’ve seen from him with this format seem to be of the 24 hour variety. As usual, that means a slight dip in the quality of the art, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to the quality of the story, and Tom does know a trick or two to speed up the process (like drawing some of the action in the dark). This one is the story of a man and his monkey and another man on an island. The man on the island spends most of the issue saying (seemingly) random things, and the monkey ends up sick from too many bananas. There’s eventually a convergence of sorts, but the ending is highly open to interpretation and, even though this is 15 (!) years old, my hesitance to use any sort of spoilers still remains. Hey, who knows, maybe Tom or some publishing company will wise up and put a bunch of these old minis back in print one of these days. I will say that compared to some of his other minis this one didn’t do as much for me, which is sort of like saying that it would suck for somebody to hand you $100 after that same person had spent the past few months handing you $1000 every day. Still worth a look, and seeing as how Fantagraphics just put out a collection of some of the best small press comics from the 80’s, would it really be a terrible thing to do the same thing for the best minis from the 90’s? It’s pretty much impossible to find minis from either era, after all…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Ramadan
So did this come before or after Hutch Owens? Ah, comics memory, you have failed me. This came out in 1997 (which is recent compared to some of the other old minis I’ve been rambling about lately), so to those of you with Google and two seconds, that question is easily answered. I wonder because the main character is very Hutch-like, in his quiet quest for meaning and disdain for commercialism. Of course, that might easily just be Tom’s point of view on the whole thing, so why wouldn’t all his characters have the same viewpoint? This issue details the month of Ramadan in the life of the main character. Ramadan, for those of you who don’t know (or who have heard the word but never got the definition) is the Muslim month of fasting, where they can’t do pretty much anything during daylight hours and break their fast at night with a bowl of soup. Every day for 30 days. Our hero wanders the town, haggles with shopkeepers, stays in touch with a friend (who is an alien with his own problems), and discusses the merits of cursing someone out in a foreign language. As always with his books this all scratches the surface or his point, but it’s better found out for yourself and this one is recent enough that there’s actually a chance of you finding it if you looked hard enough. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it, as I have no interest in dissecting this comic until all the joy and meaning is taken out of it.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Fabricari #2
Am I allowed to still be unsure about a series after two issues� Well, I am. This one had definite improvements over the last issue, that’s for sure, but this still may very well be one of those things that just isn’t for me. Maybe for you, what do I know? Anyway, this one has Myron fully on the run and deciding to join up with the Luddites, a group that is against all these flying robots going around killing people. He may have gotten to them too late though, as they confronted the government en masse and those kinds of things rarely end well, especially when it’s a bunch of guys with swords and spears taking on flying killing machines. What I do like about this one is that the back story gets fleshed out quite a bit here, going into more detail about the dynamic between the Queen and the Prime Minister. There’s also a few of the fight scenes in here, as I suppose you need at least a couple in a series like this. This could still be something great, at least in terms of science fiction stories, but I’m still not convinced. There’s one more issue laying around here, and when I get to that one I promise to decide one way or another on this series, but there’s always that website you could be checking out to figure this all out without my wishy-washy help. $2.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Fabricari #1
If you like your stories about rampaging cyborgs to be satirical in some way, it’s best to move on.This is a straight up action story, with a team of four cyborgs trying to rob a bank and getting attacked by the champion cyborg of the city. Mayhem ensues, although not for as long as you might think. In the meantime, Myron Makere, the man who made all these cyborgs, has fallen out of favor with his ruler, Queen Cassandra, who seems to hate pants. She wants him dead, but Myron does have a few tricks up his sleeve. This is obviously just setting things up for future issues and stories, of which there have been plenty that I haven’t gotten to yet. This one is all the way from 1998, and I have the next couple of issues coming. After that it apparently became a webcomic after a hiatus, so if you do like this story there’s plenty more to come. As for me, color me undecided so far. It was a fun story, it looked great and it was missing those obvious grammar and spelling errors that come with first issues. I’m intrigued to see more, but afraid that it could quickly devolve into a series of slugfests. Either way, more to come in future weeks that will decide that for me. I don’t see an easy way to get these on the website, but it does say to just e-mail the man and ask if you’re interested. $2.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Asaf’s Website
Tomer’s Website
Bipolar #4
It’s just great to see a series like this unfold. Every issue is stronger than the one before and it’s hard not to imagine great things for these two. The one complaint that I have, and I’ll get it out of the way before I start gushing: typos! I know it’s being translated from Hebrew and all, and I don’t pretend to understand what a complicated process that is. But having something look this smart and well put together coupled with typos and misplaced usage of “your” and “you’re”…. well. it’s unnecessary. Anyway, this one continues the fascinating Kamikaze story and I’m not going to ruin anything about it because it’s coming to a close in the next issue. If you’re not already reading it, it’s one of the best serialized stories going. The first half of the book is about a man stuck in a hospital in Morocco. He spends his time remembering his life and wondering what might have been, but the story isn’t anywhere near as cheesy as I made it out to be. Look, I’m sold on this series. If you don’t want to buy something that you’ve never heard of, get to a decent comics shop near you and read part of an issue in the store or something. Whatever it takes, I think you should give this book a shot…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Asaf’s Website
Tomer’s Website
Bipolar #3
I’m always up for getting into new worlds in comics. Sure, I like the autobio stuff just fine, when it’s done well, but there’s nothing like a fully realized universe that the creators are going to use for several issues. I’m not sure if that’s where this is headed, as this is the first one I’ve read, but I sure hope so. The book is broken up into two stories. The first, Kamikaze (written by Etgar Keret), is about an afterlife filled with people who have committed suicide. One man learns that his old girlfriend killed herself and he’s determined to find her. What makes this so fascinating is that everybody there killed themselves, so there’s a depressing story behind everybody just waiting to be told. I won’t ruin any more than that except to tell you that most of those stories are left to the imagination thus far. The second story, Telekinetic, is about a man who’s experiencing chronic stomach pain and the agony of losing all joy in the world. A quietly introspective tale, it makes a nice contrast to the first story in the book. Both of these are filled with more philosophical asides than most books have in their entire run. This is a wonderful find for me and I plan on getting whatever else they have in print to see if they’re as good as this one. I’ll let you know, OK? Click on the title for the link to order it and a few more samples.
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Posted by Kevin
