Update for 8/24/07

August 24, 2007

New reviews for There’s No Place #2 by Scott Oliver & Corey Bechelli (also available in the store) and Muse #2 by Jamie Chase. Sorry about the lack of an update yesterday, but occasionally real life does get in the way of this sort of thing. Happy weekend!


Update for 8/22/07

August 22, 2007

New reviews for two comics in the online store, True-Size Eyes by Christopher Davis and Too Negative #8 by Jenny Gonzalez.


Update for 8/21/07

August 21, 2007

New reviews for Strange Science Fiction #1 by Matthew McDaniel and Herman Belquest by Robert H. Stevenson. Almost 24 hours without a power outage!


Update for 8/20/07

August 20, 2007

New reviews for Unlucky #3 by Matthew Hawkins, Matthew Bernier & Toby Craig (also available in the store along with Unlucky #1 and 2) and Exit Only #1 by Matthew Metzler & Lonnie Workman. Huzzah, I actually managed to get this all posted this time between power outages…


Update for 8/17/07

August 17, 2007

New reviews for Bum Action by John G. & Kevin F. and Blink: Let It Be As It Is by Max Ink. Happy weekend everybody!


Update for 8/16/07

August 16, 2007

New reviews for Victims At The End Of The World: Free Preview by Rickey Gonzales and Slither #6 by Kelly Froh, which is available in the store.


Update for 8/15/07

August 15, 2007

Sorry about missing the update yesterday, I had a minor emergency with my cat. She’s fine, but if anybody out there has a liquid deodorant and a cat who likes to hover, it is humanly possible for a little bloop of that stuff to fall right on said cat’s eyeball. New reviews today for Legal Action Comics Volume 2 by Danny Hellman and all kinds of people (also available in the store) and Time Warp Comix #4 by Dan Taylor and various folks.


Update for 8/13/07

August 13, 2007

New reviews for Big Little Comics by Jeff Lok and Tear-Stained Makeup #6 by Marcos Perez, which is available in the online store along with the rest of that series.


Update for 8/10/07

August 10, 2007

New reviews for Unlovable #4 by Esther Pearl Watson (also in the online store) and S.P.B.:Rise! by Tom Williams. Happy weekend everybody!


Update for 8/9/07

August 9, 2007

New reviews for Fabricari #3 by Steven Harrison and I Heart New York (also available in the store) by Missy Kulik. Two new comics for the store today too, Curio Cabinet #1 & 2 by JB. Also, if anybody out there wants their book reviewed, the review pile here is getting pretty slim, so please send away…


Update for 8/8/07

August 8, 2007

New reviews for Time Warp Comix #3 by Brad W. Foster (published by Dan Taylor, and I updated his website) and Fidget #16 by T. Richard Litz & Dan Kellaway. Three cheers for power outages during a heat wave!


Update for 8/7/07

August 7, 2007

New reviews for Backseat Drivers #1 by Clint Basinger and All Flee! by Gavin Burrows & Simon Gane. Stay indoors and read comics this week, it’s too hot to go outside…


Update for 8/6/07

August 6, 2007

New reviews for Hickee #3 by Various people and Blink #3 by Max Ink. Also, no news on any of those missing comics creators, but I’ll try again to list everybody next weekend before I give up on them altogether…


Update for 8/1/07

August 1, 2007

New review for Ex-T by B. Wilkison & Nik Havert and Too Negative #7 by Jenny Gonzalez. More new stuff for the store too: Too Negative #7, 8 & 9 by Jenny Gonzalez and Habitual Entertainment #3 by Will Dinski.


Update for 7/31/07

July 31, 2007

New reviews for Death, Cold As Steel #3 by Bram Meehan & Jamie Chase and True Travel Tales #2 by Justin Hall (the second one being part of my ongoing effort to review some of the stuff that has been available in the store for years).


Update for 7/30/07

July 30, 2007

New reviews for Chucky by Donovan Cater and Carl’s Large Story!!! #1 by Marcos Perez, both available in the online store. Also new to the store is Tear-Stained Makeup #6 by Marcos Perez. Thanks to everybody who ordered comics for the fundraiser, I ended up with around $120 of the $150 I was shooting for, which was a lot more than I was expecting, frankly. Please resume your regular comic buying schedule. I’ll still be very, very broke until I get a big check at the end of the next month, but nowhere near as bad as it was this month.


Update for 7/27/07

July 27, 2007

OK, here’s all the new stuff available in the store: Slither #6 and The Cheapest S.O.B.’s by Kelly Froh, Morgenmuffel #15 by Isy, Elm City Jams #2 by Isaac Cates, Mike Wenthe & various artists, Satisfactory Comics #7 and Demonstration by Isaac & Mike, Unlovable #2, 3, 4, 5 and Unlovable Fat Pack by Esther Pearl Watson, Flip-Tard by Mark Todd & Esther Pearl Watson, Comic Characters! and Bad Ass Pack by Mark Todd. As for the fundraiser, I’m still about $50 short of my goal. This weekend will be the end of my begging, as anything that comes in after that won’t be able to help with my rent. So if there are 5 people with $10 each burning a hole in their pockets and in desperate need of comics, please order away, you’d be doing me a huge favor. Next week things should be back to normal with the usual amount of rambling and such. Happy weekend everybody!


Update for 7/26/07

July 26, 2007

Done! Well, that weekend project ended up taking about a week, but it was worth it. Everybody, from Nick Abadzis to Jeff Zwirek, should have current, functioning contact information. I left some of the “under construction” websites up, but tried to note that they weren’t working. I also didn’t check the e-mail addresses, but I did try to make sure they were the most current available. What did I do, exactly?Put the contact information at the page for just about everybody, added blogs and Myspace pages when I could find them, and just generally tidied the site up a bit, something I should have done a long, long time ago.� So if you notice something I missed, please let me know. I tried to be thorough, but, as I saw while doing all this, I am very capable of making mistakes. I’m probably going to skip out on reviews tomorrow and just add all the new books that have come in for the store, then things will be back to normal next week. Reviews for the past week that have been shoved off the main page: Earth Minds Are Weak #7 by Justin Fox, Black Book by Steve Black, Super #1 by Kevin Breslawski (available in the store), My Word by Missy Kulik & John Porcellino (also in the store), Nobody Can Eat 50 Eggs #31 by Steve Steiner, Panel #9 by Various Columbus people, Relationship(s): The Train by Mason Johnson & Daniel Salcido, Random Journeys #3 by Rob Jackson, There’s No Place #1 by Corey Bechelli, and Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen. New stuff in the store last week included Friends #3 by Francois Vigneault and a bunch of stuff by Corey Bechelli.


Various: Graphic Classics

July 26, 2007

Website

Graphic Classics: Bram Stoker

Oh, what an awful scan. What’s new, right? Anyway, I’d heard of this series but hadn’t seen it before. It’s a great idea, having some really talented people interpret stories from various literary figures. They also have Jack London, Ambrose Bierce and H.P. Lovecraft (I’d love to see that one), which all begs the obvious question: where’s Edgar Allen Poe? Just curious. Here are the names in this that you might recognize: Jeremi Onsmith, Hunt Emerson, Spain Rodriguez, and Richard Sala. Various stories from Bram Stoker are interpreted here, some as pictures accompanying text and others just as illustrated versions of stories. Certain artists would take chunks of stories too, as a few different people did parts of Dracula (with the Hunt Emerson illustrated “strengths and weaknesses of vampires” being my favorite. Basically if you like the Big Book series from DC or like the work of the author in question, they’ve done a great job with this book. Well worth a look, especially considering that it’s only $9.95 for a fat book. Check out the website, why don’t you?

Graphic Classics: Mark Twain

I love the fact that nobody spent any time in this interpreting The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Clemens (that’s his real name, as a tiny bit of my schoolin’ is clinging to my brain) had pearls of wisdom and quirky little short stories that have probably never been equaled, and that’s what everybody here focused on. The Mysterious Stranger, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, A Dog’s Tale, P.T. Barnum and the Cardiff Giant, and A Ghost Story are a few of the stories in this book. I’d only heard of two people in this one (Rick Geary and Mary Fleener), but it’s obviously a lot more fun than the Bram Stoker volume. It is worth your time to actually seek out some of his books, but this is perfect to introduce children to his work or just a great collection of his stories. It’s still only $9.95 and everything I’ve seen of this series so far shows me that it’s a blast. Website!

Graphic Classics: Edgar Allen Poe

There’s probably not a single author out there more responsible for my sense of wonder as a human being as Edgar Allen Poe (with the possible exception of Tolkien). It probably had a lot to do with the fact that we were taught genuinely horrific stories in grade school about being buried alive, murder, plague and torture. It’s obvious, right from the gushing introduction from Joe Lansdale, that this whole book is a labor of love. All of the favorites are covered here (although there are plenty that aren’t, as there just aren’t enough pages in the world to do this man justice and still have the book be less than $100), and even the story of The Raven is redone in an interesting way, something that I didn’t think was possible after seeing tributes/rip-offs from all manner of media over the years. If there’s some way that you’ve made it to this point in your life without reading any of Poe’s work, check this out, as it’s only $9.95. I read it at work, in broad daylight, while listening to country music (hey, I don’t have control of the radio station), and I’m still creeped out and jumping at random noises. Buy this, but also check out his prose work, as I’m going to try and find a decent collection of his for the next thing on my reading list. Contact info is up there!


Various: Riverwurst Anthologies

July 26, 2007

Website

E-mail

Riverwurst #3

Man, I was expecting so much more from this one. I read #4 before #3, in case you were wondering, and this was an issue that was all about Halloween. I was really expecting great things from this one, and instead I got a mish-mash. Certain stories are pretty funny, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a lot more poetry in this one, and at least one of the poems looks like somebody had those poetry magnets and just threw it onto a page. Not that I’m an educated critic of poems or anything, but blech. A lot of the same people are in here that were in #4, but I’m much too lazy to type them all again, so scroll down there if you’re curious. All in all I’d say you should get #4, as that was a solid, thoroughly entertaining anthology, while this one was your typical anthology: a few good stories, a great one or two, but mostly it’s not worth the time or effort. Oh, stories in here include zombie love, old Denis Kitchen stuff, eggs from hell, a bad dream, demon night, aliens making fun of Earth, piercing humor, a punk rock zombie, and the true story of Satan. $3, contact info is down one title, and get #4 instead!

Riverwurst #4

It’s always great to see a good random anthology. Seems like these are a dime a dozen, but real quality books are always hard to come by. Here are some familiar names from this website, at least: Nick Jeffrey, Larned Justin, Jen Sorenson, and Jenny Gonzalez. All kinds of good strips in here from people that I’d never heard of too, and a former sex worker who had an essay about how great boobs are, Candye Kane. What’s the book about? Well, you can read the cover for a few themes (it’s magazine sized, I just shrunk it down), but it also has Pickle Dude by Ben Liesch, a story about the ironies of eating meat from Jeremy Kirk, tattoo revenge by Bill Krupinski, some old strips from Denis Kitchen (you know, the guy who ran Kitchen Sink Press), a couple of incredibly funny strips from Dug Belan, and a disturbing story about a young girl who wants to be a robot from Heather Shinn… and that’s only the the first half of the book. Great stuff all around, probably the best anthology I’ve seen so far this year… but it’s early yet. Here’s an e-mail address, #3 is available too, and this is a great way to spend $4 if you like comics.

Riverwurst #5

OK, there are two possible ways for me to review this book. One is to treat it as just another anthology, and on that front it’s not bad at all. Fairly typical, actually. A few great good stories, a couple of crappers, and a whole bunch somewhere in the middle. The other way I could review this, however, would be to see it as a piece of political protest, an informed piece of dissent, and on that front it pretty much sucks. Is there a single good political comic being done out there? I don’t mean the newspaper stuff, I mean a regular, independently published small press comic. There’s nothing new in here about George W. Bush, and most of criticisms are simple, easy jabs about him choking on a pretzel or being a small man with a huge ego. That’s great, but I’ve seen it done a hundred times, and most of the book has nothing to do with GW. So why the cover? Were they just trying to cash in on the flood of anti-GW books out there? If so, kudos to them, but you should at least make the entire book about the guy and his administration, and do some research! I know it might be a bit boring, but there’s plenty to nail the guy on that doesn’t involve just calling him names. Most of the usual suspects are here from the last two issues, which automatically means that a lot of talent was involved, and I have to repeat that this is far from a bad anthology. It’s just that one look at that cover gives you an entirely different impression of what you’re going to get on the inside, and it’s hard to consider that anything other than a disappointment. Contact info is up there, this is $3, check out #4 if you want to see what this crew is capable of when at their best, and I’m perfectly willing to accept the hypothesis that I didn’t like this book all that much because the artists didn’t tear GW apart nearly as much as I would have liked to have seen, especially after the election…