Ullman, Robert – From the Curve #7

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From the Curve #7

You know, somebody told me years ago to put dates on these reviews and I never bothered, figuring it would be too much of a pain in the ass.  8 years later, I would like to just say on the record to everybody who recommended this: you were right.  It would have made things a whole lot easier now, on 2/2/10 (better late than never, right?), to know exactly when these reviews were coming from.  The last two issues of this series clearly came from 2001-2002, as that’s when I lived 2 and a half hours from Chicago.  As for the rest of it, who knows?  I could go back to each individual update page and check the new reviews for each date, but I got tired just typing that sentence.  Doing that for every day over the last 8+ years… well, forget it.  So how about this comic?  Rob is actually represented pretty well on this page, as I got my first issues of his comic right around when I was putting this website together, but I did manage to miss this one.  If I’m remembering this correctly (and I wouldn’t bet any money on it) this was the last issue of the regular series From The Curve, after which he did a number of assorted projects, and it still making comics today.  This issue is mostly a collection of short pieces, including a tribute to Charles Schulz, p-mail, wasting his time at a big box computer store, waking up in the early morning and the genuine confusion associated with it, why we look at a kleenex after we blow our nose, going to a very tiny comic show, getting to a late movie when the driver doesn’t know what he’s doing, his failed attempt at a stream-of-consciousness mystery, a depressed dog, dreaming a better evening than what actually happened, and leaving Richmond.  It’s a solid issue, and one more reason for me to lament the fact that so few mini comics from back in the day are still available in any format these days.  Why, in my day… well, in my day these were pretty hard to come by too.  OK, forget that part.  You should check out his newer books though, and at least he had the decency to put out a collected edition of at least some of his comics.  $2