Schmuck #14 – Blue Plate Special
Oh makers of small press comics, will you never learn? How do you expect to sell your comics if you don’t list them on your website? Granted, Mark does have a nice site with all kinds of samples (including the first half of this book, if you’re curious),. but how are you supposed to get a copy of this, or anything else he’s done? How are you even supposed to know WHAT he’s done? It’s baffling to me. And really, I just pulled that title from the slew of words on the cover and hope that I put them in something approximating the correct order. I wasn’t a fan of the other comic of his I got at SPACE (listed as a #3, meaning that there are theoretically plenty of issues that are nowhere to be found), but this one had its moments. It’s an 8 page shortie dealing with the wonders of working in a fast food restaurant. Is “restaurant” too strong a word? Probably. Anyway, the experience is as bad as you think, unless you’ve worked at one yourself, in which case you already know all about it. Highlights include Melvin getting his good mood crushed right out of him, giving the customer the receipt, the internal dialogue while talking to customers, the “joy” of the day being over, and trying to figure out what it all means. This might have been a series of one page strips, as there’s no real linear flow of a coherent story going on, but the tenuous connection is enough. Here’s hoping that more of his comics are like this one than #3, but judging from this and the samples on his site I’m going to have to revise my opinion of the man upward. Now if there was only some way for you to order his comics without just sending him an e-mail and seeing what he has laying around…
