SPACE is a weird time to try to evaluate comic artists, because I might be getting their first comic, I might be getting something they’ve spent years working on, or a 24 hour comic, or anything in between all of that. Well, this particular comic is from 2015, and if I have Ben’s timeline right, he was still in school at the Center for Cartoon Studies at the time. So what, did I end up with somebody’s only comic again? Dear reader, I did not. He’s been putting out comics regularly since, to the extent that “minicomics” are just one category on his website. There’s a (pretty funny, from what I read) online strip dealing mostly with cons, a graphic novel, anthologies… the man is clearly putting in the work. But hey, we’re here to talk about this one! So since this is an early comic, is it a little rough around the edges? You know, not really. Maybe the line on his artwork has tightened up a bit since, but it’s not exactly terrible here. This is the story of a young woman who’s moving into her college dorm. She’s nervous, things are a little awkward, and eventually her first day ends and she goes to bed. It’s then that she’s woken up by a noise outside of her window, which turns out to be a restless ghost. She runs out of her room to get some answers and learns the whole story of how the previous building burned down and how her room was the only one that coincided with one of the rooms from the previous building. Well, her window, specifically. After getting the whole story (including what happened to a previous resident who tried to help the ghost) she’s left with the choice of what to do about it. Which is the conflict for the rest of the comic, so I won’t spoil any of it, but that last page is too perfect for somebody who was still in school at the time. It’s a really solid mini, so check it out why don’t you? Or if ghost stories aren’t your thing, the man clearly has a lot of comics to choose from. $5
