January 23, 2014
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Star Pilot #10
Has there ever been a leading man named “Chest” before? Because “Chest Palmero” is one of the better names for a boxer that I’ve ever heard. This comic is unconnected from past issues, so don’t worry about being lost by that “#10” on the cover. Things start out with Chest stealing some food as a little kid in 1932. He’s chased down by the robot police (suggesting that maybe this is not quite the 1932 that we were thinking of) and, given the chance to surrender or fight, he fights. We don’t see what happens in that fight but instead are moved forwards to 1955 as Chest is defeated by a robot for his boxing championship. From there we get to learn a bit more about these robots and Chest’s plan to take them all down. I love how damned near every panel that Frank draws has such a manic energy to it. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen biting into an apple done as an action panel, and there’s a constant sense of forward motion to go along with all the general weirdness. The perspective is a little bit off here and there (when Chest chokes the homeless guy I’d swear the guy’s head shrinks quite a bit), but that’s a minor quibble for such a fun story. Buy some of his books, the guy deserves a reward for making it to double digits. $2
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Posted by Kevin
January 17, 2014
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Loud Comix #2
It’s odd to start a review with the back cover of a comic, but the back issue of this one has a hilarious image of a frazzled Jamie Vayda promising that a new issue of this anthology will come out every two months. That’s ambitious as hell and I wish him all the best, but it seems like an impossible deadline to meet. Six issues of this series in 2014? I hope that I’m wrong, but that seems impossible. As for the stories, they’re another solid bunch, all illustrated by Jamie, and I have to say that I’d like their odds better of getting six issues out next year if another artist or two illustrated a story here and there. Stories in here include one of the more unique scenarios I’ve ever seen for a zombie outbreak from Darin Martinez, Lester the Porn Fairy by Erika Lane (which is either exactly what you’re expecting or nothing like what you’re expecting, depending on what’s in your head), an attempt to one-up that guy who jumped from space back down to earth last year by Christian Maes, a song about Electric Frankenstein by Sal Conzonieri, a night at the Apollo that doesn’t go all that well by Eric Todd (but it is funny as hell), and the finale of that story from last issue by Alan King. If you don’t remember that one the big question was how the guy ended up with a fake leg, and I could not have been happier with the answer. I think people should be lining up to support this effort, as a regular anthology series with a rotating cast of writers sounds like a great thing to me, so give this and/or the first issue a shot. $6 seems a little steep to me for a mini comic, but in a time where the popular Marvel stuff is going for $4 I don’t see how anybody could be expected to ask much less than $6 for a self-produced comic. Those old timey mini comic prices that are still in my head are a thing of the past, so don’t mind my nostalgia for an age of cheap things. $6
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Posted by Kevin
January 16, 2014
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RhiZome #1
I can’t help it, it’s just been beaten into me over the years: I get nervous whenever somebody puts the first part of a continuing story in an anthology. I’ve been proven wrong to be nervous about this before, but I’ve also been proven right plenty of times. Which is to say that Rob Jackson has a fascinating first part of a story in here, and I’d really rather the rest of the story wasn’t lost forever because there was never a second issue of this series. Eh, don’t mind me, I’m working on being less pessimistic in the new year. The other stories are all self-contained, so no worries there. These other stories include Max Mose’s tale of a civilization wandering the stars in search of more of the nuclear weapons that destroyed their homeworld, Kyle Baddeley-Read and his piece on the benefits of child slavery (to the children), John Robbins with his story of a man who discovers a giant hole in his stomach and his conversations with his therapist about it, and Pete Batchelor’s tale of a man who thought that he had outsmarted the apocalypse by freezing himself and thawing himself out in 2130. Pretty great stuff all around, and it all added up to a really odd and fantastic vibe for the book as a whole. Oh, and Rob’s story, as I mentioned, won me over completely. It’s all about a man who’s annoyed at getting his new job while also happy because he desperately needed the money. Which wouldn’t be that odd of a story, but this man goes into his first day and finds another man there who has his name and who kind of looks like him. This is more than just a simple coincidence or there’d be no story here, obviously, but the direction that it seems to be taking has me really curious to see what happens next. So check it out, is what I’m saying. Even if future parts of Rob’s story disappear completely (and he has a pretty good track record of finishing his stories so far), then this works perfectly well all by itself.
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Posted by Kevin
January 14, 2014
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Lucy the Octopus: I’ll Take What I Can Get
See? It couldn’t stay all bad for Lucy forever! Oh sorry, spoiler alert. Sort of. It’s complicated! This second collection of Lucy strips does a great job of expanding the cast of characters and giving a few of them more screen time, which is going to go a long way towards building a big universe for this crew. Assuming that Richy is going to keep going with this, which is never a sure thing, but judging from the response from readers that he got offering Lucy life advice it looks like he already has quite a fan base built up. Anyway, the main story in this collection deals with Lucy going to a concert for her favorite band, said band breaking up right after the show and Lucy auditioning for the vacant job of guitarist with the band. Her uncoolness shines through to the band even though they enjoyed her playing, so she doesn’t get the job initially, but things change a bit when she goes back to audition again wearing a disguise. Other subjects in here include her siblings trying to make her more presentable for the audition, another sibling getting the mistaken impression that Lucy is the favorite (with a hilarious strip featuring her father trying to correct the record in that regard, which is only seen as more proof of favoritism), checking in with Sandra from the last issue to find that she’s currently stuck holding the bags for the cool kids (or, as she puts it, climbing the social ladder), and the social pecking order of the school all in one strip. There are two odd artistic choices in here, although I’d hesitate to call either of them “bad” (mostly because I’m not the creator of the strips and cannot judge such things). He runs out of time on one strip, and instead of delaying it for a week he puts out the one finished panel, two black and white pencil drawings and one final panel apologizing for just not having the time to get the strip done. It ended up serving as a nice cliffhanger for the next strip, so no harm done, it’s just that I don’t recall ever seeing a late strip handled quite that way. The other oddity was the final three strips, as they each show a conversation from three different points of view. There’s Lucy recommending a theme for a class project that the other two students liked a lot, but they couldn’t say they liked it without publicly agreeing with Lucy, which is social death. It’s interesting to see how they each processed this contradiction, but this also means that Richy got to use the same strip three weeks in a row and just change the words, so I guess your level of cynicism will determine how you view this. There are a few bonus bits in the back, including Richy briefly drawing another strip, another artist drawing his and Lucy as a human. It’s a solid pile of strips and the concept as a whole is steadily improving, so check it out. And, as it’s a web series, there are plenty of free samples up at his website…
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Posted by Kevin
January 13, 2014
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Sugar Booger
Who likes their stories about candy to also be filled with nightmares? If it’s you, then you’re in luck! This is the story of an overexcited creature (monster?) who eats large amounts of candy, which transforms his boogers into candy for other people/creatures. Or it turns it into some kind of narcotic drug, it’s never made clear. But is if funny and/or disturbing? Oh yes. Yes, it is. There are basically two stories here, even though there is no kind of dividing line to indicate different stories. First there’s a brief introduction of Sugar Booger and his ability to transform candy into boogers for all his odd friends. The other story is the one depicted on the cover, where he meets up with a couple of (rightly skeptical) kids to share his treats with them. Things get a little dicey when the parents of these two kids show up, and why wouldn’t it, as that thing is almost certainly a monster. Kevin did a great job with the parents too, with their giant anime eyes and gross, gross perspiration/crying. It’s a three issue limited series, with the other issues coming out throughout 2014 (although the promotional material I got had these all coming out in 2013, so it’s good to see that fairly major comic companies can make the same mistake as me trying to write a check in the first week of 2014), so there’s plenty more of this to come. I guess this may be considered “all-ages,” although I have no idea where that line is any more. I recently discovered “Adventure Time” (always late to the party, that’s me), and if that’s considered appropriate for kids of all ages, I’d have to throw this in the pile too. It’s worth a look and I’m interested to see how this story evolves over the next couple of issues. $5.95
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Posted by Kevin
January 9, 2014
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Inspiration Point
Hey look, it’s the first comic I’ve seen with “2014” written inside of it! Why yes, I am easily impressed, why do you ask? This comic is about… well, it’s about a few different things, some stated outright, and some implied and referred to obliquely. Which makes it tricky to review, as if I get into the implied stuff then you won’t be able to discover it for yourself naturally, which means this will be another mess of a review, which should really stop being shocking after 12+ years of me rambling about comics. This one starts off with a man looking up safe places to go jogging in his area and heading out right around dawn. There’s someone sleeping on his couch and covered in cats, but we don’t learn the story of that person quite yet. From there the bulk of the story deals with this man and the people he encounters on the jogging trail, how they react to him, how he reacts to them, theories about what they might be up to, and what this man is doing jogging anyway. All along the way he’s also clearly thinking about that person on the couch, but trying very hard not to think about it or pretend that it has any importance to him. The comic would work just fine as an observational comic about the various types of people on a jogging trail and the experience of somebody who is clearly not a regular jogger, but it’s the subtext of that sleeping person that turns this into a great comic. And I’ve already made it clear that I’m not going to get into the specifics about that, so just take my word for it that this is a pretty damned great comic and you should check it out.
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Posted by Kevin
January 8, 2014
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Nextuus: The Hunt for the Raamus Emerald
I’m a sucker for a big, immersive science fiction world, as is probably pretty well established around this website by now. Even when they don’t grab me completely right out of the gate, I give people a lot of credit for spending the time to build up a believable world (within the confines of the rules for that particular brand of science fiction as established by the creator). Anyway, I picked up this comic at SPACE 2013 (which means I’m really slow reviewing it, so oops), along with a free primer for the series to catch up people who haven’t been following along, and that ended up impressing me even more than the comic. Why? Because most of the people in the primer aren’t even in this comic, because the comic is a prequel, meaning that there’s already a complete past and future world to work with, and a 180 page graphic novel floating around. If this is your kind of thing too, you’re in luck. As for the comic itself, the title explains what the point is pretty well, but this is the old crew trying to track down this emerald for a museum that had had much of its stock destroyed during a recent war. It’s basically an excuse to get to know the crew better, as they spend a lot of time trudging through the jungle and chatting before running into some armed bad guys who also want the emerald. Just to make it clear, in my view spending a few issues establishing the characters is essential to the long term success of a book. Who cares about a story with cardboard cutouts for characters? That is all done well here but (and I mean this in the best possible way) this comic felt like a drop in the bucket to what they have planned. A self-contained drop in the bucket, so don’t be afraid to pick it up because you don’t want to be lost in the story. Even without the primer they include some character bios in the intro, so no danger there. The art is occasionally a little hard to follow (like that scene aboard the dark plane, but that’s maybe just because they were aboard a dark plane and they couldn’t see that well either), but overall it’s solid. Check it out, and they have plenty of samples/stories at their website if you still need convincing. $2
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Posted by Kevin
January 7, 2014
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It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time #3: Artists in the Wild
Before I start the review of the actual comic, I’d like a word with the artists out there who, like Trevor, were told at some point that their lives weren’t “interesting enough” to make a comic about. For the rest of you who see this line of criticism as silly, feel free to ignore the next few lines, but for the few of you who took that criticism to heart and actually postponed/cancelled projects because you bought into that? Don’t be stupid. It’s a dated reference, but does anybody remember “Seinfeld”? The answer is that yes, all of you do, because it made all of the money in the world. And what was it about? Nothing! Or to take it into comics, how many of the great comics wouldn’t have been made if the artists had taken that kind of criticism to heart? It’s not like all of the autobio comics in the world are about spy missions and fights to the death. Most lives are at least a little bit boring, so don’t ever be talked out of telling your story. Hey, my first rant of 2014! So hey, let’s talk about this comic. The events in here happened about 5 years ago when Trevor spent a week with his brother camping and painting in Jasper National Park. And it’s fascinating stuff, so phooey to whoever talked him out of making a comic out of it until now. Along the way they show their interactions with needlessly aggressive drivers, show the different types of campers (the people, not the vehicles), detail their various interactions with tourists with little to no grasp of English, mistake a muddy river bed for a rocky river bed, and the wisdom of trying to stay up late to party after a week of camping. It’s great stuff, and I say that as a person who has never had much use for camping as a concept. Check it out, help make sure Trevor makes a pile of money from this and proves his friend wrong.
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Posted by Kevin
January 3, 2014
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Silent Energy
Anybody out there looking for a remarkably solid science fiction comic dealing with events occurring in 3152 and later? Then you’re in luck! I’m always baffled by people who set their “futuristic” stories 10-20 years in the future, or well within their lifetimes, as they usually end up looking silly once that actual year comes along. No such trouble with this one, and we start off with the origin story of a young turtle boy growing up and listening to Ziggy Stardust. I guess that could be a minor quibble of mine: chances are that records aren’t going to exist 100 years from now, much less 1100 years from now, and maybe some other more fantastical form of media should have been included, but that’s a nitpick of the highest order. Maybe it’s just something that’s meant to look like a record for nostalgia reasons and I’m being stupid, which is likely. Anyway, from there we get a fantastic conversation about the meaning behind the music to a future people, and from there we check in with our turtle hero at various points in his life as a space pilot and defender of the planet from alien invasions. We see Johnny (that’s his name) converse with his dad about becoming a pilot and knowing that his shell will be surgically removed before that’s possible, some down time in his college days rooming with a celestial dragon, an encounter with evil (?) robots, using his advanced weapons to stop a theoretical invasion pretty much effortlessly, dealing with the last of the giant spider gods, another conversation with his dad as an older man, some interpersonal drama between space missions, a pretty damned sweet Jack Kirby tribute, and the dreams that he is haunted by as an old man. This is a hell of an achievement, as it detailed the quiet moments in the life of this turtle person so perfectly that I didn’t even realize until the comic was done that that was the damned point. A few of the big moments in his life are here, sure, but it’s obvious that the quiet moments were by and large the things that were most important to Johnny. John (the author) also does a fantastic job of throwing in little nuggets of information here and there, tantalizing clues to a larger narrative that I hope comes out one day. But for now this is self-contained and tells the story of a life in the 32nd century, and all for a measly $3!
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Posted by Kevin
December 31, 2013
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Demon Wheat #2
Huzzah for words! After my review for Jon’s mostly silent last issue (last in terms of when I read them, not necessarily in the order they were released) I was hoping for something that made a bit more sense on the first read through. This comic has a few stories in it, and the different subjects give Jon a chance to really get inventive with his art. First up there’s the story of the Worm God and the unfortunate (though predictable, if you think about it) way that he meets his end. Next up is the story of an elderly radioactive snail and the creatures that live on its shell (including a Wuzzgutt cameo?), but mostly the creatures and their desire to see a bit more of the world than the back of a snail. Finally there’s the last story that takes up about half of the book about Moth Girl. Her costume is impractically designed, I have no idea whether or not those wings actually do anything, but it’s still a damned fascinating story (and also the first part of a serial, so there’s clearly more to see in #3). Things start off with her being sent away by her archnemesis to the rural mid-west, and her appearance causes a little confusion there as she’s mistaken for a prostitute and imprisoned. Still, the pimp has a pumpkin for a head and there’s the matter of all these vampires running around, so there’s a lot yet that has to be made clear in future stories. All in all this was a pretty great comic, much easier to follow than the last issue I reviewed but with the same great art. Check it out, and you too will believe that a man can have an enormous literal worm for a penis… $3
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Posted by Kevin
