New review today for Alamo Value Plus #1 by Rusty Jordan. Hey, I forgot to put this stupid little update-indicating-that-there’s-an-update-that-you-can-all-see-anyway after the previous review. Maybe I should cut it out entirely? Only post it when I have something to say outside of the review? But then what constitutes “having something to say”? That seems like it’s asking for trouble….
Update for 10/14/13
October 14, 2013
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Posted by Kevin
Jordan, Rusty – Alamo Value Plus #1
October 14, 2013
Nazis! You can never go wrong if you start off with Nazis as your bad guys. OK, they’re never technically called Nazis, but the main character’s story of a harrowing escape from a prison with some guards that sound suspiciously German combined with the fact that he’s an elderly dude only leads to one conclusion. But I’m getting ahead of myself! The title itself is almost unreadable, but it’s printed on the inside front cover, so don’t fret. Things start off in an obvious Wal-Mart substitute store, which again leads me to point out that the chances of Wal-mart ever finding out about them getting mocked in a mini comic is pretty slim, so maybe artists shouldn’t worry about using the actual name (but what do I know, maybe they have that many lawyers with that much free time. They certainly have the money for it). Anyway, Baldemar (our hero) and two kids take a break out back, where the smoking of tobacco and pot (although not by our hero) occur. Baldemar says it’s because he doesn’t want to become more paranoid, which leads the kids to ask why he’s so paranoid without it, which leads to Baldemar telling a story about his youth. His mother took him around the countryside, trying to keep them safe from the patrols, until eventually their luck ran out and they were captured. Obviously he got away or he wouldn’t have a job as a greeter 60 odd years later, but there were some loose ends from his adventure that never did get tied up, and it’s looking like at least one of those loose ends may be coming back to bite him. That’s right, this is a “#1” that seems to have a clear vision of the second issue, which is always nice to see. Rusty’s art has never looked better, and this story has all kinds of potential. Their method of disabling the guards was genuinely original, even though it’s easy to assume that every variation of the “escape from Nazi guards” thing has already been played out. Check it out, because it’s going to be annoying as hell if nobody reads this and Rusty doesn’t bother to finish the story. $4
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Posted by Kevin
Harrell, Rob – Monster on the Hill
October 10, 2013
As a general rule, when a graphic novel has glowing quotes from Jeff Smith and Neil Gaiman on the back, chances are that I’m going to love it. If that’s true for you, save yourself some time and just go out and by this book, because it’s delightful. Things start off with a horrific monster attack, as a large green beast terrorizes a town and chases some citizens into a cellar. They wait it out, the smoke clears… and the people cheer for the excellent job that the monster has done in terrorizing them. They admire the quality of the destruction, sell souvenirs, and generally bask in the attack that they just went through. Meanwhile, in another town, the people there are dejected because it’s been well over a year since they’ve had a monster attack (from Rayburn, the town monster), and even then it wasn’t a particularly good attack. They hatch a plan to have the resident scientist “fix” the monster, but the local newspaper boy smuggles himself along, and together they all set out to seek advice from another monster in how to get back to properly terrifying people. What Rayburn doesn’t realize is that leaving a town without a monster is something that the worst monster of them all will sense, and that monster (called The Murk) doesn’t mess around. He doesn’t just terrorize a town, he tears it down and eats the citizens. The rest of the graphic novel is a race against time and some big monstery battles. This is one of those rarest of graphic novels: an all-ages story that’s just as much fun for the adults as it is for the kids. I laughed out loud more than a few times, and having it set in 1867 brings up a simpler time when there actually were towns that were organized and had town pride, even if the pride was about the quality of the monster attacks. This is fantastic book that should be read by all humans with a sense of wonder and/or humor. If you’re looking for grim and gritty, you have plenty of other options, but this book is a delight through and through. $20
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 10/8/13
October 8, 2013New review today for Politics of a Twig by Maryanne Rose Papke. And I forgot about Top Shelf Tuesdays again, so I’ll have to review one of those books later in the week. Just in case you need to know every little thought that flies through my head, but hey, that’s what the internet is for, right?
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Posted by Kevin
Papke, Maryanne Rose – Politics of a Twig
October 8, 2013
Politics of a Twig
No insects were harmed in the course of this comic. Are there insect rights groups? It wouldn’t surprise me, but if there are, even they won’t be offended by this story. This one starts off with a bug trying to kick some leaves off of his branch by using his super powers. How does this bug have super powers? They were given to him by a preying mantis, as bugs taste better when they’re drunk with power. Other bugs stop by to attempt to reason with the bug that’s mad with power, interesting conversations are had by all, then this tiny comic ends. Maybe my saying that no insects were harmed is a bit of a spoiler. Well, harm is certainly implied, so you have that to look forward to. It’s a funny little story, and it makes me wonder why there aren’t more stories about insects out there, as most of them have to be easier to draw than humans. That comment right there probably explains why I write about comics instead of making them. Anyway, this is tiny, so I’m guessing a buck or two will get you a copy.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 10/7/13
October 7, 2013New review for Magic Forest #1 by Ansis Purins. I just renewed the domain name for another year, so if anybody wants to support the website by buying a few comics, now would be an excellent time for it. Just be sure to list an alternate comic or two with your order, as I’m out of stock on a few things that I haven’t had a chance to replace yet. Or those comics are out of print, but either way, list a few extras in case something is out of stock. Thanks for all the support over the years and, by the way, this is my 13th year of rambling about comics. In internet years I think that means that I’m a senior citizen…
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Posted by Kevin
Purins, Ansis – Magic Forest #1
October 7, 2013
Magic Forest #1
Ansis mentions on the inside front cover that this may be considered Zombre #2.5, but I refuse to go along with that. No Zombre in the comic, no Zombre in the title! I am cruel but fair. Anyway, don’t be too alarmed about Zombre, as #3 is almost done, and this is a little something to get us through until that comes out. This one has three stories, all dealing with something fantastical. Up first is a story about a park ranger who meets a singing mermaid. He tells her the rules about public nudity in the park, then they exchange names, which is when it gets weird. The second story deals with a forest gnome (or some other sort of woodland creature) who goes out hunting to prove his worth and ends up in an unfortunate encounter with a bear. Finally there’s the last surviving elf telling the story of the final battle with the spider army to the guardian of the forest. Of course there’s more to it than that, but I’m not going to ruin it for you. And then there’s that back cover that you’re just going to have to see for yourself, as there’s no way I’m going to try to describe it. It’s a damned funny comic, and you should be reading it. Simple enough, right?
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 10/3/13
October 3, 2013New review today for Minimal Comics by Graeme McNee. Happy birthday, me!
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Posted by Kevin
McNee, Graeme – Minimal Comics
October 3, 2013
Minimal Comics
What an absolutely charming comic, and that’s not something I say about comics often. The title really nails the theme, as these are all silent three panel strips. I was a little nervous at first that it would get repetitive, as one early strip is called “Clouds” and it features clouds slowly rolling across the sky, then another early strip is called “Sunset” and it shows a sunset in three panels. You can see why I was getting a little worried, but it turns out that I was way off, and Graeme takes this simple concept to some genuinely innovative places. This will be difficult to talk about without ruining its quiet charm, but a few strips really stand out. There’s “Government,” which shows three different types of politicians (indicated by the colors of the flag they carry) and three consistently angry crowds (indicated by the fact that they always use flags of different colors than the speaker). “Kiss” is just cute as hell and I’m not even going to get into why. “Shy” is beautiful and perfectly done. And there’s lots more, but again, me describing all of these simple strips would ruin the fun of YOU discovering them. Graeme is also nice enough to include a blank page with three panels on it so you can get into the spirit of the comic and make your own strip. Which, honestly, you probably will be by the time you finish reading this. I went from being mildly entertained to hoping that it would go on forever pretty quickly, and I can’t imagine a better endorsement for a comic than that. Not sure about the price, but the guy does live in Japan so it’ll most likely be a few bucks more than most comics. Why don’t you get in touch with the man and find out?
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 10/1/13
October 1, 2013New review today for Colossal #3 by Jason Ludtke. Does my getting off to a slow start this week mean that I’ll still manage to put five reviews up this week? Eh, maybe, as it’s my birthday this week and that might require a little celebrating that gets in the way of reviews. Besides, I’m running a little low on comics. Wasn’t SPX a few weeks ago? If you had comics there and would maybe like to get the word out a little more, send me your comics, that’s what I’m here for!
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Posted by Kevin
Ludtke, Jason – Colossal #3
October 1, 2013
Colossal #3
Hey look, a few questions were answered this time around! And lots more were asked, and even more questions were left to be answered in later issues. Of course, none of this makes any sense if you haven’t read earlier issues of this series, but that’s on you. Things start off with a brief musical interlude, sheet music and all, showing the trajectory of a bullet as it enters that truck with all the bullet holes from the last issue. As I can’t read music I’m very curious to hear what it sounds like, but I’ll have to check that later. From there we get the birds chatting with the giant robot as the robot tries to explain why he knows about the truck without having what they would think of as a memory of it. He had me convinced, but one of the birds freaks out right away, thinking that the robot is looking to kill them. Which, hey, not the craziest idea in the world, as they still have very little idea of what went on and what role the robot played in it. The other bird (the one on the cover) decides to stick it out, and the rest of the issue is spent introducing the robot to the concept of night, exploring a bag found at the scene, and going off following after what’s in the bag. I loved the playback of the events coming purely from the robot’s perspective, and Jason did a fantastic job of showing how genuinely odd that perspective would be. Things are looking to get interesting in the next issue too, if the road sign is any indication (and no, I’m not going to spoil what it says). This has been interesting as hell so far, and has the makings of being a great series, so check it out why don’t you? $5
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/27/13
September 27, 2013New review today for The Steaming Pool by Pam Bliss. You still have a few hours to take advantage of that Top Shelf Comix sale I’ve been telling you about, so go do that if you haven’t already.
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Posted by Kevin
Bliss, Pam – The Steaming Pool
September 27, 2013
The Steaming Pool
Have you ever read any Edward Gorey books? No? OK, feel shame for a moment, then go read a few of his books to become a more complete human. For the rest of us, this comic is Pam’s tribute to Gorey, and it’s a beauty. It’s also damned near impossible to review without giving the whole thing away, so it’s a good thing I’m not paid by the word. Or at all, really. Hey, I’ve been doing this for free for 12 years! So hey, this comic. The page I sampled should tell you all you need to know about this style, but this thing is ridiculously perfect as a tribute. The dialogue, the fur coat, the one piece old-timey bathing suit, everything was as it should be. Send her a buck to check it out, then slip it into one of your Gorey books. I’m curious to see how much it confuses the next person to read that book, or if they think it might just be an add-on from Gorey himself. $1
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/26/13
September 26, 2013Two new reviews today, for two comics that couldn’t be more different: Jakey the Jerk by Chris Garrison and With Only Five Plums Book 3: Life in the East is Worthless by Terry Eisele & Jonathon Riddle. Does this mean that I’ll actually put up two reviews tomorrow to get five for the week? Eh, maybe.
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Posted by Kevin
Eisele, Terry & Riddle, Jonathon – With Only Five Plums Book 3: Life in the East is Worthless
September 26, 2013
With Only Five Plums Book 3: Life in the East is Worthless
I’m just going to go ahead and assume that you’re already read the first two volumes of this series, as it would be silly for you to read a review of the final volume otherwise. This third volume begins with Anna finally getting back to her home village, where she discovers that it has been completely removed from the map. The Germans didn’t just destroy the buildings and kill the people, they also rerouted rivers, smoothed down hills and generally did everything they could to remove any trace of her old village. Terry and Jonathon do a heartbreaking job of showing how this process was completed based on accounts after the fact, but the Germans also taped everything (this information was used at the Nuremburg trials). This would have been the most heartbreaking thing in any other story, but at this point we still aren’t clear on what has happened to all of the people from this town, especially Anna’s family. This is all revealed, with the men being separated from their families and killed and the children being separated and sent away (and told cruel lies about being reunited with their families). Some of the children were sent to German families and adopted, and in one of the only uplifting parts of this story we learn that most of these children were eventually recovered and returned to their surviving family members. But the ones that didn’t survive, the ones that weren’t adopted… that’s a brutal tale. It’s only human nature to want a happy ending out of an unimaginable atrocity like this, for at least something good to happen to Anna after everything she’s been through, but her story of what happened to her family took any hope for that away. Still, this series should be required reading, and I’m hoping it ends up being taught in classrooms. If you think that humanity as a species couldn’t possibly do something like this again and we should stop remembering this horrible time, look at the state of world affairs. It’s easier than ever to think of different people as “other,” as not really people at all but just numbers, and this will only increase as global warming really kicks in and resources get scarcer. Without some preparation for this likelihood I’m afraid that we’ll be back at a similar juncture in human history sooner than anybody thinks. Sorry to get all grim on you, and I’m hoping that I’m just being unduly cynical, but either way you should give this series of graphic novels a chance. It’s vitally important that we’re not allowed to forget what happened. $9
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Posted by Kevin
Garrison, Chris – Jakey the Jerk #1
September 26, 2013
Jakey the Jerk #1
I do so love comics that mess with my expectations. As you can probably guess from that title, the lead character is a bit of an asshole, and the first few strips set up a funny (if repetitive) formula. Jakey tries to ask out a bank worker, hits on a lady at a traffic light and gets annoyed when his conversation with a lady in a bar is interrupted. It might have gotten old over the course of a whole comic, but they had me chuckling. The next strip was split in two, with Jakey in one half and the other half featuring an owl who hears from the woman he’s with those words that every “nice guy” hears at some point in their lives. Next up is a slightly longer strip with an argument about whether or not a certain celebrity is dead (with a nice punch line), but then the comic completely changes speeds. The rest of it is taken up with a long story about Jakey being basically hired on as a bodyguard for a woman that he didn’t know was famous. She’s a hippie chick, he’s a gym rat, they don’t seem to have much of anything in common, but Chris takes on a long hike with the two of them and we get to see a gradual warming by the both of them. I wasn’t expecting to see much in the way of genuine emotion here, so kudos to him for successfully straddling that line while also keeping it funny. There’s also potential for the story to keep going, but either way I’m curious to see more of this world. Chris is on a website with a bunch of other artists, so I’m thinking that might be my afternoon right there if they’re all as good as this one. Check it out, get some laughs, enjoy a small goat creature butting some people into oblivion. $3
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/25/13
September 25, 2013Sorry about the lack of updates, it’s been a mess of a week so far. New review today for The Daily Compulsion #5 by Nathan Rice, I’ll try to do an extra review or two over the next couple of days to make up for lost time. The operative word being “try”…
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Posted by Kevin
Rice, Nathan – The Daily Compulsion #5
September 25, 2013
The Daily Compulsion #5
How many daily diary strips do you think have existed in comics since James Kochalka started his? Granted, he wasn’t the first person to do it ever, but that’s what seemed to make it a “thing,” so go with me on this one. Out of all of those diary strips, what do you think was the average strip number when the cartoonist did a strip about how they were sick of doing a daily strip? Nathan makes it #10 in this one, but he only did 11 strips, so at least he didn’t drag it out like some people do. Has there ever been a daily diary strip where at least one of the strips wasn’t about the creator being sick of making it? Hey internet, somebody out there must have far too much free time on their hands, get on this please! While we’re waiting for the numbers to come in, how about I talk about this comic for a bit? This is Nathan’s first book in 7 years, meaning that at least two of the strips show opinions that he no longer has (he mentions this in the intro). To me this raises the obvious question of why he bothered to include them at all, but if he’s trying to show an accurate timeline of his life they do come in handy. The first disavowed strip deals with cocaine and how it has messed up different people in his life (which makes me wonder why he no longer stands by it, unless it’s because of that silly conspiracy theory about the Clintons and coke on the last panel) and the second strip deals with why people really commit suicide and how the best way to avoid it is to think a few steps ahead and realize that things will get better. These would have been totally unremarkable if it wasn’t for that intro, but now they stand out a bit. Other strips in here include his regrets about never becoming friends with a guy because they both liked the same girl, the 11 diary strips he made it through when he briefly quit drinking (most of these were pretty good strips, but he didn’t have years to get sick of doing them either), a few different recovery jokes/strips from AA, and a pretty funny bit about Alcoholic Anarchists Anonymous. The best part of the comic is the last story, a continuing piece about how he ignored all kinds of signs about how his drinking was out of control, how he quit for a bit and then fell back into it. Here’s hoping it’s not another seven years until his next comic, as I’m curious to see how that all turned out. Overall it’s a good comic with all kinds of different stories for that old fashioned price of $1, so give it a look.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/20/13
September 20, 2013New review today for a very special comic by Lauren Barnett: I’m a Horse, Bitch. Happy weekend everybody!
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Posted by Kevin
Barnett, Lauren – I’m a Horse, Bitch
September 20, 2013
I’m a Horse, Bitch
Now here’s the perfect comic for a Friday afternoon. Are you a horse? Do you know exactly how awesome you are? If that’s the case, this comic might seem a little unnecessary to you, but it’s probably best to put your greatness out into the world in as many ways as possible. If you’re not a horse, but think that they are pretty awesome, you’re going to love this one. That title is not a swerve; this is a comic that does exactly what the title says it’s going to do. A horse tells you the various ways that it is better than you, its true feelings about ponies, and the power that it barely manages to keep contained on a daily basis. And… that’s it, really. What, you wanted the meaning of life in here too? Not necessary. This comic is perfect exactly as it is and you should be able to see that. If for some reason you hate horses, I still think you should read this, if only to give yourself one more chance to love them before it’s too late. $2
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Posted by Kevin
