January 6, 2013
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Bad Breath Comics #5
It’s the constant danger of comics made of a number of short stories: there are bound to be some stinkers in the bunch. Or if not necessarily “stinkers,” then definitely lower down on the “meh” scale. Josh’s covers also don’t seem to have much of anything to do with the interior, which is a perfectly valid option, but if you only bought this because you love flying cars you’ll end up disappointed. These books are narrated by a Crypt Keeper-esque dude called “Step-Brother Scary,” which is something that I think should be in more comics, but I’m not the boss of the world. Things start off a little awkwardly with a story about a young man who is obsessed with a certain type of candy bar, but only for the wrappers. This story is all over the map, as the young man veers away from people to avoid incidental eye contact but also offers the candy to strangers so that they can eat it and give him the wrappers. The “why” of this is never established, unless it’s just for the sake of telling a brief story about a creepy dude. Josh also has a few spelling mistakes where he uses a word that sounds like the word he’s supposed to be using, to the point that I started wondering if he was doing it on purpose. If so, bravo! If not, everybody knows that you can plug any word into Google and the definition is usually one of the first things that comes up, right? Just saying that’s it a very easy thing to fix. Other pieces in here involve a misunderstanding involving fishing, an honest group reaction to a self help class, the tai-chi guy, hijinx with a grown-up in a bee costume, a haunted house conversation that’s all build-up with no payoff (but it’s still funny), a duck buying back his stolen bike, an introverted guy giving a speech, two parking lots, and a story about a young woman falling asleep on the bus that goes absolutely nowhere (but is, for some reason, listed as “to be continued”). The humor was a bit dopier than my preference at times (“Wall-Fart” instead of “Wal-Mart” probably isn’t going to cause a whole bunch of people to guffaw), but there’s still enough good stuff in here to be worth a look. And that page I sampled below was brilliant. $2
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Posted by Kevin
January 4, 2013
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Monday Saddies! #1
Go ahead, make a first impression based on that cover. It shouldn’t be too difficult, with what appear to be three depressed and/or confused characters. That hat on the bear makes it obvious that it’s a talking bear (what other type of bear would wear a hat? Don’t be silly), and you might also get that same impression from the snake because he’s sitting at the table. Do you have that impression firmly established in your head? Yeah, you’re wrong. Or if you end up not being wrong, you might want to look into getting psychiatric help. Things start off with the ranger taking a bunch of kids camping, hoping to show them some constellations. This plan is interrupted by the snake, who has recently purchased a bat signal and is loathe to turn it off. Mayhem ensues, the snake gets the better of the ranger, and you might think that it would turn into a wacky adventure with the ranger trying to put one over on that rascally snake. Well, no. It turns out that the ranger likes getting beat up a little too much, and tries to escalate things with the snake. Meanwhile, the snake (and he’s called Sweetie Snake, which is too awesome for me not to mention) learns that he isn’t exactly punishing the ranger by attacking him, and asks that talking bear for advice. I should say no more, as you should see how the rest of this goes down for yourselves (and the fate of that bear had me laughing out loud), but it’s very much worth a look. And apparently future issues will have entirely different characters, which already has me wondering what Steve comes up with next. $5
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Posted by Kevin
January 3, 2013
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Homesick
My apologies to the rest of the people out there making graphic novels, but it’s three days into the new year and we already have a winner for best book of the year. Yes, it’s obviously too early to say that, but I’ve rarely seen a book that’s managed to be this perfectly devastating. This is Jason’s first book, which is damned near criminal, and it’s the story both of a lost cosmonaut and Jason’s mother struggling through ten years of various levels of cancer. How could those two things possibly go together? I had the same question early on, and he managed to pull them together in an impressive manner. But that’s getting ahead of the story. Things start off by giving you the impression that this is going to be a happier book, as Jason calls his mother to tell her about his recent engagement. He learns that her cancer is back and it’s all downhill from there. Jason lives far away from his mother and it’s difficult to visit her, but he had problems with seizures as a child and she has always been there to support him and keep him safe. We see his early days and a number of snippets that are exactly the sorts of things that pop into your head when you can see the end coming up, the moments that end up comprising your best memories of a person. The cosmonaut ends up being one of the first people sent up into space, back when they had no way of getting the person back down again. His difficulty in accepting his fate intersects with Jason’s nicely by the end, and if you can read this whole book without shedding a tear then you’re a heartless monster. Anything else I say would either be repeating myself or giving away bits that don’t need to be given away. I recommend a lot of books on this site and no one person could possibly buy them all, but save up those pennies and put together the $16 needed to pick this up. There are precious few books out there with the potential to make you a better human being, and this is on that list. $16
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Posted by Kevin
January 2, 2013
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The Ticking
I don’t think anybody out there does silent comics better than Renee French. Granted, this graphic novel isn’t completely silent, but the sheer amount of silence really magnifies the few words that do make it through. This is the story of Edison Steelhead… hey wait a minute, doesn’t she already have a graphic novel about Edison Steelhead? Yes she does, and if you were mystified by that book, it ends up serving as a great companion piece to this book, as that’s a series of drawings and this character is an artist. Anyway! We see Edison born, we see that his mother didn’t survive the birth and that Edison was born deformed like his father. He basically looks like Tina from “Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron” by Dan Clowes, what with eyeballs on the side of his head and all. We gradually (and I really need to emphasize “gradually,” as Renee’s ability to reveal these story bits piece by piece is remarkable) see Edison grow up, see when Edison figures out that his father had had cosmetic surgery to fix his deformity, and see Edison’s own struggle to either cover up his appearance like his father or embrace it and take on the world. It does say which way he decides on the back of this book, but I consider that a spoiler and it’s not like you’re reading the back of the book right now anyway, so I’ll leave it a mystery. The story scrapes right up against “uplifting” a few times but never quite makes it, which was the perfect tone for it. I also have to point out the existence of Edison’s adopted sister and how much I love that the obvious questions about her existence (you’ll know what I mean when you read this) are never addressed. This book somehow snuck by me when it was released in 2005, but if you’re looking for a hefty graphic novel from this woman then you’re in luck. And if you’ve heard her name and aren’t sure where to dive into her work, I can’t imagine a better place to start. $20
Renee F
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Posted by Kevin
January 1, 2013
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King Cat #73
Sure, you probably think that I give all issues of King Cat glowing reviews and that there’s no point in even reading this one, so I’ll start you off with something new: the first strip didn’t do a whole lot for me. There, criticism! Even if it is vague, as humor is subjective, and the thought of a bear sneaking in two cats to watch a slightly risque movie didn’t get a chuckle out of me. Of course, the rest of the issue is still fantastic, and that first strip is only two pages (that, again, you might enjoy just fine), so forget I mentioned it. The bulk of the book is John on the hunt for a cuckoo that he may or may not have seen, and we get a history of his various possible sightings of that bird over the years. Hey, that sounds boring. Bring on the killer robots! OK, granted, John does not have any killer robots in this at all, and if that’s what you’re looking for I’d advise you to start in a comic called something other than “King Cat.” This one, for new readers, is all about the quiet moments and the constant search for clues about life and everything. Just in case you’ve been reading small press comics for years and have never picked up a copy of King Cat, you poser you. The rest of the comic has his usual “top 40” list (that is rarely if ever actually 40 things), a few letters, John’s dream about being a monk and his ethical dilemma in it, some facts about a certain type of squirrel and a cat on shoelace patrol. Yes, John still puts out a fantastic comic on a regular basis and yes, you should still buy it. $3
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Posted by Kevin
December 26, 2012
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The Disappearance of Gordon Page, Jr.
Hey look, Robert is getting into sequential stories! You may remember Robert from the fascinating “Stranger Two Stranger” series where he illustrates those “missed connection” ads on Craigslist, but (as he makes clear in the intro) he’s been wanting to branch out for a while and saw an opportunity to submit a story to an anthology. This story didn’t make the cut, but hey, that’s why mini comics exist! This is the story of a young man who was misdiagnosed at a young age as a schizophrenic and spent years basically living as a vegetable under the wrong medications. Eventually they figured out that he was autistic, he was placed on the correct medications and he disappeared. It’s a heartbreaking story, especially considering the fact that he was most likely trying to get back to his family (who put him in a home in Michigan before moving to Florida, which seems a little callous to me, but they’ve had to live with the guilt of it for 20 years and what do I know anyway). The truly tragic thing about missing persons stories is that if it’s older than a year or so (really, more like six months) then the chances that that person will ever be found are vanishingly small, and Gordon disappeared in 1991. Robert does list a phone number that you should use if you do know anything and hey, stranger things have happened. Judging this as his first (?) foray into sequential storytelling, he does a nice job of getting out all the facts of the story, with quotes from his family (based on an old episode of “Unsolved Mysteries”). It probably didn’t need to have roughly have of the pages as full page spreads when there are only 9 pages in the story, but that’s a minor complaint and it’s not like they were heroic posing pages; you still got snippets of information on them. It’s worth checking out, and I’m curious to see if Robert keeps these kinds of stories going or goes back to his previous series. Hey, there’s room enough for both! $1
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Posted by Kevin
December 21, 2012
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Daggurs: Troubled Youth
It always makes my job so easy when I can use basically any page of a comic for a sample and still have it be hilarious. That’ll probably give away my opinion of the book right there, but how much suspense were you expecting in a review? Get a grip on yourself. Anyway, this is mostly a 24 hour comic (“mostly” meaning that Sam drew the whole thing in 24 hours, then went back in after the time limit to add some greys, which still counts in my book) about the life of a man/creature named Daggur. He is absolutely awesome and the idol of the children of his area, but he has a crisis of conscience when it dawns on him just what he’s done after the children praise his killing of a sea creature. So he goes back and examines why he is what he is, which leads to an eventual confrontation with said cause, and the introduction int my life of the word “whangel.” Sorry, you’re going to have to read the comic to find out what that means, although I guess it’s possible if you just break the word down a bit. Oh, and the last page of this book is something that should be put in a time capsule to show to future generations/our eventual alien conquerors, as it sums this whole “life” thing up pretty well. Buy it, read it, laugh. $2
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Posted by Kevin
December 20, 2012
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The Pig Sleep
Noir comics are easy to review. I’ve read plenty of Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson and the gang, so I’m going to have a pretty good idea of whether or not the writer nailed the tone. And this time? We have a winner! This comic is mostly in color, but the page sampled below is such a perfect representation of the way that detectives typically size up women in those books that I had to use it. So if you hate it, feel free to spend your precious dollars elsewhere, although I think you’ll be missing out. The story is summed up pretty neatly in the sample too: four cops have gone missing and the detective is hired to find out what happened to them (and given precious little to go on). A suspect is found dead with a note indicating that he kidnapped the cops and that they’ll never be found, but our hero thinks the whole thing is a little too easy and keeps looking for the truth. It’s a pile of fun, and it even uses the old mystery trope of the typewriter with one letter that’s off to identify it. There are also four one page stories in the back, each told in rhyme, and those managed to be pretty damned engaging too (and it’s damned easy for a comic told in verse to annoy me). Matthew Daley’s art really completes the package, as the whole thing has a unique look to it that still somehow fits the theme perfectly. If you have any interest in this type of story, it’s rarely done any better than this. If you don’t have any interest in noir, why not give this one a shot to see if maybe this time you can build an interest? Expand your horizons! $5
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Posted by Kevin
December 18, 2012
Website for Paul Tobin
Website for Colleen Coover
Gingerbread Girl
I generally have a problem with comics/tv/movies that have characters talk to the audience in the first person. Not that I have a problem with it in books, as I’ve read too many books written in the first person to still have a problem with it, but in other forms of entertainment it usually takes me right out of the action. But then there was Gingerbread Girl, where everybody in the damned thing (animals included) stop and chat with the audience. And it’s fantastic! This story could have been told without it, I suppose, but it would have made it much less of a story. So yes, I am starting this review by telling you that the graphic novel I’m talking about could very well change a fundamental aspect of how I view most modes of entertainment, so you can probably guess that I liked the book a whole lot. It’s the story of Annah, a young woman who is convinced that she has a sister out there somewhere who was created by her scientist father from an extracted portion of her brain. This sister feels what Annah feels, so Annah has taken to wandering around different parts of town and striking herself with a ruler to see if she hears any cries of pain. Oh, and this sister is missing. And quite possibly imaginary, as she appeared right around the time that Annah’s parents got divorced, and Annah doesn’t seem to have any pictures or any other physical evidence of the existence of a sister. Then again, there are also no pictures of her parents, but they had to exist or Annah wouldn’t exist, and there don’t seem to be any pictures of Annah either before she was around 20… so yeah, lots going on here, and the fun of the book is trying to unravel it all and see what’s true. There’s also the fact that Annah is a bit of a monster, as the book starts with her waiting for a date after making two dates at the same time (she was letting fate decide by going on the date with whoever showed up first). I was still riveted the entire time, and I don’t know what more you could ask of a mystery. It’s funny (some of those animal dialogues had me chuckling out loud), utterly compelling and beautifully drawn (it should be obvious by now that I liked the writer quite a bit too). If you’re a fan of those things you should probably buy a copy of this. Or get it from the library, if you live near a really fantastic library that has a good selection of such things. $12.95
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Posted by Kevin
December 17, 2012
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DemonDust #12
You know what just about everybody who makes comics should do? Put out little 8 page niblets like this. Make your own theme, do your own thing, but just doing something on a regular basis would do wonders for some of the artists who only put out graphic novels or gigantic mini comics. Just a suggestion, and it has nothing to do with the contents of this comic, but hey, I occasionally like to make helpful suggestions/meddle. This one starts off with a very brief recap of the state of the world (it’s election time) and features a man with a pumpkin head and an elf using various over-the-counter drugs to get themselves ready to go for an evening of playing video games. See, I say it like that and it seems overly simplistic. You also have the ethics of a man with a pumpkin for a head having a friend who is looking to buy a pumpkin and carve it for a decoration, some traveling, some conversation, and the inevitable result of all of those drugs. It’s all capped off by an afterward on the state of life in general at the moment of his producing this comic, and a tidbit or two about the making of it. It’s funny, bizarre, and has a nice starter list of drugs that you can buy anywhere (although I have no idea of their effects, as they’re all new to me/possibly made up for comedic purposes). So check it out. In fact, why not just buy a stack of these? Like I said, they’re short, so that makes the most sense. $2
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Posted by Kevin
November 27, 2012
Just checking in to let everybody know that I am still alive, that I have a stack of comics I’m looking forward to reviewing, and that I’m STILL working crazy hours at the Board of Elections. When I come up for air from that mess I’ll get to all of the comics that were sent my way, possibly in a frenzy (if I take some time off work) or not (if I don’t). Your patience is appreciated! Oh, and the store still works if you want to order stuff, but please list some replacements too because I’m out of stock on a number of things. That will be fixed when I have the time, like everything else.
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Posted by Kevin
