January 10, 2013
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SF #2
If only Ryan didn’t have to worry about making a living, I’d say that this story has the potential to become one of the next great comic epics. As it is I don’t see how he’ll have the time to do this story justice, but please, prove me wrong! I say that because Ryan puts together supplemental issues for the regular issues, expanding this universe of his every step of the way, and reading this issue showed me about a half dozen different ways he could take this story. There’s a handy and concise recap on the inside cover (every other comics artist ever who puts out a continuing story, take note), then the bulk of the main story deals with two members of the SF squad (actually SFSFSF, but maybe that was too clunky for a title) trying to free an admiral who they hope will become an ally. A game is played to determine his fate, something goes horribly wrong, and the planet ends up devastated, as you may have guessed from that cover. And oh, the devastation! Ryan shows a world both crumbling and being eaten away, and he does it beautifully. He even saves time in the end to show off the SF headquarters and for some character development, although I maybe shouldn’t tell you what kind, as that would give away more of the content of the main story. The only complaint I have is a technical one, as pages 8 and 29 are completely blank (unless that is some artistic master plan that I’m not catching onto). Ah well, something to fix for the collected edition, right? If you’re not following this series and you’re at all interested in anime/giant galactic skirmishes, I’ll just come right out and say it: get it together. Maybe ignorance could excuse you before this, but you’re reading these words, right? Buy the issues and put them in a vault, as this man will become famous for his comics if there is any justice in the world. Which there usually isn’t, but hey, we can always hope. $7 (for a damned hefty comic)
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Posted by Kevin
January 9, 2013
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Segway
Hollywood, take note: “Time Puncher” should be a major motion picture in the next few years. Conversely, Rob should really trademark that idea. Oh right, you probably don’t have any idea what I’m talking about unless you’ve already read this. The main story in this comic deals with time travel, hilariously set up by a guy who’s just trying to read the electricity meter and has no interest at all in the fantastic goings on around him. The professor who invented the machine wants to go back to a few moments in his past (relatively minor moments, sort of, but they do involve punching), but things naturally get a little tricky by the end. But wait, there’s more! Other stories include an anxiety dream involving spiders shaking their fists in anger (I wonder how many fists they were shaking? It’s just the one in the image, but with the eight legs and all…), the only good thing about the power going out in a freezer full of Rob’s homemade ice cream, living the life of a ventriloquist, having a ghost in the house (song lyrics, not some dope who actually thinks that ghosts are real), the ups and downs of how dreams were interpreted in ancient times, and the true origin of a woman named Marigold. That last story seemed to just fade away at the end, but it was still an amusing story while it lasted and I have no complaints at all about the rest of the book. I’ve been reading Rob’s comics since damned near the beginning of this website, and I have to confess that there were moments when I didn’t think that he’d make it (whatever that means). But the man has built his own niche, handling short pieces and longer pieces with equal skill, and this one even has a genuinely striking cover. The lesson to people who put out a few comics but maybe weren’t happy with the results? If you have something to say, keep at it! You’ll get there. Dave Sim has said a lot of genuinely crazy things over the years, but one thing I always liked was his comment that every artist had 1,000 pages of terrible art in them (I’m probably getting the number wrong, but you get the idea) and the only way past it was to draw the pages and get them out of the way. Anyway, buy this comic and enjoy. No price, but his books generally go for somewhere in the $5 range.
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Posted by Kevin
January 8, 2013
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Coffee and Donuts
Hey, who’s up for a heist involving cats with pants? Well, shirts too, and one of them even has a pair of glasses on. You also may be thinking that the title and that image of a cop car on the cover have an obvious correlation, but you’d be wrong! And a little too quick to go with a stereotype, frankly. Anyway, this is another review of an older (2006) graphic novel in my continuing series of “oh, that person that I really like put out a graphic novel 5+ years ago and I somehow never heard of it? Huh.” reviews. This one starts off with two cats (Dwight and Jules) who are living in a dumpster, trying to find enough food to live on. They also have a mysterious benefactor who leaves (you guessed it) coffee and donuts on their dumpster lid every morning. Life goes on for these two until they notice that the same armored truck makes the same stop near their alley on a regular basis, and there’s only one guard to the truck, so they figure that it should be easy to rob. Not that they’re bad people (um, cats), but a bag of money would do wonders for their situation. Little do they know that two professional criminals have also come to the conclusion that this armored car would be easy to rob and they’re making their own plans. Well, Dwight and Jules get there first, and their heist attempt goes disastrously wrong, as you’d probably imagine regarding a heist planned by two homeless cats. This failed attempt is seen by the criminals and another mysterious observer who isn’t revealed until later, and the rest of the books deals with those two cats trying to get out of this increasingly dangerous predicament. This is all making the book sound like a serious, tense heist thriller, when this could actually be pretty easily be categorized as a children’s book. The danger never gets too serious and the characters do cartoon character moves, like jumping safely from a roof onto an overhang several stories below. But it is still an absolute blast, and it manages to be adorable without crossing that line over into obnoxious. And those flailing cat arms! Ridiculous and mesmerizing. It’s a complete shift in tone from Max’s first book (“Hello, Again”) and it’s well worth a look, unless you have moral problems with cats wearing pants. $10
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Posted by Kevin
January 7, 2013
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The Homeland Directive
When my biggest problem with a book is its fairly generic title, it’s safe to say that I don’t actually have much of a problem with the book at all. This is the story of a conspiracy within the U.S. government, told with snippets from all sides. There are the two scientists who have been targeted for assassination, although we don’t learn why for quite some time (and obviously one of them gets away initially, as there wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise). There’s the Homeland Security chief, who’s fed up with a feckless President who is more caught up in his image than in doing what the chief considers the necessary dirty work. You also have three agents from disparate government agencies who have detected that something is up and have decided to help the targeted scientists, and there’s the agent (or assassin) who’s trying to take them all out. These are the trickiest comics/stories to review, as they’re based almost entirely on suspense and the ability to keep surprising the reader, and a sloppy reviewer can take that away pretty easily. I can tell you that the suspense is so expertly handled that the ending of the book completely snuck up on me, which is tough to have happen when you’re holding a physical copy of a comic and can tell that there aren’t many pages left. It felt like it could have gone on longer, but they mentioned in the story a fact that would have kept a book like this short: there are tons of ways for the government to find you and only so many ways that you can avoid being found. One thing that I usually pick up on in a story (sometimes too much, depending on who you ask) is whether or not it’s plausible, and it has to be plausible the whole way through for a book to “win.” This one meets that test all the way through up to and including the way the ending is handled, and what more can you ask out of a suspense/thriller? It even has a few messages tucked in, which can be dishearteningly rare in small press comics. Of course, Robert Venditti is the guy who wrote “The Surrogates,” so maybe “small press” is stretching it a bit. Anyway: it’s relentlessly suspenseful, the use of color only in portions was inspired, and, just to give them something hokey to use as a quote that I also believe, it was a hell of a ride. $14.95
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Posted by Kevin
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
