September 2, 2012
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Important Comics Volume 2
What, “Important Comics Are Bad” doesn’t count as a volume? Bizarre numbering system aside, it’s always a good thing when another collection of Dina’s comics comes along. This one has a fairly compact 40 pages of comics for a fairly steep $12, but oh the colors, they are very pretty. If you’re not familiar with her work you should feel a brief moment of shame before going to her website where you can see many free samples to educate yourself. For the rest of us, yes, this comic is still full of the funny bits that we have come to demand, which is really a lot to ask of Dina or anybody else on a consistent basis, but she seems up to the task. Subjects this time around include shut up, the feeling of stupid, internet addiction, getting crud on you, the human oldening process, a possible awkward moment in the doctor’s office, gamelon, crying getting in the way of the fun, telling the brain to fuck off while listening to your guts, and breaking the news. As always, she manages to cram a few strips on most pages, so it’s not like you’re getting short-changed or anything. And have I mentioned the colors? I did? Well, I want to make sure that you understand how impressive they are this time around. Not that they were crappy before, but you know what I mean. Buy her comic and continue this inevitable process of making her rich and famous. Hey, the first volume is even available on this website, so you don’t even have to leave to buy it! Yes, that was a shameless plug. I’ll stop now. $12
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Posted by Kevin
September 1, 2012
Website
Jerry’s Journal
Have you been enjoying Neil’s comics over the years but always thought that maybe they should be just a hair sloppier? Then Jerry’s Journal is for you! Neil finally bought a sketchbook, you see, after being against them for years because he always thought he needed structure in his work. The end result is a pretty damned funny comic, with panel lines and the occasional character image (almost always Jerry, as it’s all about him) that are a shade less than as universally perfect as the rest of his books. The comic itself, as the title implies, is all about Jerry and his constant, apathetic quest to find some meaning and/or summarize the high points in his life. Subjects include the important things in his life, the inevitable (and at least partially welcome) end to it, being alone, thinking too much, ways to get away from life, thinking about giving the world another chance, the unfortunate biological imperative to stay alive, and reflecting back on his life. Those are from the first half of it anyway, the rest is yours to discover. These are all one page strips, and it’s always a good sign when I have a hard time picking a sample image from a comic like this because so many of them made me chuckle. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of these strips are fairly dark, but would you really be reading small press comics if you didn’t have at least a slightly dark sense of humor? That’s what I thought. Seeing as how Neil is already one of the most prolific artists in comics, if he really takes to this sketchbook stuff we should expect to see a few dozen new books by him every year, which sounds good to me (if possibly fatal for the artist himself). And really, a good chunk of the small press artists out there wish they could be as neat as Neil’s “sloppy” sketchbook stuff. $5
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Posted by Kevin
August 30, 2012
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DemonTears
I have exactly one complaint to make about this utterly riveting, depressing, uplifting, real-as-it-gets-while-being-largely-based-in-dreams comic: it’s too short to be a proper graphic novel. Which doesn’t mean a damned thing in and of itself, as it doesn’t feel too long or too short. It’s just that graphic novels stick around for longer than single comics, and this comic deserves as long of a shelf life as is humanly possible. This comic deals with Bernie’s (or fake Bernie, in case this isn’t somewhat autobiographical) long trip out from alcoholism, told partially through bits of his real life and partially through a dream world that he is rudely forced into every night via his nightly blackouts. It would take a few thousand words for me to even attempt to explain all the symbolism and happenings in those dream bits, and I would most likely get chunks of it very wrong, but the Center for Cartoon Studies should put this in their curriculum toot sweet. The true horror/sadness of this comes in the real life bits. We see his hands start to shake as he’s drawing, happy evenings that he spent partying with friends always ending the same way, waking up just to take aspirin in the middle of the night, and his brief time spent sober with his family for dinner. The eventual conclusion wasn’t even remotely tidy, and it wasn’t meant to be followed by a group hug. Without giving anything away, he earned every bit of the events at the end of this book, and he deserves all the credit in the world for refusing to shy away from just what it took to get there. Flipping through this book again it just seems wrong for me to gloss over the dream parts the way I did, but they build such a careful narrative piece by piece that I’d feel like a dick just plucking bits out of context. I will tell you that Bernie is represented in his dreams by a floating brain that’s trailing a spine, and that does eventually become relevant. This book is an absolute triumph, and he depicts the warning signs clearly enough that there are bound to be a few people reading this who are looking at their own hands, wondering if that slight bit of shaking is just a side effect of getting old or if it’s from all the years of just a little too much booze. Buy it, tell your friends to buy it, and, if you know anybody in AA, you might think about passing some of these out at a meeting. Most human beings could learn a lot from this. $6
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Posted by Kevin
August 27, 2012
Website
Colossal #1: Feather and Composite Armour
I’ll say one thing for Jason: the man knows how to set a scene. This is the first of three comics in this series, so naturally setting the scene is damned important. He can’t give too much away or risk ruining future surprises and he can’t give too little away or he’ll risk alienating those short attention span folks who can’t live without their phone being within reach at all times. Go on, admit it, you were checking a text during that last sentence. Anyway, this comic opens up with a wide shot of a field, and from there we slowly move into a forest. We see sharp angles, the hint of something huge, and finally a hand on the ground. A display area on the hand opens up, we get a clear indication of what’s happening (I don’t want to spell the whole thing out for you), and finally the title character is revealed, roughly halfway through the comic. The rest of the comic is a conversation between our hero (as far as I know; it may turn out to be the destroyer of all humanity before the series is done) and a bird that happens across it, as they try to determine just what sort of creature it is. It has amnesia, you see, which can be a lazy trope to explain that part of the story… unless it’s done well. And this thing is clearly at least part robot, so amnesia could just be a programming thing. I’m intrigued, which is all that’s required out of the first issue of a longer series. The panel structure was a bit clunky at times, as some bits of foliage stopped when the panel stopped and others kept going, making their conversation occasionally difficult to follow, but that’s a minor quibble. $2.50
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Posted by Kevin
August 25, 2012
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Goofy Funnies #3
I tried to make that cover a little smaller so as not to offend the delicate flowers in the audience, but the rest of you can just click on it to see boobs if you want. And who doesn’t want to see that? Most ladies, probably. And anybody at work who’s innocently coming to this website to learn more about small press comics, but you people should know that the small press stuff often has some nudity in it. Anyway, yes, this is going to be another review of a porn comic, or a for real “adult” comic instead of a comic that is listed as “adult” because it has the word “fuck” in it somewhere. And once again I’m going to dance around a few things, due to my generally shy nature and unwillingness to disclose too much about myself and my tastes. First off, I have to say that I find it hilarious that a title with this much sex in it (and on the cover, obviously) has as an innocuous of a title as “Goofy Funnies.” Granted, there is generally something funny in each story, but it’s mostly about the sexy time. Stories in this one include (just in case anybody is out there who wants to buy this for the stories and not for the fact that Dexter has some serious skills in his artistic depictions of lady parts) a young man whose time stuck in the nurse’s office becomes a lot more enjoyable when the student nurse takes over, a bear/man creature whose outdoor sex takes an interesting turn when a bee hive drops onto his head in the middle of coitus, an absolutely disgusting “do it yourself” Tiajuana bible guide involving Mary Worth characters, the surprisingly happy story of a woman with the perfect body and “a face like a can of smashed assholes,” a character from Popeye that you probably never wanted to see having sex, um, having sex, and a stop at an intergalactic garage that involves that perennial favorite of a woman who’s stuck bent over in compromising position but ends up loving the whole incident. Like I said, the man can draw one sexy (if maybe not so realistic in the real world, but this is a comic and not the real world) woman, which is probably what you’re looking for if you’re on the hunt for a naked adult comic. If not or if you’re offended by this whole concept, why did you read this far into the review if you could so clearly see those boobs on the cover? You need to take a long look at yourself in the mirror, dude. $4
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Posted by Kevin
August 23, 2012
Website
Chimps in Space #1
Is it a good sign or a bad sign that a cover like this is all it takes to get my full attention for reading a comic? I did get an ego boost of a guess about my age at work today, but the sad truth is that I should be too old to get excited about chimps/zombies/robots. Eh, screw the people who say it’s a bad thing, it’s not my fault that their ability to experience any bit of a child-like sense of wonder at monkeys has been burned out of them. Anyway, there is a comic here that I should mention, seeing as how those are the point of this website and all. Donna recently got her degree from the Center for Cartoon Studies, which continues to churn out some seriously talented artists. Their plan to comically take over the world is proceeding nicely. I’ve learned to expect books that are a little rough around the edges when I get a “#1” from students, but her skills already seem pretty damned polished in this one. The story details the adventures of a crew of four chimps and one tiny monkey (I thought those were the same thing, but the chimps can talk and the tiny monkey cannot) in a hilariously accurate monkey spaceship. Well, accurate in regards to the old space monkey ships with buttons that produced pellets when pressed. A murder is committed, everyone is suspicious of everyone else, and we spend the rest of the issue learning some strange secrets about the other monkeys. I mean chimps! This story seems to end in a fairly final spot, but I am curious to see where it goes from here. Future covers (and she did send along two more issues so I’ll find out for sure soon) indicate that events will take place on land, but she’d better be careful not to stray too far from that “in space” part of the title. $3
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Posted by Kevin
August 21, 2012
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Save the Ruined
One of these days I’m going to smarten up and do capsule reviews for tiny mini comics like some of the other review sites out there. This is an 8 page mini (although the cover is technically one page that folds over, making it a 7 page mini) dealing with a pile of ruins. Where did it come from? Who is it supposed to honor? And, most importantly, why aren’t people allowed to disturb a scattered pile of rubble? Is it going to become more disorganized and, if so, who would care? It’s an interesting batch of questions and a very thoughtful comic. The man can certainly draw rubble, and I’m happy to see something completely different from the last comic of his that I reviewed. Huzzah for being kept guessing! So I’d say that this is worth a look, but you should definitely get it in a pile of other comics unless you want your Marc Palm comic experience to be about 30 seconds long. Hey look, I basically did a capsule review anyway! $1
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Posted by Kevin
August 20, 2012
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Anhedonia #1
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen a comic from Nick (or is that one year? Ah, who can tell with linear time), and this one is full of all sorts of short pieces. But there’s a larger theme at work, so there’s that. I should point out early on that Nick included two recent rejection letters from publishers for his comic in this issue, and the man has been around for ages, so if you haven’t liked his past work there’s a good chance that you won’t care for this one. Granted, he’s done a wide range of stuff over the last 5 years, but this one is back to the basics: gore, violence, poop, fighting babies, those sorts of things. The story that runs through the smaller pieces is about a man who’s trying to sell “make the giggles,” which I can’t really explain adequately so I’m not even going to try. The salesman becomes increasingly desperate and sad as people fail to buy his product, until he is suddenly replaced by another informercial, which is the way of things these days. Other stories include a notably grim tale about a dog that’s trapped in the ice and an attempted rescue, a creepy albino after a football game, fighting babies (what, you thought I was kidding?), dog violence, how Kirk Cameron gets his kids to listen to him, being drunk and racist on a bus, being a racist duck (with a twist ending), a number of three panel strips all crammed into one page, and space boobs. I’ll admit that a few pieces seemed to just drift off without accomplishing all that much (the story about the space boobs and albino football player), but overall it was still a pile of mostly funny comics. Which were also incredibly offensive to most sentient humans, just in case you were offended by… oh, lots of different things. $3.50
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Posted by Kevin
August 19, 2012
Website
Baltic Comics Magazine #11
Huzzah for international anthologies! Getting a comic from Latvia is a sure way to keep me fired up to write more reviews for another six months or so (international artists take note). One note right off the bat: it would probably be a good idea for them to put the title of their book on the cover. In this case “Artventurous” refers to art both being made and not made and the various adventures surrounding different types of art. Don’t get me wrong, that cover is going to grab your attention sitting on a shelf anyway, but that one descriptive word might have helped them pick up another reader or two who was too lazy to open the cover. Anyway, for me a 2/3 success rate is more than enough to recommend an anthology, and this one is closer to 4/5 fantastic/provocative/fascinating, which covers that spread quite nicely. Please note that I’m not going to talk about every single story in here (because then what would be left for you to discover?), but a full list of artists is down there in the tags below the review. My favorites from this boo include the closed loop story by Martins Zutis dealing with The Odyssey, the silent piece by KJ Martinet called “Ideal Form” (I don’t want to give away a bit more than that), the fantastically creepy “Leda” by Betty Liang, the mind-boggling amount of detail in “Necropolis” by Jean de Wet, Jen Rickert’s “The Loon” and its shifts between what is happening in the moment and the flashbacks from its murderous protagonist, Konig Lu Q’s simple (but not simplistic) extra commandments, Roman Muradov’s story that disintegrates into little pieces in the middle, the sheer adventurousness (and never discount the value of a giant robot yeti) of the Mikus Duncis story, the social horror of Olive Booger’s piece, the gleeful mayhem of Elina Braslina’s story, and the plausible paranoia of Dilraj Mann’s story. And this is all without me even mentioning Simon Moreton’s story (who, if you read this website at all, you know is a favorite of mine), which should tell you something about the overall quality of this anthology. Honestly, I should maybe even bump up that 4/5 quality estimate, as even the (many) stories I didn’t mention here usually had something going from them, between the vibrant splashes of color and the various social anxieties based on growing up around art or just trying to produce something of value when so much incredible stuff has already been produced. Pick it up if you get the chance, that’s what I’m saying, as it’s impressive that they’ve made it to #11 and they should shoot for many more. $13
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Posted by Kevin
August 17, 2012
Website for Brad W. Foster
Website for Simon Mackie
Website for Dexter Cockburn
Website for Macedonio
Too Blue Comix #1
Granted, I don’t usually list contact information for everybody in an anthology, but figured I could make an exception for an eight page comic. This is a series of comics with adult stories, and in this case that means boobs and penises (peni?) and such. Which has proved to be impervious to critical analysis in the past, but hey, it’s Friday, I’ll give it a shot. The bulk of this comic is Simon Mackie’s story about a man taking his son out to get laid. He brings him upstairs to a prostitute and leaves them together, at which point the young man is alarmed by the woman with very little clothes on and flees. But he does manage to get “laid.” Sort of. That’s where the comedy comes in, you see. Dexter has two single page stories next, one dealing with all the depravities listed in an adult comic (and where the line is of going too far) and one that combines making a deal for a good grade with the brief, sad life of sperm as it hits the air. Images by Brad W. Foster and Macedonio bookend this comic nicely. Dexter covers all the really graphic stuff this time around, so if that offends you you could always skip those bits (even if they are the most consistently funny bits in the comic) and read the rest of it. Then again, why would you have purchased an adult comic if comic characters having various forms of sex offended you? The point is that you get some funny mixed in with some sexy here. If that’s your thing, $1 isn’t much to ask for this, is it?
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Posted by Kevin
