August 4, 2012
Website (Ted May)
Alternative Comics
Injury #4
Before I say a thing about this comic, I need to make a very important thing clear: this comic marks the return of Alternative Comics, as they’ve been absent for the last 4 years, and that is a damned good thing for small press comics. Not that this was 100% published by them, as Kickstarter and Ted were involved in the publication too, but an established company like them will make it easier to get these books out to a wider market. I have to admit right off the bat that I haven’t seen the first three issues of this series, but it doesn’t seem like they contain any crucial information for enjoying this one. The bulk of this comic deals with a group of boys getting stoned and having detention, and it has to be the most pitch perfect representation of such a thing that I’ve ever seen. Jeff (writer) and Ted (writer/artist) really let this piece breathe, as we get several pages of the kids silently passing a joint back and forth, reminiscing about an Iron Maiden concert, before they go inside to take their punishment. Once they all sit down for their enforced quiet time one of them realizes that he’s way too high and paranoid hijinx ensue. The other big story was “Blade of Grass,” and this one felt distinctly like a continuation of an older story (and it’s “to be continued” this time too). Still, it’s a fairly self-contained story about a party clean-up and a few conversations that were mostly lost on me. I’ve yet to see Ted make a bad comic and this one is no exception, but it may take a collected edition for this story to make sense to me. Still, it’s worth it for that main story alone. Buy this comic and support the rebirth of Alternative Comics! And the people who are making this comic, obviously, but you know what I mean. $6
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Posted by Kevin
August 4, 2012
Website
My Life in Records #2: Into My Heart
Who says that you need free time to make comics? Grant is an art teacher with two small kids and this is still his second full color comic produced within the last year (unemployed slackers with one comic out in the last three years, take note). He also apparently put his master’s thesis into comics form, although I don’t know if the world at large will ever see it. But enough about that, how’s the comic? The music is much less prevalent this time around, but it does effectively take over a scene when it is used. Things start off with Grant (age three) being annoyed that he’s been confined to the kiddie pool and taking matters into his own hands by jumping into the big pool. Where he proceeds to sink like a stone and is rescued by another swimmer (the details are still hazy for the guy). There’s an abrupt transition from this section to Grant remembering older Christian records that he listened to as a kid and the idea of a giant box of crayons, then comes the Jesus. The rest of the book deals with Grant trying to work up the nerve to get baptized after his near-drowning and gradually coming around to accepting Jesus. Which will always and forever be a little creepy to me when that “decision” is coming from a kid and not an adult, but that’s my own personal bugaboo and not something that should concern you or take away from this comic. This is another gorgeous book, and it will probably hit you spiritual types a bit harder than it hit me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an interesting story even for us cranky atheist types, but a journey to Jesus is probably most appreciated by other people who have journeyed to Jesus. Here’s hoping his schedule eases up a little bit (not likely with two small kids, but you never know), as I curious to keep reading the “origin story” of this man and how music factored into it. $6.50
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Posted by Kevin
August 2, 2012
Website
Quark #2: Dream Me A World
Well, so much for this being a regular Friday review. Instead I’ll just make it a regular weekly review until I regain something resembling a normal schedule. Last time around we were taken on a journey through the creation of everything, so naturally this time we go a little bit further. This all starts once the concept of “two” is introduced following patterns repeating themselves, which leads to a third variable, which… well, you get the idea. Then the concept of three dimensions gradually comes about, which leads to all of the stuff in those three dimensions, with much trial and error being done along the way. Not by the hand of a bearded man in the sky, mind you; these were basically tests to see which things/living beings worked best. Once again it’s a fascinating look at the way in which everything might have started, and this one ends on a cliffhanger of (spoilery spoilers) man building Eden. So yeah, I’m curious to see where they go next, and I’m thoroughly happy with how inventive it’s been so far. And yes, I do realize that it’s mildly ridiculous to have these reactions for mini comics that are 30 years old, but hey, it’s all new to me. $1
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Posted by Kevin
July 30, 2012
Website
The Fifty Flip Experiment #15
Dan has been doing this comic for 15 issues now (obviously, and huzzah) and he’s clearly getting tired of this one particular view of reality. This time around he’s mixing it up even more, throwing himself in a few times (and not obnoxiously; Dave Sim, take note), and generally treating the stories and panels as his playground. And why not? I’d say he’s been doing this long enough to have earned it. The very first strip with a drunken Pinocchio talking to Gepetto (I’m not giving away the punchline) should have been your first clue, as it’s always a good sign when the opening strip is fucking with you. From there we get a single page image of an attacking helicopter, Darth Vader getting blown/cut with an axe, somebody fleeing from a burning building, a giraffe, and a viking holding a bong. Next is the strip I sampled below, and from there it’s best if you peel the layers of this particular onion yourself. Subjects in some of these stories include funnies about Diogenes, a funny (in a New Yorker-ish kind of way) joke about slavery, pirate humor, a night at Perkin’s (this one may only make sense to people who live in Champaign, unless that place is a chain of some kind), creepy Dan and a woman trapped in her bed, the soul destroying powers of TGI Friday’s, and happily ever after. Dan seems to be taking more time between comics these days (no human could keep up the pace he was on when he started), but if the result is books like this then I’m all for it. Not that I hated his older comics by any stretch, but I’m all for packing as many layers in as possible. $4
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Posted by Kevin
July 25, 2012
E-mail
Zombies Attack!
Shouldn’t I be sick of zombies by now? Hell, shouldn’t everybody? But somehow I’m still not, and the country as a whole clearly is not, and seemingly won’t be any time soon. Then again, maybe werewolves are in for a turn as the newest big deal. Anyway, this comic is basically a series of trading cards put together into comics form, all dealing with various zombie attacks or methods of zombification. Or as Don puts it on the inside cover “the subjects are paradoxically entrenched in stereotype, genre and consumer culture; viewed through the warped lens of disposable media.” Oh, and there are also subliminal skulls in some of the images. As I’ve proven time and time again on this website, I just don’t have a lot to say about comics without a story, but I’d buy this if it was around as a set of trading cards. Or I would if I bought trading cards. Subjects in here include seeing a zombie while on acid, zombie Jesus, gold diggers taking their name too literally and paying for it, a zombie on a beach, a ninja on a zombie killing spree, a zombie running across a passed out drunk, and a zombie pirate against a shark. $2
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Posted by Kevin
July 24, 2012
Website
Blacked Out #1
I would never recommend that somebody buy a mini comic because it will eventually be worth something, as they suffer the same fate as most other comics: it takes decades, if that, before they’re worth more than the cover price, and even then you have to find somebody willing to buy them. That being said, if the sheer quality of Max’s comics doesn’t convince you (and there’s plenty of that in the two issues I’ve seen so far), this guy is so clearly going to be a big deal in comics someday that you’d be stupid not to buy these early minis. The technical term for his art is “crazy awesome fantastic,” he seems to be doing a nice job of building up his characters, and he also looks to have a long term plan for this one. I should probably talk about the plot at least a little bit and no, that ridiculous cover of his was not a fake-out. This comic starts with our hero waking up in a bar from being blackout drunk, only to discover that every biker in the bar has been either beaten senseless or killed (his friend says killed, but I think there may be a few more repercussions for something like that than are depicted here). They go back to their apartment, where we see that the two of them are roommates with a young lady who appears to be his concerned platonic friend. They tell him that the can’t hold his liquor, what a problem that is, and eventually wander off to a party with all the booze they can drink for $30. You’d think that you could see where this is going from here, but you’d be wrong. At this party our hero meets up with an older redneck man who’s been watching our hero, and he decides to impart his wisdom about being blackout drunk on the dude. It’s so brilliant that I don’t even want to give it away here, but kudos to Max simply for coming up with that idea. I’m really looking forward to future issues of this one, and you can always tell a book is a winner when it instantly raises your opinion of the past work of the artist. More, please! $3
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Posted by Kevin
July 22, 2012
Website
Bowman 2016
Is it condescending for me to say that it feels like Pat is now all grown up as an artist? Almost certainly, yes. But hey, I have been reviewing his comics for around 10 years and have nothing but respect for the sheer volume and increasing quality of his comics, so I’m going to say it anyway. And that’s with me not fully understanding everything that goes down in this comic, but that feels more like a failing on my part than on his. First off, giving the hero of the book a horse with the head of Garfield was brilliant. And yes, it does say/think various Garfield-like things throughout the book. Our hero is chasing down some creature/man, eventually catches up to it and savagely bashes its head in. After that he takes the leftover bits of uniform from the creature and puts them on (as detailed in the sample below, which is probably the simplest page of the comic). There are also a few flashbacks thrown into this book to show how our hero got to this point, although honestly they could have been made to look a bit more distinct from the rest of the book to avoid confusion. Anyway, our hero goes to a big city with his new uniform, and those few pages have more detail that most entire comics. I don’t think Pat left a bit of background blank in this entire book, and the result is a feeling of complete immersion in this world. Things get increasingly ridiculous (and I mean that in the best possible sense) from there, with space gods, giant monsters and huge battles going on all over the place. My only complaint is that I wish the translation for the letters of the alien language could have come at the start of the book instead of the end, but other than that my advice is to sit back, relax, and let this book wash over you. And then read it again, as you’re probably going to need to to put the whole story together. And then flip through it one more time, without reading anything, just to appreciate everything that he’s thrown into the backgrounds. So yeah, I’d say that’s worth $5.
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Posted by Kevin
July 22, 2012
Website
Godzilla King of the Monsters
Was there ever a Godzilla movie that was told from the perspective of the monster? I know there are dozens of Godzilla movies by now, so they’re bound to have thought of that at some point. Still, Marc uses this comic to answer that question and tries to come up with what Godzilla was thinking when all this shit went down in the first movie. After all, the trouble begins when people start driving boats over his home, dropping bombs and radioactive residue down into it, so why wouldn’t he be a little annoyed? The rest of the comic deals with his potential motivations every step of the way, up to and including how the humans most likely treated what was left of Godzilla when they managed to kill him off. Even though, like I said, there were dozens of sequels with a living, healthy Godzilla. Marc also wonders how future movies went if that’s the case. Hey, I know: he could review/interpret them like he does here! That would end up being a hell of a lengthy series, assuming that he doesn’t get bored a few movies in. This was an interesting read, and my only problems with it are technical, as there are the usual few spelling mistakes/bad usages of “your.” And it’s more like a zine than a comic, but I’m the one reviewing it on a comics website, and I don’t see anything on here making the claim that this is a comic. But yeah, if you’re looking for a new take on Godzilla, you could do a lot worse than this. No price, so let’s say $2.
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Posted by Kevin
July 20, 2012
Website (where you can buy his books)
Quark #1: Determined to be Different
Jerry and Brad have both been in this business way too long to not have any kind of contact information in this comic. Hey, if I’m going to get annoyed at the new artists for making that mistake, it’s only fair to do the same thing to the old pros. Granted, this is a reprint of a comic from 1982, but single mini comics can end up in the strangest of places and you always want the person who finds it to have easy access to the rest of your work. So, what’s it all about? No big deal, just establishing consciousness and a sense of self. This one starts off before the very concept of time itself, when all there was was nothing. Nothing was alone and it noticed potential for there to be more, which gave it another frame of reference, and things build up from there. It provokes a whole lot of thought for being crammed into eight pages, and good luck reading this and not veering off into different philosophical directions of your own. Oh crap, and I just noticed that it’s “to be continued!” In that case I’ll just make this a regular Friday review (unless I’m not around on that Friday, as my current schedule is proving to be all over the place), because I’m very curious to see where they take things from here. Or took things as, like I said, this series is from 1982. Yes, children, mini comics existed back then. $1
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Posted by Kevin
July 18, 2012
New review today for Temple by Jun K. Lee. Was that me on Sunday saying that this would be a regular week of reviews? My apologies, but I’m still trying to nail down exactly what a “regular week” is at the moment. There probably won’t be a review tomorrow, but at the very least I’ll post a few reviews up over the weekend to make up for lost time. No, really!
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Posted by Kevin
July 18, 2012
Website
Temple
What exactly is an ear palace? That’s probably not the best way to start for such a thoughtful, imaginative (and hirsute, if Jun’s letter is to be believed) comic, but it jumped right out at me. This comic is the story of a man who finds an unexpected treasure in the ear of another man. Before you run away from the computer shrieking, hear me out. This man is walking behind another man in some kind of spiritual procession. Or maybe they were just walking? It’s not relevant. Anyway, the comic starts off by revealing that treasure, which I’m not going to reveal to you. Granted, it’s not much of a spoiler if it comes out on the first page, but maybe you can figure it out from the hints that I’ll give you, and if not it makes the comic that much more intriguing. It turns out that this man noticed a glow from the ear of the man who was walking in front of him, and he strained his eyes to try and make it out. Inside that ear he eventually heard the sound of flowers falling and trains rustling, then tried to see past an obstruction of moss and flowers. From there he noticed something staring back at him from a gap that was between two horses, and I can say no more without giving the whole thing away. This is a tiny comic, but it’ll leave you with half a dozen of those thoughts that batter away at the comfortable part of your brain when you aren’t paying attention, which is all you can ask for out of a comic. Jun is also working on a longer comic which, after reading this, I’m damned intrigued to see. Buy a copy of this for $2 from the man to motivate him to keep going, as I’d hate to see somebody with this much potential quit before he really gets going.
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Posted by Kevin
July 15, 2012
No really, it’s a real update! New review today for Herman the Manatee #5. Reviewing should be mostly back to normal next week (he says optimistically), but my work schedule is bound to be a little wonky on occasion for the rest of the year, so there may be a few more of these weekend updates to make up for lost time. Also, in case it wasn’t as clear as could be before, I’ve updated my address on the sidebar over yonder and, if you’d either like to send me comics for review or already do so on a regular basis, UPDATE YOUR INFORMATION ACCORDINGLY. I’m only shouting because some of you are still sending review comics to an ex that I lived with in freaking 2008 (luckily we’re still on good terms so she sends them along to me), but that almost certainly means that some of you have been sending comics to other old addresses of mine and are wondering why I never got around to reviewing them. The wonders of the internet should make it easy to keep contact information current, so take advantage of it!
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Posted by Kevin
July 15, 2012
Website
Herman the Manatee #5
Ah, Herman the Manatee. Is it a bad sign that a comic this grim always cheers me up? Most likely yes, but I can live with that. The subtitle to this one refers to the fact that Herman has had enough, but he’s pretty much “had enough” from the get-go, so there are less changes here than you might think. Well, outside of the death of one of the main characters. Spoiler alert! Ah, relax, I’m not going to tell you which one dies. So by now you know the drill, as these comics show Herman, either alone or with some of his friends, dealing with his predilection for hitting his head on passing boats. That and his severe lack of a will to live, although most of his friends aren’t much help in that regard. Topics this time around include another look at Herman’s early years, the advantages and hilarious side effects of social networking, how manatees can be mistaken for mermaids, all kinds of self-pity, learning to dance, hoping for a nice afterlife, relaxing yoga poses, and casual murder. Those are the strips in the first half anyway. The second half is when things really pick up steam, what with the assault on a seahorse compound and the death of that character I mentioned earlier. Jason’s art has been damned near perfect from the start, and if I’ve never mentioned his penmanship before, well consider it mentioned. Sloppy lettering can take you right out of a book (if you can’t understand the words, it’s a little difficult to get lost in a story), but the man never crams words into word balloons that are far too small for them, he always spells everything correctly (and you know that I can be a dick about that if it goes wrong) and it’s alarmingly neat. Also, I’m only mentioning his penmanship because I’ve already praised every other aspect of his books and assume that you’re all reading this series by now, especially considering the many free samples on his website. If not, go over to his website, read some strips, forget about your own mortality for a bit. It’ll brighten up your afternoon! $3
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Posted by Kevin
