June 8, 2012
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The Melinderly #1
Beware the promise of a quarterly publication schedule! I say this not to you fellow readers, as you already know this all too well. “D & Q” stands for “Drawn & Quarterly” publishing, which was named that because, you guessed it, they had plans to put all of their books out on a quarterly basis. A few of them managed to come close to this (remember when Joe Matt’s “Peepshow” was published on a fairly regular basis? It did happen), but I’m guessing that that’s why they eventually shortened it to just the initials. Not that they have anything to do with Melinda’s book. I like seeing this from artists, really I do, but frankly I’ll be impressed if even #2 is published on that schedule. It just seems like an impossible task for the vast majority of comics out there. But enough about a publishing schedule that nobody is going to remember a few issues from now, what about the comic? It’s in full color, and gorgeous color at that, and that combined with her art makes for a damned pretty comic. Stories in here include the rules for a drinking game (that I’d never heard of), a night out at a bar after said drinking game, the history of gifts that she’s received from her mom over the years (both good, bad and wildly inappropriate), finally breaking down and going for pure comfort in her home wardrobe, and a nervous, dramatic night of Melinda and a couple of friends posting wheatpaste art around deserted parts of Portland late one night. There’s also the first part of a story called Lustwander, written by Aaron Whitaker (of “The City Troll” fame), which deals with a young woman who comes home to a letter from a secret admirer (which cheers her up instantly) and walks inside to deal with the reality of a boyfriend who seems to take her completely for granted. There’s more to come, but I’m intrigued, and it’s always a good idea to have at least one continuing story if your goal is to put out a quarterly book. Just don’t forget to make every installment end with either an explosion or a ticking bomb and your audience will be hooked! Yes, that kind of thinking is one of many reasons why I don’t make comics myself. Anyway, this is a damned fine comic and I’m intrigued to see where she goes from here. No idea on the price, but she’s offering subscriptions for $40 a year, meaning this is $10? It’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know if the world is ready for a $10 mini comic. I have, of course, been wrong before…
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Posted by Kevin
June 7, 2012
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Om
I’m assuming this is common knowledge already, but if you’re not somebody who speaks English as your native language and you’re somehow reading this, please consider making your comics either silent or mostly silent like this one. Well, at least try that if you’re looking to get your books seen in lazy places like America where we speak English more often than not. Just to hammer that point home, there’s a strip on the back cover of this book that’s all in Polish and I’ve had great fun trying to figure it out. My current guess is that it’s an ad for the company that publishes this book. Either that or a reminder to always give birthday gifts. Isn’t there a comic here that I’m supposed to be talking about? The title of this one comes from the noise that our hero makes as he eats just about everything in sight, or at least tries to. Things start off with an annoying alarm clock, which our hero promptly eats, and which turns into a pretty funny running gag. Then it’s time for breakfast, so he puts a gigantic egg on the stove and eats his toothbrush. Complications arise when the egg sprouts a pair of legs, so our hero finds an alternate breakfast. And you know the best way to kill the funny? By describing each page. Anyway, from there our hero and his new friend the egg wander off to school, hilarity ensues, and their day is complete. But wait, the egg has been stolen from the fridge! Ineffective burglar attack! Tiny ninja! Helpful chicken sensei! Underwater adventures! Giant fish! Underwater pirate money request! Backwards flip! Giant octopus! There, that’s vague enough to keep it all mysterious. I should also point out that this is fun for the whole family, as kids would probably get a real kick out of this one and there aren’t any naughty things to alarm the poor dears. The price is an absolute mystery, as it doesn’t seem to be listed on his website at the moment, but it’s pretty big and nicely put together, so $5 at a bare minimum. Oh, and if you’d rather read his website in English, Google offers the option to translate it if you look through their search engine. I just didn’t want to list that version as the link, as I have no idea how long that link would last.
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Posted by Kevin
June 6, 2012
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Spaz! #5
I’m in series danger of becoming an addict of the Wikipedia list of unusual deaths. Emi puts a few of these into her comics, so this time around I thought I’d check it out for myself. So if you’re wondering why the review is up later today than usual, there you go. Let’s just say that she’s in no danger of running out of material any time soon, and if anything I don’t get how she limits herself to just a few of those stories per issue. That’s some serious restraint right there. Anyway, a new Spaz in the mail is always a welcome sight around here, and this issue is no exception. Her art just keeps getting better, and it’s not like she was starting off as a crappy artist. You can tell from that cover that her art is getting more regular people-y than cartoon-y these days (both technical terms, obviously), although not in all cases. Stories in here include Emi celebrating her birthday with her pal Zygote (as is continues to hound her about having children and convinces her get tarted up for a night on the town), another edition of “You Know What’s Fucked Up?” (dealing with Munchausen’s By Proxy, which is related to Munchausen’s Syndrome but significantly more damaging (look up either disease if you don’t know what it is, or rent the delightful “Adventures of Baron Munchausen” by Terry Gilliam if you only kind of want to know about the disease but would rather watch a great movie instead)), her pretty damned sound reasons for not wanting to ride roller coasters, what happened to her younger acquaintance Paul after she lost touch with him (believe me, it’s a lot more interesting than I’m making it sound), and a nice rundown of the various types of people that you’ll run into if you’re looking for a roommate online. There are also the few stories of the unusual deaths, but instead of telling you anything about them I’ll just tell you my reactions in the order that the stories were printed: hilariously tragic, I don’t entirely believe it (or “holy shit” if it was true), and they were just asking for it. Judging by her website it looks like Emi has graduated (congrats!), in which case she should be able to devote her energies to comics full time now. All you comics creators out there are millionaires, right? $2
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Posted by Kevin
June 5, 2012
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Prizon Food #1
You know how to get on my good side immediately if you’re making comics? Make the art for the comic look like those old Kings Quest style computer games from the late 80’s, complete with boxy word bubbles and close-ups of the characters that somehow look worse than the images that are from farther away. That’ll do it right there. Well, that or put zombies in your book, but at this point even I’m getting sick of zombies. So I like the style, clearly, but what is this comic about? Well, I’m not entirely sure yet, but as this came with the next two issues of this series, I also don’t care quite yet. Things start off with the pig pictured on the cover trying to wake up a purple gorilla (?) who’s passed out in the sand. Said gorilla (Waltar) was looking for his mermaid lady love (who may or may not know that Waltar exists) but never spotted her. Meanwhile, there’s a mysterious ship in the air, and the camera pulls back to reveal what appears to be a gigantic mound of shit on his island. Then we switch to see what Party (brother to Waltar) is up to, as he’s flying a kite and has to rush inside when the phone rings. Oh, and his face is upside down. The king (pictured in the sample below) is calling, and he’s trying to get Party to take care of his brother. What the problem is has not yet been identified, but that’s what future issues are for, right? No sense spoiling the rest of this, but we do get to see the mermaid for a second and that mysterious ship does get identified (sort of). As somebody who played way too many of those old computer games, I loved all the little tricks these two put into the comic. The long distance shots of the characters on a beach, the green light from the ship, the “…” reaction shot, the image of the mermaid through the lenses of binoculars, all brilliant. Maybe if you’ve never played those games this won’t mean as much to you, but it’s still a funny, intriguing and delightfully warped comic either way. A bit expensive at $6, perhaps, but man is it worth it.
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Posted by Kevin
June 4, 2012
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Bird Brain #1
Oh, kids today and their making of comics. I’m assuming that the name of the gentleman who made this comic is not actually “bird brain” (although it may be the name he’s going by to make comics, which is… interesting) but, as he didn’t bother to put his name anywhere in here and it’s not listed on his blog, that’s what he’s going to be called until he corrects me. Also, for the love of all that is sweet and holy, “you’re” = “you are.” Just learn that shit. Isn’t it odd what it takes to get me in a bad mood? Once again, this is even more annoying because it’s a pretty nice comic overall, and little things like that are fixed so very easily. This is a collection of short pieces, and this seems to be the first comic produced by Mr. Brain, which makes bits of it even more impressive. The first story (detailing the “special place” of the main character and how it was his only oasis of calm) seemed like an entirely pointless story right up until the last story tied in with it, which transformed it instantly into a much better piece. Then there’s the piece sampled below, which didn’t really seem to go anywhere, but hey, it worked nicely as a sample. Next is a story of a robot head who was finally reunited with his robot body with less than the anticipated results. Funny bits, robot realizing the boring crap that regular people have to do every day, nothing to complain about here. The story about the couple trying to figure out which car belonged to the punk kid before he got into it took a bit too long to get to the punchline, but at least it was a good one. The “Teenagers” bit also seemed pointless, which meant that the author pulled another fast one on me, as it did tie in at the end. Finally there’s the best story of the bunch, a sasquatch story written by Chris White. A man gets a flat tire in the wilderness, sasquatch comes to his aid and they have a nice conversation about it. The ending of that one got an audible chuckle or two out of me, so kudos to the both of them. No complaints about the art at all, as the artist had been to the Sequential Artists Workshop and this looks really polished for a first comic. Once this guy fixes up the few obvious problems I mentioned earlier he could really be onto something here. Oh, and as a cat owner, the back cover with the method to prevents cats from interrupting you while you’re drawing was fantastic. No price listed, but this sure looks nice, so $4?
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Posted by Kevin
June 3, 2012
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Gay Genius
Watch out homophobes, it’s an entire anthology full of the dreaded “gay stuff!” I like to think that such people don’t read my site, but it’s always fun to scare off the hypothetical haters regardless. This anthology runs the gamut from fantastic stuff to pretty damned good stuff to stuff that’s just OK with maybe a bad piece here or there, which makes this exactly like every comics anthology that’s ever existed. My favorite piece was the one sampled below by Annie Murphy, which hey wait a minute she’s the editor too! This one tells the story of Babe Bean, a mysterious figure from the late 1800’s who dressed like a man, but this person was tiny and refused (or was unable to) speak, so nobody could tell her gender. Tales of gay folks of any stripe from the 1800’s rarely ended well, which makes this one even more of a delight (um, spoiler alert, no violence to be found here). Annie used newspaper accounts for most of her narration, as Babe captured the imagination of the area for a good chunk of time and the papers were constantly speculating about her origins. But the important parts of this story were the areas where Babe broke through the previously impenetrable gender wall to gain access to exclusively male clubs and events. This is listed as a “Part 1” even though it’s not listed in the back of the book as something that is ongoing, which is a shame. I’d love to read about the missing years between the start of the story and the end of it, even if the newspapers moved on and there would be a lot of speculation involved. Other stories in here include tributes to a couple of different deceased friends (by Matt Runkle and Ellery Russian respectively, as they both regret losing access to these people at such a young age), LeRoi Newbold’s story of thinking she got AIDS from a female friend after they had “fake sex” when they were 9 and how she figured out who she was in her early teens (complete with terrible spelling/grammar that makes perfect sense in the context of this story, told from the perspective of a confused kid), the various tales of different butches from Elisha Lim, Clio Reese Sady with her story of the first FTM transgender gathering in 1986 (it’s fascinating to see these people struggling just to come up with terms to describe what they were going through, as they were literally making it up as they went along) and Samantha Jane Dorset with her entreaty for marines to quit the service (with a nice story about one who did and who later became a mentor for other confused marines). You can see from the various tags that there are plenty of other stories in this anthology, but what fun is it if I go through them one by one? You already know that Edie Fake is a consistent delight, and the format of this book allows full color when appropriate, so a good chunk of these stories really stand out visually. It’s worth a look, even for you jaded folks who think you already know all about any possible stories in here. Believe you me, you almost certainly don’t know everything in here. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the many different definitions of genius in the back, many of which I’ve never heard before. $20
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Posted by Kevin
June 1, 2012
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Territory
I’m gradually discovering that I’m losing my taste for subjective, mostly silent comics as I get older. Or maybe it’s just that the comics I’m not liking just aren’t that good and I have trouble calling them out on it. Which might seem odd coming from somebody who reviews comics on a regular basis (I almost said “for a living” there, then realized how ludicrously incorrect that was), but I always start from the general premise that anybody who makes a comic should be given every possible benefit of the doubt. Anyway, enough with the rambling justifications, it’s time to get to my problems with this book. I’ll start with the fact that I’ve read through this three times now (it’s short and mostly wordless) and I’m still not sure what I’m meant to be taking away from it. This starts off with a man explaining to his girlfriend/wife that he’s going away for a few days with a couple of friends, but she doesn’t seem to believe him, or she at least requires assurances. He travels until he reaches a cabin, and it’s immediately apparent that he was lying about any other friends being there. He then discovers a game board of some kind in the woods and calls his girlfriend/wife to lie about why he wants to spend another week there. The man plays the game, sits, contemplates, gets in another fight with his lady, and shouts to the heavens that he thought he had it all figured out. He keeps playing and keeps making excuses with his lady friend until… eh, even if I have my problems with this comic, it’s still not a good idea to get into spoilers. I will say that his reaction to the traumatic event was baffling, and what he chose to save (and how he treated it afterwards) was even more confusing. Maybe the whole comic was an allegory about valuing your loved ones and not wasting all your time on games, or maybe I’m reaching. I did enjoy the bright, vivid colors all over the place and how the man alternated between red when he was exploring or playing games and blue when he was talking with his wife. Some consistency in facial hair would have been nice too, as I wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be obsessed with the game to the exclusion of all else (hence the unruly beard) or if that was my imagination, as he was clean-shaven on several panels when he was fully bearded in the next one. There’s still lots of imagination in this one and it’s entirely possible that the fault of not understanding it lies with me, but on the whole this comic didn’t really work for me. $5
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Posted by Kevin
May 31, 2012
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The Heavy Hand
Crikey, Chris has produced quite a show here. I don’t think I’ve ever referred to a graphic novel as a show before, but I’ll be damned if I know what else to call it. Lazy readers, and I know you’re out there (there are times when I am one of you), best stay away from this one. Chris makes sure that you’re never allowed to get fully comfortable in this story, and that’s a good thing. You get a pretty clear warning right away that traditional narrative storytelling may take a few twists and turns, as we start with a man (with as vague of a face as possible) working on a large electronic device. He pours a cup of coffee, puts a few (what we later see to be) gems into it, takes out his dick and pees all over the device. Welcome to the comic! From there we get to meet our hero (not the guy from the first two pages) as he talks about a new job that he’s picked up with his indifferent/borderline hostile girlfriend. Or not, as he then has a very similar conversation with another lady (this one has a duck bill for a mouth). Suddenly, grinning spiders! Then we’re back with our hero as he tries to get a ride to his new job, but the guy he was counting on ends up abandoning him at a gas station, leaving his looking for another ride. Suddenly, a tiny masked man fighting a spider! Then the ride to the caverns (have I mentioned that his new job is in a cavern?) reveals the history of the town, as we see a patchwork donkey beaten and drowned by a mob, except not really, and an army of eyeball blob creatures are unleashed as payback. And that’s plenty from my end, don’t you think? From there we get to see plenty of those caverns and those creatures, there’s a party, and a strange goat creature is born. Or it evolves from a regular goat. The point is that it’s all up to you to put it together, but holy crap is it worth the effort. $14
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Posted by Kevin
May 30, 2012
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Ugly People #3
Since I’ve spent an awful lot of time berating many comics folks for their horrible misspellings and/or incorrect usage of your/you’re, and since I’ve done that in at least two different reviews of Zack’s comics in particular, it’s only fair that I point out that this issue is much improved on that front. In fact, I don’t think there was a single typo, or if there was I didn’t notice it, so kudos to the man. He mentioned in the letter he sent with the comic that he’s working with somebody who proofs his writing now and he’s actively trying to improve it himself, so as far as I’m concerned I’ll never have to mention this again in regards to Zack. Now as to the other members of the comics community who still can’t be bothered with a little self improvement, I’ll keep on your collective cases. Now on to the comic! This issue features the conclusion to the “Bacon on a Bounty” tale from last issue, as our hero and his ridiculous sidekick get actively involved in the case. Well, they try to get actively involved anyway. We get to see BDB’s reaction to that ridiculous sidekick outfit, them mapping out their “strategy,” BDB hitting on some high school girls, and their only (hilariously short) physical confrontation before things wrap up. I was hoping for more mayhem, but who wouldn’t want to see more mayhem involving a roided up gigantic piece of bacon? The other story in here is a day in the life of the crankiest man on the planet. Or at least the crankiest cyclops. Anybody who has had a shitty morning can guess some of the basics, but you’ll definitely be surprised when he punches out a ____. I really wanted to include it here because it’s so damned funny, but you should see it for yourself. And then be happy that you live in a world where such an image exists. $3
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Posted by Kevin
May 29, 2012
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Troop 142
I recently mentioned (and probably have several other times as well) that I loved this “job” because it gives me a chance to see comic artists at all stages of their careers, from scribbles with all kinds of typos to the eventual polished version later on. The trouble is that, what with this being mostly a mini comics kind of a website and all, I often lose track of people once they start putting out graphic novels on a regular basis. Not so much if I have a regular source of income, but when I don’t they have a tendency to fade into the background for me. This is all a long-winded way of me saying that Mike was one of the first people to send me review comics back in the day, but I haven’t read any of his new comics for at least five years, and I’m thrilled that he’s one of the people from back in the day who “made it.” I have no clue if he’s making a living off his comics yet, but artistically speaking he seems to have put all the pieces together. I should point out that my copy of this also came with a “142” boy scout badge, which was a neat little thing to throw in here, but I’m not sure if that comes with all the copies. This book is all about a week of summer camp for this troop in 1995. A lot of people are probably going to call this a “coming of age” story, but I think that’s a lazy way to look at it, as most of the characters in here don’t come to any serious realizations at the end of the week or change in any significant way. What this book does do perfectly is capture that moment in time, that late adolescent awkwardness where things are starting to change for some people in your age group, but the changes come at a different pace for different people. In this summer camp we get examples of bullying (that mostly (but not always) stay below causing the victim any actual harm), taking LSD and sitting around a campfire, unconscious homosexual experimenting, communal showers (and a communal toilet), living in a tent for a week, and some of the classes needed for Boy Scout badges. But the main thing on display here is the conversations between these kids, and they’re scary accurate from my memories of the time. A lot of adults try to protect the youngsters from foul language and anything untoward, which naturally leads to kids saying the most vile curse words that they hear whenever they get the chance. There’s also a smaller plot in here about a camp counselor (who’s there with his two sons) and the troubles he has fitting in. What’s the etiquette for sleeping in a tent with another man? What are the exact rules for maintaining discipline while not going over the line, especially when it’s your kids that are getting picked on? There are countless quiet (or loud) moments of conversation in here that I’ll let you discover for yourself, but I’d have to think this book would really hit home with people who went through this process themselves. As for the rest of us, you probably already know if you’re interested in this book, as a tale of summer camp for Boy Scouts either interests you or it doesn’t. But if you’re on the fence it’s well worth giving this thing a shot. $20
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Posted by Kevin
