New review for Brain Dead Phylum #1 by Kyle Nolan. The scanner isn’t new, but it’s an older one that a friend didn’t want and it appears to work OK. Keep an eye on those samples and let me know if they look like crap, OK? Assuming this thing doesn’t explode too I’ll be back to a full week of reviews next week, with one up over the weekend too if all goes well.
Update for 4/8/11
April 8, 2011
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Posted by Kevin
Nolan, Kyle – Brain Dead Phylum #1
April 8, 2011
Brain Dead Phylum #1
This is one dirty, dirty comic. No, not like that, you perverts you. The story takes place mostly in a sludge pit, and Kyle went to the trouble of making the place look as dirty and grimy as possible. The story, such as it is, deals with two very stupid robots essentially having an extended conversation. They get into a ship, press random buttons for a bit and end up crash landing. I’m not sure if it’s possible for me to reveal spoilers with this ending, but paradoxically I can’t say more about it without revealing spoilers. Let’s just say that the characters are very aware of their situation and the next issue could be downright hilarious. Or terrible, as it’s only one issue and it’s impossible to say. I did like this one, as the bits that were intended as funny mostly were actually funny, which is a rarer occurrence than it should be. I’m also detecting some strong Pat Aulisio influence at work here, and as someone who has been reviewing Pat’s work since the very early days of the website, that does make me the internet equivalent of a proud… uncle, maybe? I’m not sure what analogy would make sense there. My basic point is that I’m happy that at least one artist is taking some tips from Pat’s style and running with it. Unless Kyle has never heard of the guy and this is all in my head, that is. The rambling point of all this is that this book is worth a look and it’s damned good for his first full length mini comic. Encourage the lad with your dollar! $1
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 4/6/11
April 6, 2011New review for Late One Night by Brad W. Foster, another comic that’s also available in the store and a clear indication that I still don’t have a new scanner. Still, I’m as sick of writing about it as you are of reading it, so it ends this week one way or another. Apparently a scanner is not going to fall out of the sky all by itself and solve my problem…
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Posted by Kevin
Foster, Brad W. – Late One Night
April 6, 2011
Late One Night Now Available! $.50
This may be a rare comics find (although I didn’t find it so much as Brad mailed it to me), as it appears to be the first 24 hour comic ever. Hell, it’s even less than five hours! When did Scott McCloud start all that anyway? This is from 1986, so probably right around the same time. Of course, this is eight very tiny pages, so I don’t know if that would fit the criteria for a true 24 hour comic. Eh, it amuses me to think about it anyway. The story for this one is that Brad had a page that was going to run through the printing press anyway for another comic, so why not split it up into eight parts and make another comic out of it? The back cover also indicates that this is #1,847 of his products, if you count all the posters and cards as one each, and he put this out a very long time ago. I don’t care how you slice it, that’s serious productivity right there. Anyway, the strips are mostly a series of images like the one sampled below, and that sort of thing gets all the joy sucked out if it from critical reviewing. I did enjoy the one four panel strip dealing with logic, so keep an eye out for that one if you have a spare $.50. Not that the rest of it was bad, just by its nature it was something of a “blink and you’ll miss it” comic. So… yeah. Make up your own damn minds! $.50
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 4/5/11
April 5, 2011New review for Herman the Manatee Gets Hit By A Boat Volume 1 by Jason Viola. If you were wondering, no, the scanner is not working, I just took a couple of images off Jason’s site. I hate doing that, so you should buy his comic to assuage my guilt. The bottom line is that tomorrow is going to be a day of looking around for a decent scanner. What fun!
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Posted by Kevin
Viola, Jason – Herman the Manatee Gets Hit By A Boat Volume 1
April 5, 2011
Herman the Manatee Gets Hit By A Boat Volume 1
You’d think that a strip that almost always ended with the main character getting hit by a boat would get boring in a hurry. It threatens to get boring but Jason does an admirable job of turning it around before it goes off the rails. The art is fantastic, which is almost a shame as there really isn’t a lot to show most of the time other than a manatee, some fish or possibly a surface view. It’s comics like this that make me think that I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss web comics. Well, it’s not I dismiss them out of hand, it’s just that I get so many physical mini comics that it would be impossible to get into reviewing web comics too. If you were wondering, yes, this is the exact same reason why I don’t review zines. Anyway, I should probably mention a few of the comics, even if I have already given away the ending for most of them. Herman is lured up to the surface by a song, bubbles, different asshole fish and a fortune cookie. He tries a few different methods to get around this problem, each with varying degrees of a lack of success. We also see a bit of Herman’s early days, and from those it’s a wonder that he ever gets out of whatever he uses as a bed in the morning. There’s also a smartly done parody of the work of both George Herriman and Edward Gorey to liven things up when it starts dragging a bit. Jason sent along three more volumes of this series, and it may or may not get terribly boring over the long term. Either way, this first issue is worth a look, and if you don’t believe me then his website should have more than enough samples to convince you. $3
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 4/3/11
April 3, 2011New review today for Cheetahs Never Win! #3 by Steve Reeder, and I think this is it for the new batch of scanned images. Tomorrow I’ll try to get the stupid thing working again and will either A. be successful B. not be successful and buy a new scanner or C. not be successful and give up the comic reviewing business for a life in a cabin somewhere. Check tomorrow to see what happened!
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Posted by Kevin
Reeder, Steve – Cheetahs Never Win! #3
April 3, 2011
Cheetahs Never Win! #3
In case you were wondering exactly when my scanner died AGAIN, it was right after I managed to scan this cover. No sample image, in other words, and no website to look at sample images. Why? No idea. If there was ever a comic that was perfect for a website with plenty of free samples, it’s this one. This comic is mostly a series of single panel gag strips, with stories never running longer than a few pages. There are some groaners in here, but overall I thought this was a funny pile of strips, and I do occasionally have issues with the single panel format. To describe these strips very simply (but to not give them quite enough credit), these are essentially funny messages involving animals or inanimate objects that you might hang up in your office cubicle if you didn’t mind the shock of your co-workers over all that profanity. A few of these strips (and I’m going to leave most of these a mystery, as nothing kills comedy faster than critical analysis) involve a message in a bottle saying “Fuck You,” the mental process of a fish as he escapes death by hook, or the secret life of pencils in various states of use. It’s significantly more funny than not and this is a hefty pile of strips for $5.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 3/31/11
March 31, 2011New review for Monkey Squad One Annual #1 by Doug Michel. There was no update yesterday because of connection problems, as I’m not allowed to have just one thing go wrong with my computer at any given time. Those should all be fixed now, he says nervously…
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Posted by Kevin
Michel, Doug – Monkey Squad One Annual #1
March 31, 2011
Monkey Squad One Annual #1
It can be difficult for people to know when to jump in during an ongoing series, especially in the world of mini comics where early issues can go out of print in a hurry. Well, if you have any interest at all in this series, and it is a lot of fun from what I’ve seen so far, start with this issue. There is a detailed issue by issue recap on the front inside cover, there are character bios for everybody you could think of, and there’s even a schematic of their headquarters. If I can find the past issues of this series (the organizing system here in my apartment is in a bit of a shambles) I think they would make much more sense now that I know what came before. This issue is more about story snippets and catching up with the characters than anything else, so don’t go looking for one coherent storyline. Still, this is the sort of issue that ends up being invaluable in a long run, and it sure sounds like Doug is gearing up for a long run. The story bits we do see include the Squad sitting around and chatting about getting to go to the Kid’s Choice Awards, the training of a young Connor (beginning at age 7, but then again nobody on the team is even a teenager yet), some new members of Monkey Squad Two followed quickly by their disbanding (that would be a spoiler if it wasn’t listed clearly on the cover), another piece from the alternate future timeline story (and I love that it refers to the exact pages of the issue in question and where this new story would fit, that’s some excellent attention to detail right there), and a nice flashback story to the Monkey Squad from 1996 including who was on the team, who they were fighting and what happened to some of them. Really, all my complaints about past issues go right out the window with this one. Now I know what’s going on and who all these people are, and that really goes a long way. I have no idea how Doug could pack this much information into a recap for a regular issue, which is one more reason why this series is screaming out for a website. The man needs a central location to keep all this information straight, not to mention a place to show off his artwork. One last thing I have to mention is that Doug sent a letter along with this saying that he’s dedicated to making me a fan, which is exactly the right attitude for anybody to have who has received a less than glowing review. Try harder, put out better work and if you still don’t win me over, who cares? I’m some chatty guy with a website. Improving your comic should be the goal all by itself, and that should be a constant goal if you’re taking all of this seriously. And Doug, yes, you have officially won me over. Unless the next issue sucks… $2.50
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 3/29/11
March 29, 2011New review for The Gods Must Be Bastards by Rob Jackson. Ah, it’s nice not having to fight with this miserable scanner for a few days…
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Posted by Kevin
Jackson, Rob – The Gods Must Be Bastards
March 29, 2011
The Gods Must Be Bastards
Rob Jackson has been on a serious role as of late, and I’m thrilled to see that he’s keeping that trend going with this issue. As you might have guessed from that fantastic cover, people are beginning to wonder just what exactly the gods are trying to do. In this world scientists are routinely killed when they approach any sort of scientific breakthrough, as the gods prefer to leave all that stuff as mysteries to maintain their power. That’s the common wisdom anyway, and a group of scientists set out to reach the home of the gods and see for themselves. Along the way they get into a sea battle (after stealing a ship), land on a place called “The Island of Lost Souls” (where, shockingly, things don’t go all that well), encounter the sea beast sampled below, and eventually make it all the way to the home of the gods. You’ll have to read it for yourself to see what happens there, but I thought it was just about the perfect conclusion. It’s damned tempting to mention some of the happenings after they made it to the island, but I’m committed to no spoilers, even when I really want to. So what you have here is a lengthy comic with multiple factions wanting different things, an impressive array of fanciful creatures and beings, more character development than you would think and a whole pile of asides that I’m either forgetting or not giving enough credit to here. He’s done it again, that’s what I’m trying to say with all this rambling, and if you’ve enjoyed past Rob Jackson comics (and why wouldn’t you?) then you’re really going to love this one too. I think this is roughly $7 in American money, but it’s huge and you should probably check with Rob to be absolutely sure on that price.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 3/28/11
March 28, 2011New review for Yo! Burbalino #4 by Greg Farrell. Sure, I missed the weekend update, but at least there will be a new update every day this week barring my hands falling off, so that’s a good thing, right?
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Posted by Kevin
Farrell, Greg – Yo! Burbalino #4
March 28, 2011
Yo! Burbalino #4
The stories in this series keep wandering farther and farther from making sense which, in case this is your first time visiting this site, is a good thing in my book. The first story takes up right around the first half of the book and features the quest for equality from one squirrel. He is refused service for ice cream, so he ends up trying to reach the ice cream scoops from a branch and constructs a robot to get the ice cream for him. Constructing robots in comics rarely goes according to plan, and that pattern holds true for this story. Other bits include a recipe for homemade ice cream (although I wasn’t altogether clear on if you sealed the small bag that’s inside of the large bag, but that question will not make sense to anybody who hasn’t read the issue, so please carry on), the story of a fight from very early in Greg’s existence (although it was less a fight and more a punch and retreat), Ronnie Vanderhoeven eating bananas and poo (with a real groaner for an ending line) and a thoroughly surreal stand-up comic story. There’s also an illustrated poem with just about every image that’s currently in your head featured and I don’t have any idea what to say about it, so I’ll just mention it and leave it at that. I’m liking the turn for the weird that this series has taken, although your opinion may vary depending on how much you value “sense.” I think this book was $2, but contact Greg up there and he’ll let you know for sure if you’re interested.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 3/25/11
March 25, 2011New review for Dexter Park by Desmond Reed, and my scanner worked for about 20 minutes today, so I managed to scan about half a dozen of the comics that were closest to my computer. This means regular reviews next week and I’ll most likely manage to post one this weekend too. Huzzah! Also, my apologies if your comic wasn’t close enough to be grabbed, but I’ll get to those when I give up in a week or so and just buy a new scanner already…
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Posted by Kevin
Reed, Desmond – Dexter Park
March 25, 2011
Dexter Park
Desmond has a very good idea about requesting that reviewers don’t reveal the endings for his books, as they’re tiny things and why would somebody ruin a perfectly good ending anyway? Still, he has so far managed to put together a twist ending of some kind in most of his books that just scream out to be spoiled. I’ll continue to resist, but to those of you reading these reviews who are unconvinced: seriously, send him a few bucks for a few comics and you’ll see for yourself. This one starts off very quietly with a single frog going about his day. He meets up with an old friend from his tadpole days and ends up getting invited to a party. The catch is that this party is in one of the “forbidden areas” where frogs are not supposed to go. Why? Rumor has it that there’s a monster in the area. Not all frogs believe in this monster, so our hero goes back to his grandpa who survived a previous encounter with this beast. Well, his tale is a little sketchy, our hero is no longer convinced and all the frogs end up heading to the party. That’s when it gets really good, but you’ll have to see for yourself. I love the quiet moments at the start of these minis. This one has a whole page of a frog eating a fly before things get going, and past issues have had similar quiet moments before things get crazy. Desmond also has a real knack for internal consistency. That’s a strange thing to tout for an author, but his books always make perfect sense by the end of them and they’re usually endings that you probably should have seen coming, but no less clever for that fact. $2
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 3/23/11
March 23, 2011New review for Pork Belly #1 by Dan W. Taylor, and the scanner seems to be officially dead. I’ll head out to get a new one tomorrow or Friday and then I’ll be reviewing a ton of stuff, as it’s been piling up with all the technical problems.
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Posted by Kevin
Taylor, Dan W. – Pork Belly #1
March 23, 2011
Pork Belly #1 Now Available! $1
Sorry, let me just check to see if my head literally exploded from all the puns in one of the stories… nope, still attached. I generally have a problem with too many puns, or many at all really, but the piece in this one crossed right back over into being hilarious. No, I’m not sure how that happened and kids, you really shouldn’t try it at home. The story deals with two people who are showing each other sketches and making puns out of them. There’s “A horse, drawn buggy” and “Cow Bells,” but that pales in comparison to something being so asinine that it’s actually “asin-ten.” Seriously, kudos. Other stories include Chris Hoskin drawing two large boobs into something like an optical illusion, Dan retelling the (modern) story of a woman who was forced to breast feed the family hunting dogs because the husband had to send the wife’s family two cows to marry her in the first place and a pictorial representation of the theory “you are what you eat.” Boobs and more puns than you will usually see collected in one place, what’s not to love? As with most of Dan’s comics this one is 8 pages, but what an 8 pages. $1
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 3/20/11
March 20, 2011Quick, if you’re in Columbus, go to SPACE right now! There’s still time! Actually, with the time difference there may not be. Anyway, new review today for Skin Horse Volume One by Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells.
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Posted by Kevin
Garrity, Shaenon K. & Wells, Jeffrey C. – Skin Horse Volume One
March 20, 2011
Skin Horse Volume One
Occasionally here at the chaotic offices of Optical Sloth (i.e. my apartment) some comics and/or graphic novels will fall through the cracks for no good reason. Maybe they get buried by other comics, maybe they’re the victim of a cleaning spree and don’t see the light of day again for weeks, months or even longer. The first volume of Skin Horse is one of those unfortunate comics. Sometimes the staff here in the office (i.e. me) just plain screws up, and we feel better talking about it if we can use general terms of blame instead of just being accurate and saying “it’s all my fault.” Anyway, the good news is that there’s already a second volume of this out, so you can find out immediately what happens next. Believe me, if you read this book you will very much want to see what happens next. I didn’t have the highest of expectations, granted, but that was mostly due to my general ambivalence towards daily comic strips. There’s that seemingly legally required first panel recapping the last panel of the strip from the day before, which is a waste of usually 1/4 of your daily strip right there. This series doesn’t engage in that kind of nonsense, so that’s worth about a billion point in my random and meaningless scoring system. Then, and this took me several pages to wrap my head around, this strip is funny. I mean that I chuckled out loud more than a few times, and any daily strip that can do that is always welcome around here. But wait, there’s more! This strip is often much smarter than you might think. Again, my expectations for a daily strip are staggeringly low, but this surpassed those expectations instantly and just kept getting better as it went on. I should probably mention something about the plot here, right? Things start off strong by dumping the reader right into the thick of things with a team of vague government agents who have the job of collecting talking animals. This may come a bit from Shaenon’s previous series but, as I haven’t read that, this may have also started right here with this first strip. Anyway, the talking lion that they’re after ends up getting taken back to their base (spoiler alert, I guess, but this all happens on the first few pages) and then we get to the really good stuff: figuring out what these characters are all about. There’s the head agent, Tip, a cross-dresser who’s also a hit with the ladies. This one could have been played for stupid laughs in any of a number of ways but it ends up being a fairly nuanced and adult portrayal of a transvestite, so kudos for that. Then there’s the talking dog, the zombie girl who’s also on the verge of a deadly rampage, the security guard who gets his mind wiped on a regular basis and is constantly alarmed at the stream of oddities heading into the office, the robotic receptionist from the 1800’s and the boss of the whole place who is essentially a sentient swarm of bees. Once we get all that out of the way Tip has to head down to the basement and arrange a truce between the sentient silverfish, centipedes, zombie heads, cobras that only want to hug, a giant rat and a vastly intelligent crystalline species. That isn’t even the first half of the book, but it’s intricately woven together and too damned smart to be that funny. Later story arcs include the zombie girl trying to get the talking dog to go on a rampage, the team heading out to determine who has jurisdiction over a helicopter with a human brain and a lengthy fight with panda bear. There’s also a fantastic introduction and opening story to go along with a “Customer Service” video for new members of the team and some drawings by other artists. Plenty of free strips are up at their website if you still need convincing, but I thought this book was fantastic and they had to completely win me over to get me to that point. They managed to completely blow away my natural animosity to the daily strip with very little effort. Oh, and I have I mentioned how great the art is? Again, considering the whole daily strip problem, this series and its vast and eclectic cast of characters always looks good. So yeah, I think you should check this out immediately. $14.00
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Posted by Kevin
