July 28, 2010
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Robots Are People, Too! #1
I figured it would be a difficult thing for this comic to live up to that cover, and it managed to pull it off rather easily. Note: I’m just guessing on the number, as Greg sent along other issues of this series as well, but it makes sense to me. So what, this comic is all about robots? Well yeah, what else would you expect from that title? The themes here stay fairly similar, but there’s more than enough variety to satisfy the cynics. Unless you hate robots altogether, or think it’s only a matter of time before they rule us all. Silly people! What makes you think the human race is going to survive long enough to be taken over by robots? Stories in this book of wonders include Let Me Tell You About My Mother by Victor Claudio (a surreal tale with the dialogue being taken entirely from Blade Runner), Great Americans by Lou Copeland (in which the true history of Davy Crockett is revealed), People Are Robots, Too by Steven Mangold (a fascinating text piece about the point at which a machine might reach independent consciousness and what happens next), Android Institute by Jerry Stanford (a parody of the old comic book ads), Rodney vs. Jer. Mac by Jason Franks (in which the horrible sin of clip art is saved by a great punchline), Lonely Robot by Daniel Boyd (a silent piece about, um, a lonely robot), Dick Danger by Fran Matera (a noir thriller about mistaking a femmebot for a woman), Handybot by LaMontagne, Mangold & Wiedemer (possibly the highlight of the book, a fake legal disclaimer detailing all the potential troubles of owning the HandyBot (formerly Destructomat)), some sketchbook pages by a variety of folks (this killed the momentum of the book a bit but they were still interesting sketches), and …Only Flesh and Blood by Greg Vondruskra (in which a robot sort of falls for a human, but does realize that this one will never live to see Halley’s Comet again). I don’t know if this series is still going (this issue came out in 2007), but if it’s not it should be. I would think this would be the sort of thing all sorts of small press folk could get behind if given the chance. Greg’s site leaves that a bit of a mystery, along with whether or not you can get copies from him. Oh well, if you can find it and if you’re a fan of robots, it’s more than worth the effort. $5
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Posted by Kevin
July 27, 2010
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Slices #1
Please note: this is not listed as #1, and I have no reason to believe that there is more of this series to come. It’s mostly just a hopeful gesture from me that he keeps these coming, because you’re not likely to find a more entertaining pack of short bios of the lives of all sorts of people. This strip is based on a much older strip that Jaime gave up years ago, so the people described are mostly folks Jaime knew 20+ years ago. He tries to give “where are they now?” type information whenever possible, but there are plenty of people in here who just faded away. Some of the highlights of this 40 page comic (and, with each page being a strip, that’s basically the life story of 40 people) include the life of a 22 year old cat, an annoying drunk who at least always paid for beer, a “ladies man”, a busybody, a rich asshole (is there any other kind?), going way too far with “God’s will”, an acid casualty, the perfect stereotype of a stoner (that happened to be a real person), the stupidest guy in the world, “dog face”, a punk rock girl who just couldn’t seem to leave town, a very creepy gay guy, a born hustler, a girl shaped like a cylinder who never spoke, a self-destructive musician, Jaime getting stuck on a train, the mystery of Skip, and a dog that peed everywhere. I’m still leaving out about half of the stories, and I’m barely scratching the surface of the ones I did talk about, but there are a few samples up at his site so you can pick through them at your leisure. I’m glad to see Jaime getting all the way back into comics, I was just starting off with the small press stuff right around the time that he quit originally, so I only saw a few of his earlier books. Still, he was on his way to becoming a small press legend (for whatever that’s worth) when he dropped out because of the need to raise a family and make a few bucks, so I’m thrilled to see a couple new comics from the guy and the fact that he’s working on a graphic novel at the moment. If you’ve started reading these things in the last 10 years or so you might not know the guy, but keep an eye out for his name, as I think he’s going to win over all sorts of folks. It was tough as hell to pick a sample strip for this comic, which is always a good sign, and pretty much all the strips in here are either entertaining, informative of just plain weird, which is the right mixture for me. $4
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Posted by Kevin
July 26, 2010
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Skullyflower #1
I checked her website and yes, her real name is in fact “Dragon”. I believe she is legally obligated to make comics with that name, and as far as I can tell she’s off to an excellent start. Dragon sent me a pile of her conics, so this is the first of many that will be up on the site soon (even more if she holds to her promise in the letter to keep them coming). She describes the first two minis of this series as “really rough”, but I don’t see it. I’m guessing the art gets better, but it’s not like this issue looked terrible. Maybe a little short on backgrounds, but it held up really well as a weekly strip. Or at least it held up well as the kind of weekly strip I enjoy: the kind that’s just a serialized way to tell a story. There’s a punch line here or two (like in the sample image), but they’re mostly decent ending lines, and things bleed over to the next strip with a bare minimum of “here’s what happened in the last strip, and my telling you this will kill off at least 1/4 of the strip” kind of nonsense. Anyway, this is the story of Skullyflower, a talking flower with skull for a face. What else could it be? This creature is bored as can be living at the graveyard until a mourning woman finally talks to it and decides to take it home. Most of this comic is setting up Skullyflower and the main human character (Hydra), which is accomplished neatly in the walk home. Along the way we also meet her neighbor Frank (and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about that guy along the way), hear about other neighbors, meet her two sock puppets and check out her house. This could go in any number of directions from here, but I enjoyed the beginning. The second issue looks like it follows the same format as the first, but the third issue looks much bigger and fancier. I’ll get reviews up in the coming weeks and find out for sure, but for now there’s a whole pile of free samples at her site, so you don’t have to rely on my opinion of such things to make up your own mind. $2
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Posted by Kevin
July 23, 2010
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Billy the Demon Slayer S2 #3
If I’m having a tough time keeping track of the story now, it must have been really tough on the people reading this when it first came out. There was apparently a long delay in getting this issue out and this issue goes straight from the end of the second issue. I still wish I had the first series of this book, as that would probably answer more than a few questions, but I’ll just keep flailing about and hoping that I hit on a good point or two. Hey, exactly the same as all my other reviews! This time around Billy is “underground” and trying to get information on the new sinister plot while his friends are still in town. Things get bad in a hurry, as a crowd of zombies (described by a confused local as “some kind of an emo party”) descends upon the town. Still, so far they seem to just be standing around, waiting for the word to start their mission. Billy is actually fairly restrained in this issue, but I expect that to change in a big way for the next issue. One thing is abundantly clear after reading this: before I review #4 I’m going to have to go back and read this series all in a row. This issue by issue business just isn’t cutting it for me this time around. The good news is that there were fewer grammatical errors (I’ve given up hope of the guy ever learning the difference between “too” and ‘to”), we still got the “where are they now” section to detail the fates of the side characters who wander off at the end of every issue, and there’s still some pretty great dialogue going on. Still, I’m left with the feeling I had when I started watching Buffy at the start of the third season: I thought it was fantastic, but some of the finer points were lost on me because I didn’t know the history. $3.50
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Posted by Kevin
July 22, 2010
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Monstrum Horrendum Volume 2 #1
Anybody out there remember the first volume of Monstrum Horrendum? Good for you if you do, but I checked back to my review of the old comic before writing this one and have to say that the artwork is hugely improved this time around. The sheer vibrancy of those color’s don’t hurt a bit, granted, but the it would look nicer even in black and white. It seems to retain the basic concept of the first volume, as this is a crew of five adventurers (ship captain, wealthy financier and big game hunter, scientist, “fish boy”, and an old sea dog) who hunt for different monsters in each issue. This time around they’re trying to track down a giant sea serpent, something that is several times bigger than their ship. This is the point where you have to decide if you’re going to worry about technicalities in this comic or just go along for the ride. I picked the second option, but if I didn’t there was a huge problem with how exactly they planned to kill or capture the creature, as a little dynamite or some harpoons seemed ridiculous, and that leap that is made later in the comic towards the sea serpent is not possible with any of these earthly laws of physics. So screw it, Saturday morning cartoon it is! On that level it works very well indeed. You have the captain constantly getting sick of the financier thinking he’s in charge of things, the financier needing to kill this particular serpent to show up his rival, the scientist who seems to have no skill at worldly affairs, the mysterious fish boy (just a boy who speaks an unknown language, not half fish or anything), and the old sea dog being the constant voice of caution of wisdom. It’s a fun adventure story, the painted look of the book is stunning (I particularly enjoyed Leonie’s willingness to go with the full page spreads when needed), and the pacing was excellent. The sea serpent doesn’t show up until close to the end of the book, of course, but that only gives us time to let us know the people involved and feel some concern for their safety in all this. Nicely done all around, and I’m very happy to note that she also sent along the second issue of this series, so I’ll have more thoughts on all this soon. Here’s a link to buy the book, currently at the odd price of $8.65, but it is in full color and 56 pages you know…
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Posted by Kevin
July 21, 2010
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Team Girl Comic #1
Whew! Full disclosure here: this comic came with a letter explaining the thinking behind the comic (to improve the presence of women and girls in small press comics, a worthy goal) and the people involved. The contributors included a couple of girls who are still in their early teen years, and I was afraid that I’d either be stuck criticizing children or making excuses for their stories being less than the other stories involved. I was completely wrong on that one, and if the letter didn’t tell me who was who I would have never guessed which of these women were just starting out and which ones were professional. I still may have a bone or two to pick here and there, but overall this was an excellent anthology that should, if there is any justice in the world, go a long way towards getting more women involved in the business. Well, women in Glasgow at least, as that’s where this is based and I have no idea how much of an effort they’re making to expand. Blah blah blah, how about the stories? Well, here’s one minor quibble right off the bat: no table of contents. There is an author page at the start, taking an image from one of their stories and putting the name of the author next to it, but most people in here have multiple pieces and things got a little tricky after a while. Stories in here include a brief and hilarious synopsis of Phantom of the Opera (by Katie Pope), an artist trying to work in solitude and being invaded by her past toys (Gillian Hatcher), women’s right to vote 100 years later and the ensuing voter apathy (Iona Mowat), daydreaming at school that descends into reliving one’s worst moments (Gillian Hatcher), some drama about Twilight (Jessica Hatcher), whether you should speak English or Punjabi to your cat (Heather Middleton), a thoroughly surreal piece about various animals, balloons and teapots that I can’t even begin to summarize without taking all the fun out of it (Emma McLuckie), the evolution of an indie boy (Katie Pope), reaching the end of her rope with the Twilight stuff (Jessica Hatcher), a cosmetic history (Gillian Hatcher), the scorn that comes from turning down sweets (Iona Mowat), bears trying to make a band (Gillian Hatcher), the truth about the “secret admirer” of a teacher (Katie Pope), and an introduction for Sausage Bear. There isn’t a really weak piece in here, which is always mildly shocking in any anthology. The piece on women getting the right to vote had an excellent quote explaining the apathy, Gillian reliving her worst moments suddenly while daydreaming is something everybody should be able to relate to, and the pieces by Jessica Hatcher really show the extent of which Twilight has taken over the schools. This is really a solid piece of work, and the great thing about it is that they’re all pretty much just getting started. I’m lousy at converting foreign currency, but I think this translates to something like $4, which is perfectly reasonable for this many stories.
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Posted by Kevin
July 20, 2010
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Slab Comix Deluxe Edition
If you’ve been reading this site for a very, very long time, you probably remember the wonderful world of Slab. If not, well, that’s why I keep all the old reviews on this site, and you can go check out the old issues of Slab now if you like. Not a thing in the world is stopping you. This is supposed to be the collected edition, but I have to start off on a sour note: my favorite story from the first issue of Slab, the tale of some workplace drudgery, isn’t in this volume. Ah well, nobody is ever really happy with a “best of” collection, somebody always has to bitch and point out that it doesn’t have THEIR favorite story. Today, I am that guy. Luckily there are still plenty of great stories in this one, including Slab Rogers (in which our hero crash lands onto a planet and it attacked by all organic life on said planet), A Brief History of Slab (the history of the world told by Slabs, at least my second-favorite story of Slab made it to this collection), Slab Marlowe in “The Big Slab” (and you haven’t lived you’ve seen Slab Marlowe talk about how well a woman Slab is built), and Bruce Slab: Enter the Slab (exactly what you might think, it’s a martial arts battle between two Slabs and a genuinely wonderful thing). Every one of these stories is up at his website, so it’s the easiest thing in the world to form your own opinion about the guy. As for me, he sent me his books way back in the early days of the website, and I missed the world of Slab. It looks like he’s moved on to different things (I’ll get around to reviewing the other book he sent in a week or so), but the Slabs will always rule. Maybe if I bug him enough he’ll put my favorite Slab tale up on his website too. No price, but I’d say $6 because it seems like a good random number for this sort of thing…
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Posted by Kevin
July 19, 2010
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Goblin Hall
I love that cover. You probably have an instant reaction to it, and you’re probably more than a little off in that reaction. This is the story of a Count who comes back to his estate after being gone for five years. He’s a fairly typical Count, just looking to marry off his son to the daughter of a wealthy family and finally getting some time at home after being gone for so long. Well, his son has met someone else while the Count was away and he plans on marrying this woman. This woman is a mystery, as are the whereabouts of his son during the daylight hours, so he follows his son, meets this girl and is impressed. Sadly for him, he had a cup of wine while meeting this woman, didn’t realize she was related to goblins (the fairy tale kind of goblins, not the Tolkien kind), and ends up drugged in a field for a month (although it seemed to him like only a short time had passed), and he misses the wedding. This causes the Count to get enraged and recruit a posse of mercenaries to take care of these goblins, and it’s here that things start to get awesome. So, naturally, this is the point where I stop telling you the story. I will say that from here things go in all sorts of directions you wouldn’t expect, and Rob’s ability to bring out the quiet human elements in a huge battle are impressive. I particularly enjoyed a moment when the Count meets a friend on the battlefield and begs the guy not to fight him, as he saved the Count’s life in the past, and after the Count gets the better of the guy he drags him off the battlefield and out of harm’s way. This is also self-contained, so no worries about wondering whether or not Rob is ever going to put out another issue (although he’s prolific enough that he’s more than earned the benefit of the doubt). Oh, and as for the sample, the rest of the book is s good bit chattier than this page, but I couldn’t resist using the image of the goblin parade. If you hate all this fantastical I guess you could stay away, but this is really more about how humanity deals with the unknown than anything else, and the results aren’t always pretty. $6ish
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Posted by Kevin
July 17, 2010
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Sounds of Your Name
If you’re a fan of Nate Powell, this is the book you’ve been waiting for. It collects all sorts of bits from his old Walkie Talkie series, shorter pieces from a variety of sources, and unpublished pieces. If you’re not a fan of Nate’s work, it’s probably only because you haven’t seen it yet. It’s impossible to lump this book into one blanket statement, but I’m going to make it anyway: this book is the moment when you start the car and leave your hometown forever with only the clothes on your back and the moment you decide to turn off the car and stay where you are. It’s living the dream, waiting for death, fighting off boredom and giving in to it. It’s trying to make sense of it all while knowing deep down that there is no sense to be made. That was my reading of it anyway, but I will get into specifics for you people who hate dealing in the abstract. Hey, I usually do too, but Nate brings it out of me. Longer pieces in this book include Scrubs (involving a couple who are already sick of living life as defined by the alarm clock and how one of the character takes the lyrics from that song “Scrubs” personally), Conditions (dealing with a boy and girl pair of best friends, how they both seem to want more but are afraid to make the first or even the second move, and how they both desperately want to get out of their small town), Frankenbones (showing two house cats, their past history on the streets and how the plot to destroy some unwelcome house guests), Pulling Teeth (showing how a lodged bit of cracker in the gums can ruin a nice kiss and the constant terror that is small town thugs with nothing to do), and Satellite Worlds (spanning across different lives, how they see the world and the thin line between sanity and insanity). There’s also the title story from It Disappears, but I talked about that elsewhere on this site ages ago. Shorter pieces include Company (showing a car wreck and the mild chaos that followed the developmentally disabled man in the car walking away while the driver was knocked out), Invisibilities (in which two guys try to reinstill some magic into the town),and The Defeatist (dealing with cheating at an early age, before even knowing that it is cheating). There are many more, as this book is 300+ pages, but I’m leaving most of the layers of this onion for you to peel. Also, I usually link the graphic novel to Amazon for the pennies they throw my way when people occasionally click on the link, but I saw that Microcosm publishing has this on sale for a measly $12 at the moment, and that’s too good a deal not to link to it. If you’ve never questioned a goddamn thing in your life, this comic will fly right over your head. For the rest of us, you may find a few of your questions about life answered in these pages, but you’ll also find many more questions. In times as shitty as these, it helps to at least take a look around you. As a wise man once said, the unexamined life is not worth living, and this comic sums that up beautifully.
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Posted by Kevin
July 16, 2010
Lydia’s website
Publisher’s website (Killing the Buddha)
The Living Cain
Before I get to the comic, I wanted to relay to you the mission statement of the publisher, Killing the Buddha, because it’s fascinating: “…an online magazine of religion and culture for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the “spirituality” section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God.” As someone who has had a lifetime to work up a healthy distrust of organized religion of all stripes (definitely in the “hostile” camp), I approve, and the site looks like a nice assortment of interesting topics. As for the comic, it’s the simply told story of a woman (Lydia) who, after an awful break-up in college, decided that she wanted to get exactly one kind of dog to fill the hole in her life. The dog would look at her a certain way, go on trips with her, hold her at night, all the things a missing significant other wouldn’t be there to do. This quest of hers didn’t go exactly as planned, as the dog she got was a danger to everyone around her, but she eventually moved to New York and has seemed to make a habit of rescuing all sorts of dogs, considering it a win if she’s able to stave off execution of these animals even for a little while. Actually, the comic says that you can contact Lydia if you want a dog, so if you live in the New York area (or don’t mind a bit of a drive), I’d say she qualifies as being an expert on dogs. The comic itself is a series of one page panels, and when I said earlier that it was a simply told story I didn’t mean that it was simplistic. Granted, backgrounds are sparse, but she captures a lot in facial expressions or the sudden acts of dog violence. There’s also a thoughtful intro to the book called “What is Missing?”, about that vague feeling that so many people have of something being missing in their lives and how much better things would be if they could just find it. It’s worth a look, and this woman is a hero for trying to help such a wide array of dogs. $6
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Posted by Kevin
July 15, 2010
New review for The Former Roommates of Gary Jones by Kelly Froh. I wanted to mention the death of Harvey Pekar a few days ago, even if I don’t have much to add past past the fact that it was a shitty thing. I never met Harvey, but outside of everything else he achieved, how he changed the face of autobiographical comics (some would say he invented them), the wonders of comic literature that he wrote, the thing I liked most about the guy was his willingness to talk to anybody who was trying to get started in comics. Seriously, I never heard of a single disgruntled comic artist who said that Harvey treated him/her badly, and it says a lot for the character of the man that he had the patience to do what he could to help people out who were just starting in comics, up to and including having them in his home. Matt Herzfeld & Nick Mercer did a few comics of their series Flame-Broiled years ago when they were just starting out (and they may have stopped in the meantime; I haven’t seen anything new from them in ages), met Harvey at an event and he really inspired them. It’s a shame that he’s gone, and the world is poorer for it.
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Posted by Kevin
