New review for Is It The Future Yet? by Corinne Mucha, and if you have reviews up here and you’ve posted a link to them at your site(s), please be advised that I am deleting the monster reviews with everything on one page and am sticking with the one title per page concept. Please update your links accordingly.
Update for 6/21/10
June 21, 2010
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Posted by Kevin
Mucha, Corinne – Is It The Future Yet?
June 21, 2010
Is It The Future Yet?
If you’ve never been to Chicago, or have and are a philistine, you may have never heard of Quimby’s. That would be a shame, as it’s one of the best places to get small press comics in the country, or at least it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. Those Chicago folks also have Chicago Comics, which makes an embarrassment of small press riches for one town. Anyway, I’m bringing this up because Quimby’s is publishing comics now, and this comic is one of them. Just looking around their website I’m not sure what else they publish. They have all kinds of comics available for you to buy, but I’m not clear on whether or not they publish any or all of them. Either way it’s another great resource to get small press comics, as you can order all kinds of stuff through the mail even if you don’t live anywhere near Chicago. Um, after you finish shopping here, of course. So how about this comic? The theme, as you may have guessed, is the future. That’s a nebulous enough concept but Corinne clarifies it with stories about deja vu (and how she, as s child, thought that she had super powers because of it and how it “told her” for years that she was on the right or wrong track), her having a vague phone conversation with her future self, a term paper she did on Nostradamus she did in 8th grade (conclusion: he was full of shit), and her long curiosity with palm readers (as she thinks that she has exceptionally wrinkled hands at a young age). Now Corinne is very clear about the fact that she sees most of this as nonsense, and it’s also clear that “psychics” are mostly there to tell people what they want to hear. Still, she got her palm quickly read on the last day of her job at a restaurant and by a “professional” who worked out of her undecorated apartment (no sense of theater). I’ll leave the conclusions to be discovered by the reader, but it did seem to at least improve her mood both times, so these “psychics” were doing their jobs. And hey publishers, I noticed that you mixed up the pages after the second page of “I Am Constantly Imagining the Future”. Just in case I got some sort of special advance review copy and it’s still possible to fix it before it gets out to the rest of the world… $3
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 6/19/10
June 19, 2010New review for The Fifty Flip Experiment #1 by Dan Hill, as I do the experiment of looking back at the very first issue of a mini comic.
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Posted by Kevin
Hill, Dan – The Fifty Flip Experiment #1
June 19, 2010
The Fifty Flip Experiment #1
It seems like only yesterday (because it was) when I was wishing for a complete collection of John Porcellino’s early, long since out-of-print issues of King Cat. Today I grabbed the first issue of a series I’ve really come to enjoy to see what it was like in the early days, and man, it’s not pretty. It looks like he pulled every halfway funny piece out of his sketchbook, no matter how old it was, and threw in a few strips where he seems to have drastically improved his drawing skills, with the end result being a mish mash of nonsense. He still managed to put together a few funny strips, and I loved his little asides during the strips about how he wasted space on certain strips, but overall this was a timely reminder that it’s often best to go with the later work when trying to form an opinion about something. If this was the only issue of this series I’d have a significantly more negative reaction to it than I do knowing he got a lot better as he went on, but it would take a real fan of this series/artist to get a whole lot out of this issue. Stories in here include an astronaut with his co-pilot/blow-up doll, poor table manners, being tortured by sasquatch, a few tales of spoons for hands man (with varying degrees of artistic proficiency, as I think one of these was drawn with magic marker), an awful care package, I Miss Shel Silverstein, pick which contestant has scorpions under his skin, bat erections, new stilts, action hero Jesus, fat man trying to get back in shape, and a number of things that don’t make even a tiny bit of sense but are still somehow at least mildly amusing. That’s the one thing that keeps this from being a total stinker: the fact that it’s so strange that it’s usually at least a little bit funny. Still, I’d go with one of the later issues if you just wanted to check out his stuff. Just sayin’… $1
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 6/18/10
June 18, 2010New review for King Cat #70 by John Porcellino, his 20th anniversary issue. Yes, seriously.
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Posted by Kevin
Porcellino, John – King Cat #70
June 18, 2010
King Cat #70
20 years of King Cat! Holy crap. I’ll have to try and not think about the fact that a chunk of people reading this weren’t even alive 20 years ago. As an anniversary issue is the perfect time for nostalgia, if memory serves (and it often doesn’t) my first exposure to John was in King Cat #38, the issue where he talks about the life and death of his dog and the role it played in his life. I was hooked instantly and went back and got as many of the older issues as I could find which, sadly, wasn’t all that many. There still hasn’t been anything approaching a definitive collection of his work, probably because he’s ashamed of some of his older stuff, but I’m always all for putting a body of work out there, warts and all. Everybody reading this already knows all about King Cat, of course, and all of you have sent John money for his comics at least once by now. Hey, he’s even started Spit and a Half back up, and if you never heard of it and get nothing else out of this review, click on that link to see a wide selection of incredible minis that John somehow has the time to distribute himself. So how about what’s in the book, am I ever going to get to that? I kind of figured that a positive review was a given at this point, but since you insist, stories in here include how he’s given up drinking (but would like very much (at times) to give up the giving up), how maybe the pace of the suburbs is best for him after all, some adorable neighborhood animals, getting his wisdom teeth out because his insurance was about to run out, a dream and a bag of chips, Do the Pete Duncan, and a follow-up on Square Head John from issue #67. As usual, that’s not all, as there’s also his top 40 list (expanded this time around), some one panel strips dealing with cats and a few other stories that I didn’t mention to leave you some surprises for when you inevitably order this comic. You do like to be surprised, right? And you do like great comics? The man’s been doing this often thankless, poverty-inducing job for 20 years, send him some money out of love and gratitude, why don’t you? I can’t think of anybody who deserves it more. $3
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 6/17/10
June 17, 2010New review for Freaky Shit by Aaron Norhanian, and I just don’t get an excuse to curse in these updates often enough.
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Posted by Kevin
Norhanian, Aaron – Freaky Shit
June 17, 2010
Freaky Shit
Full disclosure time: Aaron sent me a couple of copies of this comic as “insulation” for the couple of extra copies of Bad Energy he sent along for the comic rental business (still working on it, but holy crap is it taking longer than I thought). He didn’t think very highly of this comic, in other words, and any negative things I say about it have to be taken with that caveat in mind, along with the fact that it’s from 2006 and he has done substantially better work since. OK, so what’s it about? It’s the story of a janitor who’s also an evil genius. He develops a ray gun that allows him to steal the intelligence from all the smart scientists in his lab, making himself smarter and smarter every time. What’s the catch? There are two of them: this ray, once it takes the intelligence of the scientists, turns them into brain-craving zombies (are there any other kind?), and the side effect of all this ray gun activity is a tumor in the head of the janitor. Oddly, this doesn’t bother the janitor as much as you’d think, but if I say much more about this I’ll spoil every bit of it. I will say that the ending was clearly one of those “I give up, I have no idea how to finish this” type of things. It is a fairly amusing comic overall, maybe worth a look if you enjoy the rest of his work, but overall he’s right: this is far from the best thing he’s done. If you love mad scientists or Aaron’s work give it a look, otherwise I’d suggest some of his more recent work, like Bad Energy. No price, but judging from his opinion of this book I’d say Aaron would be willing to let you have it for cheap…
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 6/16/10
June 16, 2010New review for Yasha Lizard #3 by Kristina Stipetic, and it looks like I’ll be heading out of town this weekend instead. Or not, as these things are subject to change. Tell you what, just keep doing what you’re doing in regards to checking this site for new reviews, and I’ll keep putting them up, just possibly not every single day that you’d like to see them. Deal?
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Posted by Kevin
Stipetic, Kristina – Yasha Lizard #3
June 16, 2010
Yasha Lizard #3
Kristina made quite an impression on me with her last mini comic (Yasha Lizard #2, I didn’t see #1), so she had a lot to live up to in the next issue. She pulls that trick off without a hitch, as this issue goes off in a completely different direction and is as excellent as the first issue in a completely different way. This is still ostensibly the story of Yasha Lizard, but that seems to be a cover to talk about other topics that are on Kristina’s mind, in this case architecture. An innovative designer is trying to revolutionize the industry and the old guard stands haughtily in his way; something of a recurring theme in civilization. He builds a series of buildings that are meant to house worker families for the low rent price of $1. Yasha manages, with a friend and an egg, to convince the landlords that they’re a family, they get the cheap apartment, and quickly find out that they’re in the middle of forces way over their heads and helpless to do anything about it. This comic looks gorgeous, as she certainly has that end of things down, and I love the idea of making all these issues self-contained but held together by that bare thread of the title character, who usually isn’t even shown until the “real story” gets a proper introduction. She says in the afterward that she has something “more serious, less polemical” in the works, but only after the next comic of this series, which is going to deal with evolution. As that subject is still, shockingly, a subject of controversy for some of the dimmer bulbs on the planet (probably the ones who didn’t get the hint when Touchdown Jesus got struck by lightning and destroyed this week), I can’t wait to see her take on it. Still no price, I’m still guessing $3 until I hear differently.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 6/15/10
June 15, 2010New review for It Sure Is A Super World! by Kenn Minter & Clarence Pruitt, and I’m probably heading out of town tomorrow for a couple of days, so I may or may not be able to get a review up before I leave. That offer for free comics for web design help still stands, by the way…
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Posted by Kevin
Minter, Kenn & Pruitt, Clarence – It Sure Is A Super World!
June 15, 2010
It Sure Is A Super World!
I wonder if anybody has ever written a long article detailing all the different divisions in small press comics fans. Maybe The Comics Journal got around to it at some point, but I mostly couldn’t stand that magazine even before they priced themselves out of my range anyway. I’m asking the question because it’s obvious from that cover that this is a superhero parody (and a good one) and was curious if such a thing turns off a segment of the small press comic reading public before they even crack open the book. The main story deals with Incredolad, whose “secret identity” has long since been figured out by everybody in his town, and he is completely oblivious to this fact. While hanging out with friends in his secret identity a girl starts drowning, so naturally everybody is telling him to save her, to get his stupid costume on and fix it, but he spends to much time trying to convince them that he isn’t Incredolad that the girl ends up drowning. This does not go over well with his friends or her parents, and he makes matters worse by underestimating his own strength in trying to deal with her father. Hilarity ensues, if you think angry mobs are hilarious. Other stories include a piece on a group of teen heroes who turn much of the populace into vampires (featuring the worst “street” accent I may have ever seen in comics, and with all these pasty white artists and writers (and reviewers), that’s saying something), the story of the Love Lantern (who carries around the heart of Aphrodite in a jar to help her fight crime and meet men), and a story about a Superman and Batman stand-in going to see their psychiatrist (dealing with “Superman’s” being able to hear every cry for help from around the world and “Batman’s” inability to have a mature relationship). It was a funny collection of stories, unless you’re one of those people I may have just made up who hate everything remotely related to superheroes. $3.49
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 6/14/10
June 14, 2010Yep, I didn’t post an update yesterday. Maybe I’ll be able to make up for it during the week, but as I’m probably heading out of town for a few days this week I kind of doubt it. Maybe next week I’ll have time for double review days.  Oh, the new review today is for Yo! Burbalino #2 by Greg Farrell. And I’ve probably already mentioned this, but if anybody reading this is a fan of comics (duh) who also has experience with web design, I’m looking for help with the comic rental system I’m trying to set up. I can make it worth your while in comics, or possibly some sort of lifetime membership in the comics rental program. Sound intriguing? E-mail me why don’t you.
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Posted by Kevin
Farrell, Greg – Yo! Burbalino #2
June 14, 2010
Yo! Burbalino #2
Poetry warning! OK, so most people probably don’t need that warning, but with a very few rare exceptions poetry doesn’t do a thing for me, and Greg packs this sucker with poetry. Comic stories in here include a creepily revealing dream (involving Greg’s mother, him popping out of a giant vagina (in the same panel no less), and his insecurities about his place in comics), an awkward reunion with an old friend, some slapstick with a bunch of people trying to move a box using a bicycle, the theft of his headphones from his work, and a phone call from his mother to tell him about his old dying dog that turns into an extended rant/freestyle poem about the state of his life in general. Oddly, even though I didn’t think much of the other poetry, I loved this last story. Maybe because it wasn’t the kind that tries so hard to rhyme that it comes across as forced and awful? Yes, that’s entirely possible. His other poems are weird as hell (dealing with eating dynamite, being flaccid after sex, tips for eating a horse, acne, a past Halloween, cheetah lover’s lament, and sweeping), so that makes them more readable in my eyes, but just barely. Greg, assuming these stories are meant to be about Greg and not some hypothetical fictional stand-in, complains a few times about being annoyed that he’s so preoccupied with the ladies. There’s an obvious solution here, and something that would make those poems instantly better: start a band and turn them into songs. Ladies will flock to him (based on personal observance and every television show ever), and poems that might sound like doggerel become deeply meaningful when sung by a heartfelt crooner. You’re welcome! So is the poetry enough to turn me off of the comic? Nope. The comic stories were fantastic, and that last one with his mom on the phone pushed the comic firmly back into the “worth taking a look” category. $3
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 6/12/10
June 12, 2010New review for Seeds by Marek Bennett, because I needed something light for my Saturday. Back to grim and gritty next week.
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Posted by Kevin
Bennett, Marek – Seeds
June 12, 2010
Seeds
People of the future, there’s one way for you to be able to tell that I was writing this on a Saturday (unless I finally get my act together, go back and put the posting dates on all these reviews): because I picked a small wordless mini about a family in the country shoveling off an ice pond instead of picking any of the other pile of comics I have to review (like that one on the Honduran coup I’ll be getting around to next week). Not to take anything away from this, but I needed something light and breezy and Marek fit the bill perfectly. This is, like I said, a story about hijinx while clearing off a pond for skating. The title does make sense, but you have to wait until the end of the story to learn why. This comic is, frankly, adorable, with the small kid trying to get out of the house without his hat, the prancing dad who’s trying to keep his freezing kid entertained, the mother coming to try and restore a semblance of order, and the Flintstones-style birds that help out by chopping wood while the family is away. Hm, maybe I would have been better off with the Honduran coup, that sounds too sweet to be believed. It kind of is, and I sometimes get my cranky on and bash comics like this, but not today. Today I just thought it was sweet, and I’ll leave the heavier stuff for a later day. No price, but I’m guessing one moonbeam. Aw, I couldn’t leave without at least getting in a tiny snide comment, could I?
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 6/11/10
June 11, 2010New review for Unicorns Changed My Life by Derek R. Croston, happy weekend everybody, I’ll most likely still manage to get a few updates posted if you’re interested.
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Posted by Kevin
Croston, Derek R. – Unicorns Changed My Life
June 11, 2010
Unicorns Changed My Life
I really shouldn’t like this comic. There are at least a few reasons I could point to for that reaction that I should have had but didn’t. There’s the backgrounds (dots, fuzzy clouds and four strands of grass in a field, lazy things like that), the fact that I could see pencil lines poking through for some of the wording, and the fact that the cover artist was not the inside artist. Still, those sparse backgrounds worked, the pencil lines were few and far between, and again, the simple nature of the artwork worked just fine for this. It’s probably because he’s didn’t misspell a thing, that’s probably what gets him off the hook with me. Or the fact that this comic was just a pile of fun, and I wasn’t expecting that after seeing the cover. I figured grim, macho murder a’plenty, but that wasn’t the case. Things start off here with an odd cast of characters in what appears to be a support group: a centaur, a harmless ghost, an archangel, a grigori, somebody who was once the leader of Iris (whatever that means, and if you’re going to put a “*” in your dialogue please don’t forget to follow up on it), and our hero, the first vampire in the world. He was basically just born with one giant tooth, but that still got him chased out of town. He had to hunt to survive, and once he started hunting unicorns he got immortal life. There’s more, including a really fantastic ending, but I don’t want to blow anything. If this all sounds grim, trust me, it’s not. There’s a smart-ass vibe running through this comic that elevates it to something more than the usual fare. I’m not saying it’s the best comic in the world, as it’s still plenty raw, with at least a few easy fixes for the next issue to make it better. Still, it was fun, and that counts for a lot. $1
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 6/10/10
June 10, 2010New review for Summer Goes Slowly by Greg Vondruska. Long-time readers may recognize that name, as he was one of the mainstays in the early days of Optical Sloth but I hadn’t seen anything from the guy in years. Turns out he was working hard the whole time, and he sent a chunk of new comics along recently to prove it.
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Posted by Kevin
Vondruska, Greg – Summer Goes Slowly
June 10, 2010
Summer Goes Slowly
A mark of an excellent comic is that it can change your opinion while you’re reading it. This one starts off with a few four panel strips, which immediately set off alarm bells for me (if you don’t often read this site, I’m usually not a fan of that format), but immediately shifts into longer and more meaningful stories. The premise is simple: these are stories from Greg’s childhood (the scattered stories range from 1978 to 1988). One other thing that got on my nerves right away was how the action shifted all over the place, as he would tell a story from (as he went from ’82 to ’79 and then back to ’82 again), but as the book went on I became convinced that Greg made the right call. This isn’t an autobiography, after all, it’s a collection of important stories from when Greg was a kid, and chronological order is far from the most important thing. I still could have used some sort of intro that mentioned Greg’s age so I could go back and see exactly how old he was for each story, but I was able to more or less figure it out eventually. So, quibbles aside, how was the book? I loved it. If you’re looking for some awkward stories about teen and pre-teen years, you’re in luck. The piece where Greg asked a girl at church if he could call her over the summer (she reluctantly agreed), where he called her 13 times in two days but never heard back, is a rite of passage for just about every young boy. See, young Greg, it turns out that girls (and eventually women) will often say that they’re willing to go out to you because they don’t want to hurt your feelings by saying no, instead preferring that you make a fool out of yourself for trying, as then you’re supposed to figure it out for yourself. See, there’s nothing that can hurt your feelings about that set-up! And no, such a thing never happened to me, why do you ask? <cough> Anyway, other stories in here include a first kiss (?), seeing the news of Reagan getting shot, seeing Jimmy Carter lose, showing off riding with no hands on a bike and getting a hairline fracture (another male rite of passage), tasting the cat food, drawing comics The Marvel Way, Dr. Who, getting called out on his Mom washing his hair before school, bird crap on his leg, a snowball fight, cheaters at frisbee, getting into a “fight” over defending a girl’s honor, and making it to the end of a bike race. This is a hefty book for that cheap $4 price, and you’re just about guaranteed to feel some nostalgia reading over these stories. Well, unless you’re a child, in which case you can point and laugh at the silly old people. $4
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Posted by Kevin
