May 20, 2010
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Teen Angst Comix! #3
Oof. I try to start these things off with something positive or, if I know it’s going to be a positive review, to start them off with at least one thing that could have been improved from the comic. Just a little something to try to make the comics world a better place. But with this one… oof. OK, I’m sure that Mark is a perfectly wonderful person, and I’m sure that he has better comics than this out there, but this one was bad. The art is mostly decent, and that’s the end of my nice comments. This is a tiny thing about, well, teen angst. What’s the phrase? No subtext, all text? That’s the case here. It’s a simple gag: the first page has a teen complaining about something (parents wanting the kid to get a job to pay for gas and insurance and then they’ll be willing to buy a car, wishing for more excitement at school, and being annoyed at having been handed everything she ever wanted) and the second page has the kid acting out, either shooting up the place he/she isn’t happy with or shooting themselves full of drugs. Yep, I get it, kids today have no appreciation whatsoever. It’s a rare comic that manages to make me feel like I’ve been lectured when it’s only 8 pages long, but this one managed. And there’s the fact that this was the third issue. Were the other two just like this? Talk about overkill. Again, I’m sure Mark takes care of orphans in his spare time and I’m an awful person for not appreciating this, but really, being bashed over the head with one of the more obvious jokes in the world is always annoying. Here’s hoping for better things, as I had no problem with his art and just think that it would be better served in a comic with a story. At least it’s cheap… $.75
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Posted by Kevin
May 19, 2010
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The Secret History of the Ineffables #2
Perhaps you’re still undecided on The Ineffables in general, or perhaps you’ve somehow managed to avoid reading about them at some point on this site over the years. Fair enough. I would recommend that you embiggen that sample below and give it a good look, as it deals with an old team of Ineffables and their time spent trapped in a force field. It has only the barest relevance to the rest of the issue, but it’s such a slice of perfection that I couldn’t pass up using it for the sample. As for the rest of the issue, it’s more of the science-based mayhem you’ve come to know and love, or at least you’ve come to know and love it if you’ve been paying attention. This issue shows why young Abe Lincoln was kicked off the team ages ago (his methods were too extreme for the team), follows the current team as they try to locate the stolen Schrodinger’s Cat (which has a unique quantum nature that seems to see through realities), shows us a few more dead Ineffables (as the dead are still running loose from the first issue of this series), has the fight the whole world has longed to see (Abe Lincoln vs. Uncle Sam), and has Abe Lincoln following the team into the realm of the dead in the only way he knows (and I loved the fact that his beard reappeared before the flesh on his face when he made it to the afterlife). This is a team of superheroes in only the loosest sense, as their “powers” are based in abstractions and raw science (I don’t think any of them other than Abe could throw a decent punch), but instead of being some sort of drawback it always ends up being the only way this team can function: through using their brains, even though the brain of Chet leaves a little bit to be desired. But hey, it only adds to his humanity. The only complaint I have is that the art seemed rushed at times in the comic, as his linework was stronger in previous issues, but it’s not a constant problem, just a little thing I picked up here and there, and only noticeable because it’s been so great in the past. Wait, was that a complaint or not? Sort of. Anyway, the point of all this is that if you ever see Craig at a con, ask him what he thinks the best self-contained Ineffables story is, buy it and be impressed. Or if you’re rich and see him at a con, just buy the stack of comics he has available, there is very little in this universe that will disappoint. $4
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Posted by Kevin
May 18, 2010
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The Death and Damnation of Pretty Jeff
Here’s to taking the mystery out of comic titles! Seriously, you already have a pretty good clue as to what this comic is about. “Pretty Jeff” (a stand-in for the creator Jeff, or a huge coincidence?) is riding a roller coaster, said roller coaster crashes to the ground, and he “wakes up” to see death hovering over him. From there we’re treated to exactly how pathetic the life of Pretty Jeff was (death was watching for his whole life but ended up just cutting and pasting the same pictures of him playing video games and watching tv as the recap of his life), the reason why Pretty Jeff was going to hell, the suggestion box in hell, watching the big entertainment in hell (watching Hitler get tortured in various ways), meeting Satan and learning the conditions of his captivity. These were clearly done as either daily or weekly strips, as they all have the same format and all end in some form of a punchline. Still, kudos to Jeff for keeping the “previously on” recaps short and having them make sense in the context of each comic. This comic also switches over to full color after the first half of the book (guessing that’s when he changed the strip online and kept it for the collected edition, but who knows?), and ends on a two part story that you fold down. That part of things is an unsightly mess, but as the glue only makes the back cover look all crumpled and weird it’s not the biggest deal in the world. So: a funny collection of short pieces that add up to a greater whole, combined with an excellently anti-climatic ending. No sir, no bitching from me at all. No price, but as this gets all colorized about halfway through I’m guessing $4.
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Posted by Kevin
May 17, 2010
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Timmothy’s Halloween Special
Why would my scanner insist that this comic is yellow when it’s very clearly orange? It makes no sense. Ah well, that’s a minor quibble compared to my major quibble for this issue: it’s a free sampler of sorts for the new graphic novel by Kris and Justin Lynch called Timmothy’s Head. No, I’m not complaining because this was a free sampler with a perfectly self-contained story involved. I’m raging impotently at the universe because I’ve been reading minis by Kris for years and the man finally has a graphic novel out (he calls it an experiment, I say 84 color pages in this day and age equals a graphic novel), but I got to SPACE very late this year and only ran into Kris because he saw me wandering around and gave me a couple of minis. If I had actually seen his table I would have picked up a copy of the new giant color comic of his, but now I’m left with the vague feeling of being cheated over something that was entirely my fault. Dammit. Anyway, this comic is funny all by itself, and if I knew who this Timmothy character was I’d probably have more interest in learning why he has a giant deformed head. Turns out that it’s a cautionary tale about taking candy from strangers, which is only partially connected to Halloween, but an excellent excuse to put out an orange comic (that my scanner insists is yellow). Funny stuff, it’s free if you can find the guy at a con (or maybe if you ask nicely and buy a few of his minis he’ll throw it into your order, I don’t know) and it has me very curious to see what this new “experiment” of his is all about.
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Posted by Kevin
May 16, 2010
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Xoc #2
OK fine, it’s another great issue of Xoc, I can’t believe how well the man can draw all kinds of different ocean life, blah blah blah. The important thing this time around is Matt takes time in his introduction to explain the name Xoc (ancient Mayan word for “demon fish”, so most likely the name for shark) and even reprints an original poster from 1569 (the first known (?) display of a dead shark), which has a very interesting interpretation of what a shark actually looks like. In other words, I learned something before the comic even started. Kudos! Once the comic gets underway things heat up considerably: Xoc gets attacked by a group of killer whales, discovers that there’s an old sea turtle following him around (they’re theoretically just going to the same place, and what safer company to be in than a great white shark?), observes a fight to the death between an octopus and a whale (turns out the octopus has developed a few decent defensive moves over the centuries), feeds on a recent whale carcass (saving some energy by not having to kill something), and gets latched onto by a couple of lampreys. Seriously, I am constantly impressed by the range Matt shows in depicting these underwater beasts. Quite a few comic artists never break out of their comfort zones (whatever it is that they like to draw, usually people and regular life situations), but unless Matt is a deep sea diver there must be a lot of research involved in putting out this comic, and he pulls it off flawlessly. I’d say he should pitch this series to Disney for a movie but I don’t think the world is ready for a great white shark “hero”. Oh well, the comics world gets this all to itself instead. If you have any interest in the 75% of the world with no people in it, there’s no reason in the world to miss this. $2
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Posted by Kevin
May 14, 2010
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Chickenbot’s Odd Jobs #1
Are you one of the people who read Eric H.’s Odd Jobs #1, or perhaps saw the review for it on this site? Well, Eric has decided to put that whole story out in one issue, so this one is #1 of that series as well as the conclusion of the story. It would have been roughly two issues, if you were curious. You can read the review for that issue here, but to sum up: Chickenbot goes to a temp agency to make some cash. He picks the job of werewolf hunter, sets off to a town terrorized by said werewolf and has a series of occurrences that convince him that the people being terrorized are fairly worthless, but can’t leave until (contractually) until he finishes the job. The first issue (although I guess this is going to be the only issue from now on) ended with Chickenbot confronting said werewolf, but we really didn’t get to see much of the fight… until now. The rest of the story is the fight with the werewolf (and Chickenbot’s weapons all fail in spectacular fashion), followed in the morning by the fight with the child who is the werewolf on full moons. No spoilers from me, but that was some funny stuff right there. Eric is putting pages up at his website for free (which is a good thing, as I don’t see any way to order the comics from his website), so if you go there now you’ll be about a third of the way through the second part of the story. As for the comic as a whole I thought it was great stuff. His fight scenes were funny and suspenseful (a difficult bridge to walk), and as for the ending… well, how else is a werewolf supposed to be put under control? If you already read the first issue of this series you’re required to get this to see how it ends, if not, well, the whole story is now in one convenient package, even if it does seem to be tricky to purchase at the moment. Check out his website and maybe bug the guy, if he sent me a copy then he must have them lying around somewhere. No price either, but as this is two issues, let’s say $4.
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Posted by Kevin
May 13, 2010
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Gold and Blue and Gray
I lost the thread with this comic early on and never seemed to pick it back up. The maddening thing is that I think there was a really great comic in here, but I just wasn’t able to piece it together from what I was given. Or I wasn’t able to piece it together because on this particular day I couldn’t keep up with it; I’ve been reviewing these things long enough to know that the fault can easily lie with me. How do I explain this so it makes sense to somebody who hasn’t seen the comic… Well, there’s that sample below. That’s the first page of the comic. Go ahead and click on it, read it and come back here. Done? OK. From what I was able to tell, a young man was watching, went outside because he was concerned about his dog, had his dog rip off his face and then turned into the dog, all this being watched from high above. Huh? The next page starts with the message “20 minutes earlier”, so the theory is that we’ll go back and have this all make sense, but it ends up making it even more confusing. The dog is given birth to by a sunbeam shining into a pool (so I guess it wasn’t really that guy’s dog?), an irate Facebook friend transforms into a gigantic tentacled anime rape machine, the naked man on a leash is shown to be another man entirely (?), and the skeleton is removed whole from the fat anime thing. That’s the tame version of events. Still, it’s impossible to discount entirely, as her idea to use a fake message board conversation as a backdrop to all this chaos was brilliant (and hilarious). And did I menti0n that that wasn’t even the main story of the comic? That would be the first chapter of The Incarnation of Mayonezu Kuchibirum, which makes the first story seem downright linear. This one has lots of sex, a narrator who knows how the lead character is going to die, a 12th birthday party where fucking the birthday boy against his will is apparently the thing to do, and all of this theoretically takes place in hell (which looks kind of like an apple core, hence the name of the comics company). Again, impossible to discount, as there’s also a Spanish Inquisition rap in here that is one of the funnier things you’re likely to see. So what does this all add up to? I didn’t know what the hell was going on more often than not, but there were also flashes of (the most overused word in the language, but it happens to be true) brilliance. Maybe this comic didn’t work completely or maybe it was just me, but either way I’m VERY interested to see what Gloria comes up with next.
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Posted by Kevin
May 12, 2010
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Norman: Tales From Amazon #1
Kelly spent 6 months working as a contract worker for Amazon.com, and this is the first of what she calls “hopefully many” comics about her time there. She thought it would be cool to work for Amazon but found out differently, and here’s hoping we hear more about the customer service end in one of these minis. I know my experience with them has been fairly miserable, at least when they get an order wrong (which, in all fairness, has been only rarely).  Anyway, this comic is the story of Norman, a guy she worked with who was a stoner and a recovering drunk who played a lot of video games. They didn’t seem to have much interaction, but Norman was set off one day by the security guard talking on his cell phone (which was against the rules, but the poor guy was supposed to just “look alert” for his eight hour shift with no distractions). A brief argument ensued, a firing and a transfer occurred, and the rest of the comic deals with Kelly being forced to testify about the incident and a near-miss years later when she almost ran into the guy (working, ironically enough, as a security guard) at an art museum. This is a tiny thing but, as it’s told in her style of almost being a letter home (i.e. she’s never afraid to unleash potentially embarrassing details and also does an admirable job of preemptively answering any questions you might have after reading), these tiny minis of hers feel more like a meal than the average $.50 mini. Usually minis that cheap are strictly for cons or are tiny wordless tales, the few tiny ones from her have been a bargain along with being a great read at any price. In case you’re currently broke and want some bang for very little buck, this is an excellent place to start. $.50
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Posted by Kevin
May 11, 2010
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Veggie Dog Saturn #3: Jason’s Quest
There’s one glaring problem with this comic that didn’t occur to me until I had finished reading it and was scanning the cover for this review: what exactly is Jason’s Quest? It would make sense with a different cover, but that one makes it look like he’s desperately searching for either love or sex, and this book doesn’t seem to have anything of the sort. This comic begins with Jason, about to “celebrate” his 31st birthday, freaking out about the fact that the degree he was going for was something that would probably end up making his life miserable (looks like some kind of advertising degree, and Google “Bill Hicks Advertising” to get the perfect quote for that (nothing personal to Jason)). There was also the fact that “all he had to show for it” was a few comics very few people have seen. Maybe in a calmer moment he saw that the sum of our lives is not just the things we produce and consume but the effect we have on those around us, or maybe he didn’t. Works for me anyway. Jason, on the spur of the moment, accepts an invitation from some friends to go bike riding in Toronto after the semester is over, and the rest of the comic deals with Jason’s lost ticket home, a friend who lost a passport, the other people in the hostel, a naked bike ride (consisting mostly of middle-aged people), and all of the calamities that come with being far from home and without a solid home base. It’s a hefty thing at 30 pages, there’s a suitably bleak ending, and there’s even a more uplifting message on the color strip of the back cover: maybe sometimes you should take some advice from your cat. That won’t make sense to most of you and that’s fine, but believe me, his ending message is excellent. I’ve seen plenty of these travel comics in my years of running this website and this is one of the better ones. There’s a moment when he “figures it all out”, but there’s nothing preachy about it and it’s the kind of quiet conclusion that’s perfect for this story. Good stuff, that’s what I say. $3
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Posted by Kevin
May 10, 2010
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Onesies
Since I complain when people don’t do it, it’s best to start this review with a compliment: Whit put her e-mail and website address right on the back of her comic. See how easy that is everybody? Once I can get everybody in the world putting contact info in every book, erasing all pencil lines before releasing their comic into the wild and taking two seconds to check their spelling I can retire in peace. As that’s never going to happen across the board, apparently I’m never going to be able to retire. I do have one piece of advice for Whit: put a number after that title. If this is your main form of making comics (single page strips posted first on her website), then chances are you’re going to put putting out more of these, correct? Anyways, kudos for the title, as it’s a significantly better description for single page strips than, um, single page strips. I’m going with onesies from now on. So how’s the comic? Pretty funny. Strips in here deal with reactions to her drawing comics, trying to wrap her head around Facebook, deep thoughts about Disney characters, greatest fears, how everything feels the same at 12:01 on New Year’s Eve, a joke about a Fabio wig (which, in the strip, made no sense to the people the guy was talking to; I feel their pain), her admirable position of refusing to date a man who uses a Bluetooth (and ladies, if you’d all band together on this one the next generation would have significantly fewer assholes), giving up things versus doing evil for lent, deciding when exactly is a good time to start living in the moment, the projected theme of a strip club, whatever happened to Fruitopia, wallowing after a breakup, and what St. Patrick would be like if he was alive today.  So you have the occasional important insight, funny bits spread throughout, and a wide enough variety of subjects that you never get bored. Seems like a pretty solid recipe for a good mini comic to me. $3
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Posted by Kevin
