June 7, 2010
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Billy the Demon Slayer S2 #1
Where do you go in a comic after you’ve killed off god and the devil in the first series? Or at least that’s what I’m guessing happened, as it was told in a very quick bit of narration at the start of the comic. That question is still a bit of a mystery after this first issue, which was very enjoyable in its own right. Things start off with a group of robed cultists chanting, and out pops Billy out of the shower, as they were apparently trying to conjure up Billy’s father (who happens to be the devil; a piece of information I learned on the website and not in the comic). Billy is apparently trying to get back to a normal life after the events of the last series, and would it have killed Hayden to put some sort of a recap in the first issue? Ah, don’t mind me, it’s just a pet peeve of mine. The tone is very much tongue-in-cheek throughout, as you can see the main villain of this issue on the cover, and the narration mentions the fact of life that is “cheesy sequels” a few times. There is a scientist behind the trouble with the hamster (naturally), and we don’t see a whole lot of him in this issue, so I’m guessing he’ll come into play later. Oh, did I mention that this series is 7 issues long, at least so far, and at least that I know of? Thought I should throw that out there. Anyway, the hamster transforms in the middle of a pile of goop that looks suspiciously like the pile of goop that is used to conjure Billy at the start of the issue, either a coincidence, something that’ll be picked up on later in the series, or possibly he’s just depicting the legally required consistency of magical goop. Anyway, the battle is “fought”, the scientist transforms appropriately into a mad scientist, and things are starting to get set up from the rest of the series. I’m still not sure how he tops killing off god and the devil, but I’ve seen the covers for the rest of the series and am curious to see what he comes up with. $3.50
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Posted by Kevin
June 6, 2010
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Sugarcube
Diabetes! A couple of you, assuming you’re assholes, probably think it’s funny. The rest of you either already have it or are living in fear of getting it, and according to my family tree it’s just a matter of time before I get some variation of it. Well, that, heart disease, high blood pressure, all sorts of goodies. Anyway, this comic is all about a man named Andy (I’m going to assume that this is fictional and not just a stand-in for Sam, but I have no idea) finding out at the age of 20 that he has diabetes. If you have no idea what this entails this comic will serve as an excellent guide, as I learned all about having to inject yourself with insulin or test your blood sugar 7 (!) times a day, how having diabetes means you have to stop drinking (and try picturing getting that news at the age of 20), and how you need to have your medicine with you for every meal. It’s a huge pain in the ass, in other words, and it’s a battle of constantly making adjustments. Andy decided at some point in this book that he might as well smoke pot since he could no longer drink, but naturally he’s found out and made to feel shame. Seems mildly ridiculous to me, but I guess he was still living with his parents at the time. The rest of the comic is an understated journey of self-discovery, as Andy starts questioning everything about his life with his new forced maturity, and his friends and their partying ways don’t end up looking as good as he once thought. This is a hefty comic, peppered with little observances of his new life and how it doesn’t seem to be coinciding with his old life all that well. In much the same way that Ken Dahl’s Monster is a definitive portrait of herpes, this comic does a pretty great job of cornering the market on comics about diabetes. If you prefer your information on this subject not to come with Wilford Brimley lecturing you, this comic is an excellent place to start. Sam was also nice enough to send this copy along for my rental service because the cover is a little smudged and dinged up (but perfectly readable), an excellent idea for you other comics folks who are good with the idea and don’t know what to do with some of your slightly damaged comics. Just sayin’…
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Posted by Kevin
June 5, 2010
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Sadist Science Teacher
If you’ve ever thought while reading a comic “This is nice and all, but I wonder why this artist didn’t pick a career as a bio-chemical engineer instead”, Kelly gives an excellent rundown of why she was scared off of science early on. This little mini depicts a true lunatic of a teacher from her seventh grade, a man who started picking on her on the first day of class or, as she puts it, “before I’d actually done anything wrong”. Slapping his ruler on her desk to scare her, putting her in a dark tiny room next to the classroom for punishment, having no concept of personal space, writing “do science!” on her hand and then making her scrub it off in front of the class, this guy didn’t seem to do much of anything that would qualify as teaching. Unless his goal was to teach a young Kelly about the nature of assholes in the world and to avoid such folks whenever possible, in which case he did an excellent job. Everybody who went to school can relate to somebody like this guy, or (I hope) at least a lesser version of him. For every truly inspirational teacher I had there were probably a dozen who were just holding down a paycheck or seemed to actually loathe the students, and this comic is an excellent story about one of the latter. The only way it could have been better is if the guy had gotten some sort of comeuppance at the end, but the real world, sadly, rarely works that way. And yes, for the curious, this still means that I’ve liked all of Kelly’s comics that I’ve seen. What can I say? She has the comic skills. $.50
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Posted by Kevin
June 4, 2010
New review for Window #1 by Dave Lapp, and the man was nice enough to send along copies of his whole series (14 issues) for use in this comic rental idea of mine. And hey, that’s an excellent way to start talking about that! As you can see from the site, my web guy and I changed the format up to try and take care of some of the issues (weird store issues, giant blank gaps on the page). If you were looking at the site between 5-6:30 pm CST yesterday you got to see all sorts of themes popping up, so if you caught something there and liked it better than what’s up now, why not let me know? Sadly, this seems to have caused a few more issues, which are being looked at, but as my tech guy is getting married this weekend (congrats again!) they’ll probably still be messed up for a few days. In the meantime you may notice that there’s a tab called “Optical Sloth Comic Rentals” up there now, and there’s a “Subscribe” button. But look, no comics! That’s a project I’ll be working on for the next couple of weeks, but if all goes well this will be up and running by June 20th. I’m shooting for sooner, but am well aware of previous promises I’ve made about this thing. Anyway, once comics start going up there I’ll let you guys know, and at that point it’ll be first come first served, so if you’re interested in getting in on the ground floor of this experiment I’d recommend keeping an eye on this site for the next few weeks. Oh, and I should be able to get updates up over the weekend, but I just wanted to make sure everybody was clear on what’s going on around here.
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Posted by Kevin
June 4, 2010
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Window #1
There have been several moments in my reviewing “career” of the past nine years when I’ve said, after getting a certain comic or pile of comics in the mail or reading something nice that somebody I really admire said about me that I’d be perfectly content at that moment if the internet exploded and I never posted again. Dave sending me his entire run of Window comics (14 issues!) is one of those moments. The great news for those of you reading this is that Dave also gave his OK for me to use his comics in the rental program I’m (slowly, laboriously) putting together, so you’ll be able to see all these for yourself and make up your own mind. As this is the first issue of his series I was afraid it would go the way of most first issues of series that later became great: shows clear promise, but not all that good by itself. Nope. There are two short pieces in here, and I thoroughly enjoyed them both. The first one deals with a walk through a graveyard with a few of his friends, discussing old superstitions and remarking on all the graveyard oddities along the way. It’s hard to sum up waltzing through a graveyard with friends and have a story relate the magnitude of the unease you feel in such situations, but he nailed it. The second story deals with a group of school children (that Dave seems to be teaching) who come across a dead baby squirrel outside their classroom. They also see the mother squirrel nervously watching the situation and all have their theories on what to do about the situation. They’re both genuinely sweet, understated stories, exactly the kind of thing that got me reading these little books of scribbles in the first place. Well, that and the kind of funnies that Sam Henderson and Sean Bieri make. I’m not sure if these are available to buy any more, but if they are I’d say it’d be around a buck or two. If they’re not available and if you’re patient, you can always rent them from me once the rental service is up and running…
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Posted by Kevin
June 3, 2010
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Decorum #1
First things first: that is one excellent cover. Mostly because I’ve seen enough of Ed’s work to have my doubts that he would ever do anything like what’s on the cover (although it’s possible he just puts up a very good front), but any time leering leads to a floating cigarette it makes me happy. I’m funny that way. This is a collection of funnies, so if you’re made uncomfortable by exploring the profound mysteries of life, this one is for you! Well, except for the part where he asks people how they fill the void in their lives. That one might get you thinking, but your laughter at some of the answers (my favorite was cookie dough, followed closely by blood) should ease the pain of self-discovery. Other pieces in here include a creepy dancing hand, a drunken brawl between a priest and a parishioner, his Uncle Joe’s Christmas card (apparently real, and a thing of true beauty), an even creepier dancing head on a torso, and sunbathing Jesus. Once again I was torn on which page to use as a sample, and as the image below made me laugh out loud both times through the comic, it was the winner by a nose. When the only complaint I have is that I wish there were more pages, that’s the mark of a pretty damned successful comic. Buy it already! $3
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Posted by Kevin
June 2, 2010
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The Natural World #2
Good news for people who like continuing stories but don’t like the inconvenience of missing the first issue: this comic has almost nothing to do with the first issue of this series. Well, it’s set in the same world and the same little village, but the people involved are completely different this time around. Things start off with a couple of women out working in the field, unaware that they’re being observed by an odd little hermit man who hasn’t seen women for a very long time. He falls at least mildly in love with both of them but retains enough self-awareness to know that the women would probably run screaming if they saw him, so he makes a carving of a bird for them to find. Unfortunately for him the women do find the carving but decide that it must be from a man in the village who one of the women has a crush on. The hermit is unable to take this and can’t resist jumping out and confronting them. As he suspected, this does not go well. The comic also manages to leave us on a cliff-hanger, but it sounds like the third issue is going to go back to the characters from the first issue, so I’m not sure how this is all supposed to tie in. Ah, that’s half the fun of series like this, trying to figure out where things are going. As long as Damien has a clear idea in his head of where it all goes, I’m more than happy to stay along for the ride, especially if he’s going to make the individual issues as entertaining as they’ve been so far. Fun stories of an odd little world and some great artwork are all I need, and this series clearly has plenty of both. Check it out already! $4
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Posted by Kevin
June 1, 2010
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Time Warp Comix #8 Now Available! $.50
This comic immediately passed one important test for me, and probably only for me: it was tough to pick out only one sample to use, and for an 8 page book that ain’t bad. It’s a quick blast of a comic with nothing lasting more than a page, with the usual cast of characters. Artists, that is. There’s Richard Krauss with the sampled strip below (I just love that constantly widening perspective), Jim Siergey with the legally required strip with the bad puns, Bob Vojtko (how do you pronounce that name anyway? I’ll bet he’s long since tired of answering that question) has the dark side of the nursing home, and Bill Shut closes the book with a bizarrely wonderful drawing. Dan Taylor gets 4 pages, as he is the one who puts all this together, dealing with buying a comic he used to read as a kid and marveling at the technical changes, the realities of putting out a physical comic versus counting hits on a website, and another age joke at his expense.  It’s another solid, tiny, cheap collection of strips, so why won’t you buy it already? $.50
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Posted by Kevin
May 30, 2010
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Champ 2010 #1
I have a pretty basic rule of thumb to tell how a good a journal comic was after reading it: how difficult is it to pick a sample image? If there’s only one or two funny strips, then it’s an easy call and probably not that great of a journal comic. If there’s a dozen or more I could have happily thrown onto the page, then that journal comic was pretty damned good. This one falls in the “pretty damned good” category. Also, does it make me a bad person if I saw Jed’s cover warning that he’s not drinking this year and immediately thought that the comic would be duller because of it? Yes, it probably does. It doesn’t get off to the best of starts either, as Jed notes at the top of his first strip that he redrew it the next day. I didn’t think that was allowed in journal comics, but he immediately makes up for it by describing in his next strip that he redrew it because he wasn’t sure how to depict his moustache. Looking at my book of rules for journal comics, I see that “moustache confusion” is an acceptable reason to redraw a strip, so I stand corrected. As for the specifics, strips in here deal with his new sobriety, trying to find a job (and coming up with some pretty crappy jobs), trying to sell his truck for a pittance due to an immediate need for cash, a crazy owl, a bird-shit water enema, a golden flavor nugget, stupid football rules, (surface) grave digging, e-mailing a woman who he forgot about from back in his drunken days, making copies, looking Asian, getting free books, and rediscovering an old van. There are a few of the “oh crap, I need to get a strip done today” strips, but Jed mostly manages to make them funny. The only aesthetic problem I have with the series is Jed’s occasional use of black text over a dark gray background, but that’s the sort of thing that is probably more the fault of the copier than him. Which kinda does make it his fault then, as he’s the one making copies, unless it’s just a profoundly crappy copy machine. I just glanced over at his website to try and find a price for this thing (and to make sure he was keeping his journal up, which seems to be the case), and he has the first volume for sale for “any amount you’d like”. That’s profoundly generous, and if you’d like my at least slightly informed opinion, here’s how much I think you should give the man when you buy this comic: $4. Nice cover, nice packaging, a fair amount of content, to me that equals exactly $4. Or, if you’re rich, you could make his day and give him $100. Your call…
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Posted by Kevin
May 29, 2010
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Post-Script
This comic does not get off to a promising start. I love that cover, but “buyer beware” indeed, as it’s from Jason Young (of Veggie Dog Saturn fame). The first page of the comic, the first thing that anybody standing at a comic store or at a table at a convention is going to see, is a flat image of a villain and hero getting ready for some kind of battle. No background, the movement lines on the hero looked more like smudges than anything else, and the costumes of both of these two are simple as can be. Nothing to catch the eye, that’s what I’m trying to say. Luckily for Joe I’m one of those people who just tries to get a variety of comics at cons more than anything else, and luckily for me the comic gets a lot better after that first page. This is ostensibly a comic of a typical action scene, one in which the villain uses a few underhanded tricks, tries to hurt a few innocents and ends up safely back in jail by the end of the comic. What makes it unique is that the fight itself is silent and the text we see throughout is a heartfelt letter from the mother of the villain trying to figure out what went wrong with him over the years and whether or not it was her fault. It’s a haunting piece, made all the more impressive because it’s told over such a ridiculously stereotypical fight scene. Every one of those villains (assuming they were real, but in this case let’s just go with the actual villains in the world) had a mother and the vast majority of them tried to do the right thing by them, but some people are bound to turn out bad. Like I said, the art is a bit rough, but it gets better as the comic goes on, and it’s a unique enough idea that it’s worth taking a look. No website, but Joe does have an e-mail if you’d like to drop him a line. Do people still say that, “drop them a line”? If not, they should. That and “new-fangled”, that’s also a good one. Can you tell it’s a weekend? I’m stopping now. No price, but a buck or two should do the trick…
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Posted by Kevin
May 28, 2010
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Liberty & Justice #1
Yes, that’s a ridiculously over the top title, but it’s for a good reason: the characters are named General Justice and Kid Liberty. This is a shortie (but full comic size) at 8 pages, all of which are available on the website linked above. Ryan actually makes a plea at the start of the book to e-mail him if you’d like to see story continue, which is something I don’t think I’d seen before. Begging for mail to alleviate the boredom or get some affirmation about their work, sure, but nothing to directly ask for a series to continue, especially when he didn’t even bother to put in a cliffhanger. This story deals with General Justice having a conversation with the owner of a small shop, extorting the guy for protection money (to the stunned horror of the shop owner) and getting caught doing this by his daughter/sidekick Kid Justice. She demands that he apologize for what he’s done, he agrees to hold a press conference, and you have to know that things aren’t going to end as neatly as all that. This is over before you know it, but there’s a decent little story in here with a few laughs, and Elizabeth does a great job with the story she’s given. I think they should keep it going, or at least get to work on a longer story of some kind, but that’s just my vote. Sadly, I’m too lazy to actually e-mail them this fact, but here’s hoping it gets through the internet channels and they end up hearing at least one vote of confidence. No price, let’s say $1.
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Posted by Kevin
