May 2, 2010
Website
Rabid Eye: The Dream Art of Rick Veitch (The Collected Rare Bit Fiends Series Volume 1)
Have you ever wondered why nobody has done a comic that is just their dreams, translated to comics form? Well, someone did. About 5 years ago, Rick Veitch started a dream journal and did at least 11 issues of Rare Bit Fiends. I didn’t stick with it because it didn’t have any kind of a story, which makes no sense at all if you think that these are dreams we’re talking about. The issues of this series that I did read were a unique comic experience, and I wish I had kept going with the whole thing. I’m on the hunt for back issues because it’s probably cheaper than getting the big book, but if you’re interested and don’t feel like seeking all these out, go for it. This guy doesn’t get enough credit, possibly because he did superhero stuff for so long. I have respect for anybody who gets thrown off Swamp Thing in the middle of a major storyline because he wants to bring Jesus into it…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Fansite
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director’s Cut
I’ve always thought that it was a cop-out for any reviewer to say “Well, I just don’t know” about any book. You have to have some opinion about the thing that you just spent the last two hours reading. Well, I do have an opinion, but it’s mostly indifferent. Don’t get me wrong, I strongly disliked large chunks of this, but when it was all said and done I also liked chunks of it quite a bit. I didn’t like his ripping off Evan Dorkin, but maybe it was a tribute. I doubt it, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. This is about, strangely enough, a homicidal maniac who goes around killing everyone. The first two issues are pure mayhem, and it was disgusting. Maybe I’m getting old, but excessive meaningless violence doesn’t really do it for me. Starting with the third issue, Johnny started to get a reason for killing as many people after the third issue, and I started to like it. Simple as that. This might be the kind of thing that’ll grow on me, or might be the kind of thing that I can’t stand the second time around, but the important thing is that I’m going to read it again at some point, and probably his other book too. Tell you what, I’ll get a highlighter. Send me your copies and I’ll highlight the pages that I think are great. Other than that, it’s at least worth a read to find out about this for yourself.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
E-mail for Terry
Your Puffy Ships Are Sinking
Lookie here, another one of those abstract, mostly wordless comics where I try to determine some sort of meaning in a brief ramble about the contents. What’s the point? What’s so great about nailing something to the real world that quite possibly wasn’t meant to be interpreted into reality? In that vein, screw it. What you have here is a mostly wordless tale involving a creature giving another creature the gift of hair. Said gift gets out of hand, giants need hats, and the whole thing comes together beautifully when one of them literally rides off on a musical note. The image of a character riding off on a musical note, for all you aspiring cartoonists out there, will get a positive review out of me every time; I just can’t resist it. There’s also a little bonus strip that runs along the bottom of the pages, or perhaps it’s part of the larger story and I just can’t see it, involving a man trying to avoid being eaten by a giant apple, at least at first. Isn’t it fun to try and take comics like this literally? My guess is that Garrett did the writing and Terry did the art, but one look at the website has me thinking that’s probably wrong. Oh well, it was called (reluctantly) a jam in the note attached, maybe they both took turns “jamming”. Well worth checking out, it’s probably around $3…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Celebrity Skint
It’s a day of tiny minis, as that cover sample is only slightly smaller than the actual comic. This is a collection of celebrity quotes paired with their likenesses, although I didn’t know who some of them were. These folks include: Bob Dylan, John Waters (in the sample), Fiona Apple, Shirley Manson and Annie Sprinkle, among others I didn’t know. It’s an interesting concept, although it didn’t do too much for me as I’m way too stuck on the whole “coherent narrative” idea, at least most of the time. Still, there are some pretty good quotes in here, so it’s up to you (as always) to decide whether or not to send a buck her way.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Amarillo
You know, as far as monotony goes, getting fantastic book after fantastic book is the kind of monotony that I can live with. Another person that I’ve never heard of, another thoroughly enjoyable reading experience. This one even had some pet peeves of mine, like misspellings and typed letters in the word balloons, and it wasn’t anywhere near enough for me to dislike this book. This is the story of a painter who is trying to make it while having “painters block”. He meets his idol and tries to learn from him only to find out that he might not like what he learns. But, of course, it’s nowhere near as cheesy as that, I’m just trying not to give anything away. It’s $10 and you can send him money at: 2484 W. 73 PL Hialeah, FL 33016. He has kind of a scrambled, impressionistic art style and it works perfectly for this. Anyone who has ever tried to create anything can relate to this story. I didn’t like the ending that much, probably because I could see it coming, but it’s still a good ending for this story. Have I mentioned yet that you should try this? I know, you’re probably getting sick of me saying it, but I’ve read a lot of good stuff lately. Really.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
The Job Thing
You know, it just always does me heart good to hear people complain about horrible jobs that they’re had. I don’t know what it is. Misery loves company? Maybe. As a current proud member of the temp workforce (based on the flimsy logic that something is bound to get me out of this “work week” predicament that the rest of the world is stuck in sooner or later), I have to thoroughly recommend this book. It’s around five years old, but Fantagraphics put out another printing of it recently (at least it was on my preorder page a couple of months ago), which shows that they’re trying to keep it in the public eye. Carol really has a great understanding of the workforce in general and what motivated some of her shitty coworkers specifically. She’s been a framer, a clerk at a bookstore, a waitress, a civil servant, and all kinds of other horrible jobs. There’s a neat section in the front that says some of the odder job titles that are recognized by the government and one in the back with stories sent in by readers. Great stuff and you can find it for somewhere between $5 and $8. depending on where you look. The only thing that sucks about it is that this has been out there for years and this is her only book. I hope she didn’t give up and join the work force…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Sugar & Spite #1
Ah, pseudonyms. As a man who goes mostly by “Whitey”, I am familiar with them. But they do wreak havoc with my orderly “Author Index”… Anyway, the comic is basically a kids book with enough thoughtful humor to keep the interest of most adults. It’s about two five year old girls, one who’s a bit too much into goth (again, at the age of five) and another who wants to be a super hero. There’s a story about an autopsy on a pumpkin, one about a game of hide and seek, and another basically just setting up the characters. The art’s adorable, the story is adorable… everything is so adorable that I’m going to have to play Grand Theft Auto for a few hours just to put myself back on an even keel. Worth a look if you’re a parent or if you have a hard time finding intelligent, cute comics. Check out the website, it looks like she’s taking a break from comics for a while…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
True Loves #1
Why the heck does this art look so familiar? Some random anthology somewhere? Ah well, sorry about the lack of brain functions. This says it’s #1 and it looks great for a first issue, so I’m going to assume that the two of them have done stuff before. It’s basically the story of a girl as she tries to figure out if she’s better off with her kind, if distracted, boyfriend or if she should try to get to know a friendly guy who came into her store better. Friends offer advice and we get to see how the “happy” couple met. Good stuff here. Believable dialogue is a must for something like this, and it’s pulled off really well. The art’s great too and I hate to keep mentioning it, but it’s going to drive me crazy until I figure out either where I’ve seen this before or what it reminds me of. Anyway, it’s a fun book and it explores just what the hell is going on when two people are in love, so I like it. Check out the website, contact info is there (although it offers no clues as to where I’ve seen this stuff before)…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Link to some of his comics (scroll down)
Spectre Presents The 5:00 Shadow
What the hell did I just read? My roommate went to a zine convention this weekend and picked up a few of the comics there and this was one of them. I honestly have no idea what to tell you about this, because I don’t have a clue what happened. It follows a bunch of random people doing a bunch of random things: a boy burning ants, a man with his pants down outside watching somebody, a crazy woman shooting her lover, a prostitute with sparklers, a hornet leaving in a paper bag tied to a balloon… If this all sounds interesting, maybe I didn’t describe it right. These are all odd things, sure. But we don’t know who any of the people are, and even when he goes back to some of the people he used earlier in the comic, the art is so poor that you can’t tell for sure if it’s the same people or not. It’s “To Be Continued” at the end, so maybe this is all going to make sense in a few issues. As for right now, well, it’s only $1, but I can’t recommend it.
Jim Turek 113 SE 10th St. Gainesville, FL 32601
JJTUREK27@hotmail.com
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
The Last Laugh
This is a pretty huge mini comic for $1.50. It’s the story of a sad comedian who talks to all sorts of folks (a clown, a dummy, and Groucho Marx) in an effort to find out more about comedy and more about himself. Is it nitpicky to mention a few spelling and grammar errors in a 46 page comic? Thought so. Solid, neat art, if a little sketchy on a few of the side shots of characters, but overall pretty good. It’s a fascinating story too. He does a great job with the Groucho character, although in my mind no one but Groucho has ever gotten it completely right. And he forgot to mention Bill Hicks in his list of comedians, but maybe that’s why it’s his list of comedians and not mine. Overall a good story, worth a look if you’re interested in some theories of why people laugh. Send him some money at: P.O. Box 1514 Royal Oak, MI 48068.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Trubble Club #1
You know, there really are times when it’s pointless to review a comic. It sounds like a cop out, I know, but Trubble Club is a jam comic involving about a dozen cartoonists in Chicago. They meet every Sunday, put together some jam strips, and (I’m guessing here, as the actual information about this process on the website was sparse) put out a new book whenever they put enough material together. Who are these people? Really, this should be all it takes to convince you to check this out: Al Burian, Lille Carre, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Lucy Knisley, Rachel Niffennegger, Bernie McGovern, Onsmith, Laura Park, Grant Reynolds, Becca Taylor, Jeremy Tinder and Marco Torres. If you’re new to this site and these names aren’t familiar to you, plug just about any of them into that search option up there (the full list of artists will be restored one of these days, I swear) and spend some time checking out some quality work. Future volumes, judging from the website, will have other people, and visiting cartoonists will probably get in on the act as well. Honestly, I’m confused as hell about the process here. Every single page is its own story, and it seems most of the time like the next page starts with an idea from the previous page before veering off in its own direction… except for the times when it seems completely new. And I thought for a while that it was one artist per page, but upon closer inspection maybe others are jumping in on different panels. All I know for sure is that this much talent thrown together in a room can’t go wrong, and I hope they keep it up for… let’s see, they’re probably all in their late 20’s or early 30’s… how about another 50 years or so? OK, fine I’ll mention a few of the topics, just to prove how pointless it is to analyze such a thing. An unhygienic stump, Sackley, a doomed giant hot dog, “footsie”, mancakes, and we gotta cook this hog. This is $3 and worth every penny.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website (where you can buy his books anyway)
Twitch Vixen #1
Who out there watches a little too much tv? From time to time, pretty much everybody does, unless maybe you have all the money in the world or something. This comic is mostly about Dave’s obsession with tv from a young age, hence that fantastic name for the television. After that you get a couple of stories involving the Honeymooners in one way or another, another with “Scratchface Doodlehead” (another great name) briefly meeting Frankenstein’s monster and becoming a children’s show. Pretty good stuff all around, although it is always jarring to me to see a 14 year old comic. Not to worry, he’s been doing comics for a while, and there are plenty to choose from here, even if I can’t find his personal contact info. $2
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
The Great Big Book of Tomorrow
Everyone reading this should buy this book right now. Does that take away some of the suspense of the review? Sorry. Tom (or Dan Perkins, as is revealed in this book) is my favorite weekly cartoonist, so I’m bound to be a bit biased here, but this book is incredible. It’s invaluable for anyone with no sense of history (which is, according to polls, a whole bunch of people), so they can see how what’s going on now in the world mirrors the other Bush presidency. You also get to see some of Tom’s first work, including a couple of regular comic stories he did in the mid 80’s. And to anybody who says that he bashes Bush too much in his strips (and how much is too much for a lying criminal?), read his strips about Clinton from the 90’s. Anybody who is corrupt is a target, and that’s a good thing. I can’t imagine a better retrospective being put together of a career than this. What you get is selected best strips from all eras, strips that were only in a few underground papers and are just now being reprinted, strips that were in papers like The Village Voice and which I’ve never seen anywhere else (in color, no less!), and photos of the author with people like Bill O’Reilly and Marilyn Quayle. I think this is going for less that $13 on Amazon right now, and it took me longer to read this than it did the latest Hunter S. Thompson book, so it’s more than worth your money. The range of topics here is incredible, and I’m just gushing so I’ll stop now, but this is the kind of thing that I’ll be getting extra copies of to give to friends at Christmas. As Sparky says more than a few times, if you haven’t heard a lot of the facts included in here before, isn’t it sad that you had to learn about it from a talking penguin in a comic strip?Buy it right now! Oh, and I was going to put up some samples, but why don’t you just go to his website and read any of his comics that you’d like?
Comments Off on Tomorrow, Tom – The Great Big Book of Tomorrow | Reviews | Tagged: Penguin Soup For the Soul, The Great Big Book of Tomorrow, The Wrath of Sparky, This Modern World, Tom Tomorrow, Tune in Tomorrow, When Penguins Attack | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
8 1/2 Ghosts
Here’s another interesting comic from Alternative Comics. This one is about a young filmmaker who’s looking for the perfect place to shoot his “spooky” movie. He finds the perfect place, complete with ghosts who are friendly and willing to show themselves only on film (so as not to disrupt the cast, don’t you know), but things get a little bit out of hand when some angry poltergeists stop by. A great concept, and I know I’ve seen Rich’s art in other places, but it’s perfect for these silly ghosts. There’s also a vampire in here who’s about 20 feet tall, but I don’t want to give anything away. It’s $3.95, huge (in size anyway, the story isn’t any longer than the average comic book), and a good little story. What’s wrong with that? Here’s the website for Alternative Comics, you can get a copy there, if you like, or at your local comic store… ha! I’m just kidding. Your local comic store probably doesn’t even sell this, assuming that you even have a local comic store. But I digress…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Link to online comics
Brain Food #5
Well, I can say one thing for sure about this mini: it’s wildly inventive. Some of the dialogue seems stilted and some of the pictures look, well, a bit off the mark, but there’s all kinds of crazy stuff going on in the main story. It’s about a punk, a feminist and a straight man (this is according to another review in the book, it’s in the middle of the story so it took me most of the story to figure out who they were supposed to be) on a mission to stick it to THE MAN. It’s odd. I didn’t like it for the first 10 pages or so, but it’s just so earnest that it’s hard not to warm up to it after a while. He’s still learning but hey, who’s doing mini comics (besides John Porcellino) that isn’t? It’s worth a couple of bucks to take a look at this. There are a couple of other stories in this, but after the insanity of the main story it’s hard to be that interested in a trip to work gone wrong. Send him some money at: Free Lunch Media P.O. Box 7246 Minneapolis, MN 55407.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
This Is It #2
It’s not a comic! It’s not a zine! It’s a… has anybody coined a term for that yet? Somebody should really get on that. How about czine? Sounds just like zine, but all the super cool people will know what it means. How indie is that? I win the medal of all indiness! And I’m rambling in a review again. Oops. This one is about half comics and half writing about various topics. The comics include knowing a friend by smell, seeing an old friend, grade school, friendster, and cuddling with friends. Lots of friends in there. The writing was the highlight of the book for me, maybe because the lettering was incredibly sloppy on the comics, to the point that it was tough to read a few things. The essays didn’t have that problem. She wrote about the last year of her life, the nature of space and time, what she would do if her brother fell off a cliff, the midwest and her desperate need to be recognized by friends. She has a real gift in articulating her thoughts, judging from this I’d say she’d make a great weekly columnist… except I don’t know of any paper that’s willing to publish someone who is this brutally honest about her life. Then again, I don’t read many papers, so what do I know? Check out the new website, this one is $2 and I think it’s worth a gander.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
E-mail
Bridge Cop
Take a look at that sample real quick before I get started. The whole comic isn’t like that, the panels are a bit more, um normally spaced the rest of the time and he’s not trying to tell an epic story in a single page. Just look at that and tell me what’s going on there, because I have little to no idea. Anyway, this is supposed to be about the whole comic and not just a page, I just wanted to make sure everybody got a good look at it. Bridge Cop is a movie, you see, about a cop who guards bridges (duh) and gets gradually demoted, if I’m reading the whole thing right. But the story is about the guy who goes to see the movie, as he only watches one movie a year. You also have his friend Groomfiend, some kind of a giant talking mouse that walks on two legs. And Tom Chief, the filmmaker. OK, so the whole thing was kind of all over the place and I’m still not entirely sure what I just read. So what? I’ll take that over formulaic crap any day. Here’s hoping I see more from this guy so I can figure out how I feel about the whole thing. I have to admit that’s a pretty sweet cover though…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
One Thing Leads To Another
Yep, the artist really does appear to simply go by the name “Thompson”, or at least that’s the best info I could find after looking around for ten minutes online, and frankly that’s more than enough time to find the creator of a comic. Put your damned name in your book people! Ahem. As for the comic, this is a self-contained story from the website listed above, dealing with vampires, aliens, the afterlife and hanging out with friends (and a bunch of vampires). There are a couple of pages in the middle that deal with one of the more cliche-ridden fight scenes I’ve seen in a comic (and that’s saying a whole lot), with pretty much all of the dialogue and the moves as obvious as could be. It was an odd thing because, while the book never really becomes great, it was certainly pretty damned good for bits and pieces. Something to do with putting out a continuing story as a daily webcomic maybe, or maybe it’s just an early effort. Lots of interesting twists and turns with?a little bit of stupid thrown in, I guess you could say. Luckily you don’t need to buy it first to find out for yourselves, as there are plenty of samples on the website to help make up your minds first. Oh, and this apparently leads into something called “Resurrection”, which from the preview looks like an extra duplicate of the Angel tv series, but it’s hard to say for sure from a one page preview…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Veena the Expanding Spiral
Damn it all. I was under the impression that this book was the first issue and that I would be able to start off fresh. Turns out that this is #4 of the second volume, so he’s been at it for a while. Still, I must be doing OK if my worst problem is that I have to see what happened before this, and even that isn’t absolutely essential because the story doesn’t seem to have been continued anywhere. I mostly just want to because I liked the comic. Eric wrote to me almost write away many months ago when I first started Xerox Army and has been nothing but good people, so I’ve been preparing myself to be impressed with this for a while now. I should have broken down and gotten other issues before this, but this whole “being too poor to eat” thing really limits my options these days. Anyway, enough of the rambling. The first story in this sticks with me the most upon reflection. A man meets Veena in a bar and tells her about how he’s been reliving his life over and over again with the help of a genie, but he just can’t seem to get everything quite right. Great finish to this. I wish I knew the background to this character though. As far as I know all she does is sit in bars drinking. Cold Fluid, about a Captain America like guy hunting down Frankenstein to help him live longer, hearkened (can I use that in this century) back to the EC Comics days, except for the fact that the hero doesn’t do so well in this one. Oh come on, I didn’t give anything away. You can tell all that from the first page. Lots if little pieces in this too. A running serial with a man trapped in Hitler’s body (also goes back to the pulp days of comics), some dream stuff and a story about the “future”. A well-rounded book, all kinds of good stuff in here. I would have liked a little more Veena, so I guess it’s my own damned fault for not having more of them. I’ll fix that soon enough. This is a full size comic, so you should be able to find it if you have a halfway decent comic store anywhere near you. If not, visit his website for ordering info.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Booty #18
Eek, that cover looks terrible. Sorry, it really looks better than that in real life. Don’t know where I’ve been, but Anne has apparently been doing this for 17 issues already (unless she decided to start on #18 just to confuse me), and it’s great stuff. It’s basically a diary strip, with most of the stories being 1-3 pages long. She talks about a variety of things, including her troubles with teaching school, her need to get as far away as possible sometimes, the reason why she had to dye her hair red, and her terrible relationship with her grandmother. As far as I’m concerned this is a great addition to the ranks of autobio, even if she has been doing it for awhile and I’m just now noticing. It’s obviously heartfelt, the art is simple (not much in the way of backgrounds, which lets you focus on what’s being said, which is all that’s really important here), and I just felt an immediate connection with a lot of things that she’s going through. You can’t ask for any more than that out of an autobio comic. Send her an e-mail or just send her money (I’m guessing a couple bucks an issue and it’s well worth it, at least from what I can tell from this issue) at: Anne Thalheimer c/o Simon’s Rock College of Bard (Box 498) 84 Balford Road, Gt. Barrington, MA 01230
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Posted by Kevin
