May 2, 2010
Website
Paul in the Country
My review about this was going to be a lot more positive until looked up the Drawn and Quarterly page that I was linking to. They called him “easily the best new cartoonist to have emerged in the last half decade” and I just can’t think of any reason they would have to say that. Not to slight the guy, this is the only thing of his I’ve seen, but it says on the back of this issue that it’s his first full comic and I only bought this, at the very most, a year ago. His other story must have been 4 years ago, and come on people, that’s not very many comics to base that on. Anyway, lest it start sounding like I’m getting down on D & Q and Michael, I’ll stop there. I did like this book. A nice little nostalgic tale about a man raising a child and thinking about his childhood. The art reminds me of Seth, and he’s one of my favorites. I’d like to see his other story so I could see a little more of what the hype’s all about though. He’s good, but I’d say that he another few issues in him before he gets great, if he does get there. Isn’t it a better idea to let the man flourish on his own without hyping him up to the comics world as the next best thing? Where does he go from there if his next story isn’t as well received as his first two? It’s not like he has a lot to fall back on. Again, sorry about the rant, but I’m starting to see just a tiny bit that criticism can have an effect on people, negative or positive, and it’s still a slightly hard concept to grasp. Shouldn’t you just feel a need to do the work without being compelled to start or stop because of the opinion of somebody you’ve probably never even met? And, if anybody ever asks me to detail my position on critics on my page, I’ll link them right here. Click on the title and give it a shot. You can see if I’m incredibly stupid for wondering why people are so worked up over this.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Gunky from Podunky
Blech. I just didn’t like this at all, and it seems like I’ve seen other things from this guy in anthologies that I thought weren’t half bad. Look, there are a lot of comic artists that are a little cutesy in their work. James Kochalka, Larry Marder, Steven Weissman… it’s a long list. But with all those people there’s a little bit of substance there backing all that cuteness up. With this guy, at least with the stuff in this book, it’s just too cute to bear and there’s nothing evident behind it all. Don’t get me wrong, he’s talented. I like his blocky drawing style quite a bit. I just don’t like the direction of this book at all, and I’m not going to be buying anything else from this guy that has the same feel as this issue. Still, one man’s garbage is another man’s gold…
UPDATE 4/30/10: OK, there is no way in the world that I gave this guy a fair shot with this review. I’ve seen a few other things from him over the years that I’ve liked a lot, but clearly didn’t like this one when I read it 8 years ago or so. Mea culpa!
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
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Zombie Bob’s Resume of Jobs
Who likes zombies? If you like them enough to not even need a story, you’re in luck. Not that that’s always a bad thing, as this is a pretty fun collection of Zombie Bob in a variety of jobs, just thought I should point that out. It’s mostly wordless and it’s tiny, but the better jobs depicted here were the hot dog vendor and the weatherman. Hey, I’d list them all but this is a little mini and who wants to give everything away? The man draws a mean zombie, I know that much, which is all he really needed to make this one a success. This was probably $1 at SPACE, you can always e-mail the man and see what else he has laying around…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
E-mail address
Delayed Replays #1
Who out there loves the diary strips? Oh come on, most of the people who read this site do, as I talk about them on a fairly regular basis. Well, here’s another one, full of all sorts of cuteness (although a bit too cute at times) and observations about things. Sorry, “things” is a bit of a cop-out, but it never gets too deep here, so I think “things” is an OK way to describe it. What kind of things? Snow, her cat, her boyfriend, boogers, farting, video games, boredom, and frog feet. Among other things, but it’s a quick read, so why spoil it? The art is adorable, if maybe a little too sloppy at times, or maybe I’m just becoming a curmudgeon and I can’t stand sloppiness. You damned kids! Still, a good book overall, and she has something coming out from Top Shelf next month, which should be a good chance to get a whole bunch of these strips, if I’m guessing correctly… $3
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
The Preposterous Voyages of Ironside Tom
How on earth did I miss out on this guy? Joel put out a graphic novel called Pulpatoon: Pilgrimage a few years back and I missed it completely. I’m ruing that fact because that book is a wonderful, wonderful thing that I’d recommend as highly as possible even if it wasn’t free. If you’re reading this currently (or sometime before 5/6/06, which is free comic day and if you live near a halfway decent comic shop this should be available), then don’t forget to go and get this. If not, I’ll bet that website up there has some info on how you can get it after the fact. Have I even mentioned the comic yet? It’s the minimalist adventures of Ironhide Tom, a man born of a drunk sailor and a typhoon. I sampled his origin below, but suffice to say that Tom speaks like a pirate throughout, which is always a good thing, and has all sorts of adventures that all seem to end up the same way: with Tom penniless and ready for more adventure. And kids, if you ever thought that you couldn’t do comics because of a lack of drawing ability, look no further than this comic. I’m not saying that Joel can’t draw, far from it in fact, but he has minimal interpretations of pirates, elephants, an underwater realm, scorpions, a seahorse, and more things than you’d believe and they’re all gorgeous. Then he goes and ruins it by drawing some seriously impressive non-minimal sea monsters, which only makes the whole package that much better. This is a blast from start to finish, and I plan on getting that older graphic novel at the free comics day (if my local store is smart enough to carry it), so maybe I can tell you more about Joel soon. For now, I’d recommend checking this out if it was $5, but for $0 you’d have to be crazy not to check it out.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website (where he might be on somewhere, according to Google, although I can’t find him)
22 East 22nd Street #306
Minneapolis, MN 55404
Low Blow #9
If that Roman numeral is correct, kudos to Aaron for making it to #9. I have no idea what the other 8 issues would be about, as this is basically the story of his life from college on, and it’s sure not like the internets are any help. He might be on that website listed above, or not, but that address should be good, and this is worth seeking out. This tells the story of Aaron’s first (and only) experience with roommates, how easy it was to stand out in a stupid small town, and everything in between until getting accepted to college to be a cartoonist in late 1999. Here’s hoping that doesn’t mean that this came out in 1999, because that would make that address almost certainly worthless. The only other story in here is a two pager about how wrestling is fake, which he admits isn’t necessarily a crucial topic, but feels compelled to point out that people really do get hurt and sometimes killed in wrestling matches. The art is occasionally crude but always amusing, the writing is a bit of “the whole world sucks” without being too maudlin, and he’s able to tell a pretty compelling story about himself, something not everybody is able to pull off. It’s $3 and may take some searching, but it’s worth it if you can locate one of these.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
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Saki the Panda #2
One thing I’d recommend to anybody hitting the SPACE convention for the first time would be to pick up anything that has a “Day Prize” sticker anywhere near it. I don’t think I’ve ever come away with a crappy comic with that sticker, and I’ve often ended up with something genuinely great. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this one great, but I’ve only read the one issue so far. Give it time and it might be at that level. This is the story of Saki the Panda, as you may have guessed from that title. Saki lives in the zoo (just guessing here but it’s the only thing that makes sense) and, after a long day of getting stared at and hassled, only wants to get some rest. Unfortunately for Saki, a rave (for birds only) has started up with the drum and bass music, making it impossible for him to get that rest. Saki decides to walk over to this rave with his noise complaint, and what follows is a lovely tale of disguise, getting into a party based on who you know and dangerous brownies. It’s a fun story and the art is beautiful, to the point where I almost wish it was full sized to let some of those tiny details in the background shine through. Oh, and I hardly ever do this, but I couldn’t resist using the last page as the sample. Well worth a look, unless you hate all comics that are only about animals for some reason… $3
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Glitch #2
It’s kind of hard to review something when you don’t think the actual book is that bad, but there are so many typos and errors in grammar that it’s painful trying to read the damned thing. That’s the case with Glitch. Auto-bio type stuff about a couple of gay men living in Chicago, the content of the book is pretty good. Still pretty raw, but it shows some potential. This guy needs to get a friend who understands the English language to go through his book before he puts it out. Christ, he doesn’t even know when to use “where” and “were”… but I digress. The bulk of the book is about a photographer who gets put on an assignment that he doesn’t really want and a gay man being nervous about his date, before and during. It’s good stuff. Kind of expensive ($3) but it looks nice. I like his art a lot too. It seemed to start off kind of weak, but it came together as the book went on. I don’t know, maybe he was in a hurry when he started it. I would say that you should wait a little while before buying stuff from this guy, but this is #2 already. Maybe he’ll start caring about actually correcting things by the third issue. If that’s the case, or even if it isn’t and you’re not quite as annoyed by little things like that as I am, you could do worse than to buy this.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Observable
Another in the Victor series from Actus Tragicus, this one is a study in paranoia and the little things you do when no one else is watching. It starts off with Victor tricking his friends by telling them that he is going on a trip while actually staying at home and having some uninterrupted time to himself. An anonymous letter shows him that he wasn’t as successful as he had hoped, and the rest of the book is spent with him descending into paranoia while he tries to figure out who is watching him. Tense and uncomfortable with a great ending, here’s another one that you should hunt down. Go to the Actus Tragicus page and bug the hell out them, I don’t know. Maybe that’s all you need to get this series back in print.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Crust
Ah, newspaper strips. There aren’t too many of them that are funny, honestly. Think about the ones that you read in the paper (if you even bother to read them at all) and think of how many of them make you laugh out loud. Any at all? Crust is a collection of daily strips from Rick with material from between 4 and 5 years ago. Some of it made me smile a little bit, but nothing really struck me as tremendously funny. It doesn’t help that it’s all five years old and newspaper humor is really topical and timely these days. The jokes are obsolete a few weeks after you read them. Still, there were flashes here that he could carry a comic story all the way through, if given the chance. As this stuff is older, I’m not sure what else, if anything, he has done. Maybe he’s honed his skills at a weekly strip, or maybe he’s working on a bigger comic, of maybe he’s the manager of a McDonald’s somewhere. Tell you what. If you see anything new by this guy, pick it up and send it to me. I’ll pay for the postage and the book and all that, I’m just curious to see what he’s up to. As for this one, you can probably get if from Top Shelf. I didn’t see it on the page, but if you request it I’m sure they have some copies laying around somewhere.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Blackout #1
This is exactly what my day needed: a good, solid mini. Nothing spectacular, but just good all the way through. The art reminds me a lot of Scott Mills (I’m sure he gets that a lot) but the tone of his stories is different. A world all his own, I guess. There’s a few short pieces in this and it’s over, but it left me wanting more. The mark of a good comic. As for what it’s about, I’m not going to tell you. It’s only $1, go to his website and get one. Go ahead, try a new comic, it’s worth it. Or send him an e-mail, or just go ahead and mail him a buck at 6673 Enchanted Valley Drive Reno, NV 89523. There are a few nits I have to pick, but they’re minor. He should pay closer attention to the production value. The words slip off the page a little here and there and it looks kind of dirty. Also, some kind of intro about the diary comic would have been nice, but those are two minor things. Mostly good work.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Air
Do you like cheesy 80’s movies? Specifically, do you like cheesy 80’s movies, like Karate Kid, about people who overcome insurmountable odds to win against the bad guys, usually with the sounds of “Eye of the Tiger” or something similar in the background? If you do, you’ll love this comic. If you don’t, well, this might not be your thing. It’s a fairly simple story. A man named Indy is forced to give up his favorite thing in the world, air hockey, by his girlfriend. Earlier in his life he had watched his Dad lose a tournament and he’s wanted to get even ever since. He meets a girl in a bar who’s a great player and he finds himself getting back into the air hockey world and is talked into entering an air hockey tournament. There’s even a couple of pages that detail his training with the lyrics to “Eye of the Tiger”. You can see where this is going, right? Indy finds himself playing the man who beat his father and, while I’m not going to give away the ending, shame on you if you can’t figure it out. It’s a fun book, that’s true, but if you’re at the point in your life where 80’s movies have lost their nostalgic charm and now they’re just obnoxious, you’re not going to like this book very much. If not, the art’s great, the writing is good (although cheesy, but if you’re going for the 80’s movie theme it’s hard to avoid cheesy), it’s worth a look.And I’m really curious if there are any air hockey tournaments, because I’d love to go to one.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
reviewed by Jason Dupuis
EPOXY #1
When I saw John Pham’s Epoxy in my local comic shop, I didn’t think much of it. It looks like a comic from a major publisher. It has a glossy, color gatefold cover, which sports a giant robot destroying some metropolis. The high production value, I later found out, is due to a grant from the Xeric Foundation. I probably wouldn’t have picked it up if it weren’t in the independent comics section. As soon as I got a look at the artwork, I was hooked. This comic is beautifully rendered. The characters are drawn with soft lines and the backgrounds range from very intricate to empty space. I took it home and read it right away. This comic is huge. It’s 64 pages long. Yet, I was sad when I finished it. I wanted more right away. It contains three stories: Shiva, Modesto and Elephantine. The latter was definitely my favorite. It gives the reader a glimpse of the quietly sad life of a one-armed, bare-knuckle boxer. Shiva features a robot boy named Nikolas, being chased over the rooftops of a large city by a dragon. But Pham doesn’t hit you over the head with panic and action. Instead, he allows us into the mind of Nikolas as he calmly worries about everyday life. Modesto is a subdued look at life in the suburbs for a unique young woman named Olive. The beauty of this book is its subtlety. Pham won me over with this first installment.
$3.95 Epoxy Press P.O. Box 361135 Los Angeles, Ca 90036 epoxypress@aol.com
Website!
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Chemistry
All comics people take note: Steve, when confronted with the fact that he had too much to do between work and his band to take the time to make comics on a consistent basis, decided to draw one panel a day. That’s it, just one panel a day. If he missed a day, he’d draw two the next day. What he came away with, after about 8 months, is a gorgeous, intricately laid out tale mostly dealing with his inner dialogue about the possibilities of his relationship ending in tears. That was engrossing and fascinating all by itself, then he spends the rest of this dense issue telling the story, in reverse order, of his relationship with his girlfriend and their eventual breakup. So we start with the actual breakup, then follow to the relationship having problems, etc., all the way back to how they met. Altogether, you have a comic where everything is done as well as it could be. Maybe it gets a bit wordy there at the end, but what part of that isn’t vital information to the situation at hand? I know, you may be thinking that relationship comics are a dime a dozen, and you’d be right. But the reason people keep making them (other than the eternal need to vent and purge) is that, when they’re done right, they’re one of the most universally relatable things around. Who hasn’t had a relationship end. Even, as it is here, with no one big thing that caused it to stop. My only complaint is that this was apparently done in 2001 but the comic wasn’t produced until 2005, but I can only complain so much because I didn’t read it until 2007 anyway. $2.95
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
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Fever
Huzzah! I put out the call for more comics to review and they all came pouring in. Well, “all” so far means “this comic”, but the thought is appreciated. This is the story of a young father trying to deal with his son’s fever and his feelings of helplessness over the whole thing. He eventually finds his son in his own fever dream and gets to see things from his perspective. Christopher seems to think the whole thing is a bit clunky, but I don’t see it that way. He apparently added a few pages of dialogue, so I don’t know what it was like in the original released version, but the whole thing reads seamlessly now, going from his despair to finding a bit of common ground. And kudos for some of the crazy dream monsters looking like things that couldn’t possibly come from this world instead of just generic monsters. All in all, a pretty damned good mini comic.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
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Net Result
Just to make this perfectly clear, this is half of a split book with Nick Abadzis. Both halves had three stories, which is different for a flip book. Most of them just have one story from each of the creators. A minor touch, but I liked it. Like I said, there were three stories in here. The first one is about a baby bird being born and being constantly in danger no matter which way it turns. The second is the story about a man living with an angry voice in his head… OK, fine, you caught me. I’m not entirely sure what it was about. It looked great, smudgy and atmospheric. The third story was about an old man who’s laid up in a nursing home, thinking about his life and what led him to this point. The first two stories are wordless, by the way, the third one is not. He manages to keep up an almost palpable sense of danger and impending mortality throughout all three stories. This is an impressive comic all around, well worth getting for both halves of the flip, which isn’t always true. Here’s his e-mail address. Send him an e-mail (it’s $5), or get ahold of Nick Abadzis instead.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Radioactive Twins
Um, I guess you’d have to say that this one is somewhere between OK and pretty good. It’s the story of twins (or one person with two heads, whatever you’d call that), an unsolved explosion, a murder and a hen. If that sounds like it doesn’t make much sense, well, go to the head of the class. Still, the art is crisp and there’s a lot of stuff going on that you aren’t going to notice until the second time through. Some people just seem like they would be better served using a longer format, and this guy is one of them. Strangely enough, it looks like he’s mostly done shorter stuff. One of these days maybe he’ll break out, but until then the stuff like this isn’t bad at all.
E-mail him or send him some money or crappy poetry:
Milan Pavlovic
Tosin Bunar 7/25 11080 Zemun Serbia, Yugoslavia
Here’s what he says is his homepage, even though I didn’t see any of his stuff there…
Chris Staros over at Top Shelf told me that although the Mini Burger set isn’t available on the web page, you can still order it through their online catalog. Just go to the ordering page, click on #4 at the bottom (additional comments) and write in that you want the Mini Burger set for $19.95. They have it in stock, they just haven’t updated the site in a while. From what I’ve read, it’s worth it. There might be two bad ones in this bunch and a couple of mediocre ones, but the good ones are good in ways that you don’t usually see in this country.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
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Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream #2
Here’s one more person who just had to be on my site somewhere, but other than Trubble Club (which you should all be reading), it looks like she didn’t have her own page. Huzzah for being able to fix that! This is a pile of short strips, mostly diary strips with a few “origin stories” thrown in. There’s her getting swallowed by Lost (I can relate), people watching, talking comics with friends, accidentally hurting a baby mouse, making a pile of money through a day of odd jobs, getting a rude reception at a Korean restaurant, o a quest for a new iPod, doing taxes, wallowing, drawing entirely too many panels, getting drunk, and caring for a baby starling. My favorite strip (sampled, as always) is her “do I go out or not” dance, as who can’t relate to that? Effortlessly social and popular people, you say? That’s OK, I don’t think those folks read comics. Oh, and she also has a strip dealing with a loose tooth and too many olives from when she was a kid. My only problem with the book is that her cursive is occasionally unreadable. If you squint really hard you can generally get the idea, but there were a few times when I had to just let a word or two fly by, which messes up the narrative flow a bit. Overall though, an excellent comic. She’s open, self-deprecating (without really pouring it on), and can draw a mean hobo, among other things. Definitely worth checking out. Her website is still under construction (here’s hoping that’s a new message, not something that has been up there for years) but you can always get a copy through the old e-mail. $3
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
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Cut Flowers
Yep, the man wrote on the cover of the book he wanted me to review. Oh well, what are you going to do? All comics must have covers on this site, because that’s the way it’s always been done, so there! As for the comic behind the scribbles, it’s a pretty great piece of work. It’s all about a day involving Hank Malatesta, a character who’s knowable and interesting pretty much right off the bat. He’s having a bit of drama with a female neighbor involving occasional forays into “more than friends” status, even though they both seem to be insane and she already has a boyfriend. Still, their interaction made me love him right away. Following this is a trip to the bar with a “wacky” neighbor and an attempt to patch things up with the crazy girl from earlier, sort of. Eh, maybe I’ve said too much already. Still, the art is wonderful (I know I’ve seen his stuff somewhere, or it could be possible that everything is blending together) and the writing is fantastic (the man has an incredible ear for dialogue). Those are pretty basic ingredients you need for a good comic right there. I’m guessing $3, but that’s just a guess.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Touched #2
Why is it that so many of the comics folks out of Columbus don’t believe in punctuation? Something in the water? It’s just disconcerting to see sentences floating around in word bubbles with no sign of when there are pauses, or endings, or anything like that. It’s not all over the place here, and maybe I’m overreacting just a little, but I’m entitled to do that every now and then. This is #2 of a 12 part story, and you can stay caught up with it by reading the website. I chose not to read the first issue, as plenty of people who are going to pick this up probably aren’t going to bother to read it either, and I wanted to see if I could follow along. Terrorists have apparently attacked a research lab, resulting in the loss of communications of all kinds all over the U.S. Chaos is undoubtedly ensuing, but most of the issue is spent with the two main characters of the book, Alan and Alyssa. Alan is a mountain of a man, although apparently only a child. Alyssa is where the action is, as she has the power to make anyone do what she says and is apparently on a mission to kill from GOD. Too early to tell what’s really going on here, but I’m intrigued. Work out the minor technical problems and there’s something to see here. It’s a couple of bucks and, like I said, you can read to your heart’s content on the website, if you’d rather check it out for free…
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Posted by Kevin
