May 2, 2010
Website
Silver Comics #8
And here I thought I was getting a new Michael Neno comic. Well, technically I am (he has the first story in this collection), but there’s much more to this than just one story. Before I get started, click on that website above. There’s a cover collection there, and if that isn’t the sort of thing that you like, you’ll know it instantly. These books are basically new versions of silver age comics, with the occasional wackiness thrown in, but they’re basically faithful versions of that type of story with some funny thrown in. First up is the story by Michael Neno, which just so happens to be the cover story. Well, this cover story anyway, there’s also an excellent back cover. Someone is attacking all the milk men and none of the children are getting their milk, so an enigmatic hero called The End decides to help them out by going undercover. Yes, you will find many puns about spilt milk, and yes, “The End” is used as a pun more than once. It’s still a thoroughly entertaining story. Next up is The Day of the Ice Menace by Johnny Ortiz, Dan Beltran and Mark Prudeax, dealing with an Iron Man-ish character trying to stop a mysterious ball of energy. He touches the ball, which quickly encases him in a block of cosmic ice, but manages to fly to a nearby volcano to get out of it. This story captures the feel of those old stories perfectly as the hero flits from catastrophe to catastrophe before the shocking ending. Finally there’s Let Them Be Damned by the same crew of Ortiz, Beltran and Prudeax, which deals with a depressed Santa (after Satan has taken over his job) trying to get his fighting spirit back with the help of Rudolph. More mayhem and I particularly enjoyed the “to be continued” ending, knowing that it probably won’t ever be continued unless this is part of a much larger Santa storyline that I missed by not getting the earlier issues. All of this is wrapped up by a text piece from Dan Beltran, which was entertaining enough even if it felt slightly out of place alongside all the illustrated shenanigans. Finally there are a few pin-ups and fake ads, and you’re left with a thoroughly entertaining fake silver age comic. Like I said, you already know if this sort of thing, done well, is something you’d enjoy. This is done extremely well, so it’s your call. And it’s cheap! $1.95
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Super Maxi-Pad Girl #1
I have to be honest here: I really didn’t expect to like this one. About the best I was hoping for was that it would be a funny concept for a bit, then it would get slowly beaten to death during the course of the comic, and that would be it. I was, and not for the first time, completely wrong. Things start off with a young girl coming home crying to her mother after she unexpectedly bled in her pants at school. This mother went on to tell the tale of Super Maxi-Pad Girl and her adventures against Bloating, Cramps and The Period. While Super Maxi-Pad Girl is effective against The Period, two new heroes have to be introduced for the other problems: Pidol and Mamprin. The day is saved and things are calm until the next adventure, which involves new villains: Migraine and Acne. The heroes also get new members, such as the Reusable Menstrual Cup, the Preventative Ovulation Pill and Washable Cotton Maxi-Pad, or Eco-Pad. Things are trickier this time around, as the villains have released a number of monkeys to eat all the bananas in the city, severely lowering the potassium intake, which leads to the creation of the Mega-Period. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a final, shorter adventure starring a giantess on her period and Thor. As for any complaints from the ladies about this comic, and there probably will be a few, Daniel addresses them in the strip I sampled below. Not sure if that will fix everything, but I thought it was a smart way to address it: show himself as more than a bit clueless about the whole thing but with good intentions. If you’re thinking that this all sounds remarkably stupid, all I can say is that you have to read this to learn otherwise. As a concept it’s bound to sound stupid, but the dialogue is never less than mildly funny (and often hilarious), the art doesn’t need to be great with the simple natures of the characters but it’s plenty good enough, and there were laughs to be found all over the place. I can’t say that a Super Maxi-Pad Girl #2 would be great, but this one was so good that I actually think he’d have a shot at making it great, which I couldn’t have said before I actually read this. Oh, and one disclaimer: obviously, if you’re completely unable to see any humor in “that time of the month” or anything associated with it, it’s best to stay away. As it is, however, a fact of life, why not have a little fun with it? $4
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Publisher’s website
This Will All End in Tears
It’s a while since I’ve had a book I’ve been able to link to Amazon, and it’s also been a while since I’ve read something this good. And it’s not like I’ve been reading total crap lately, it’s just that every single part of this book was done beautifully by somebody who’s been in the game for many years now, he’s just not somebody I’d heard of. What can I say, I never get to Canada. There are 5 stories collected here, I’m guessing from his mini, Wag!, although I’m probably wrong. These are about (and I’m going to boil it down into as simple of terms as possible) a fat lonely woman living her life, a young woman with a bunch of kids trying to get a simple request fulfilled at a bagel shop, a reluctant hunter having to deal with his unwanted deer carcass, a young waitress trying to reconcile her Catholic faith with the real world around her, and a man who has to face the possibility of taking care of his retarded brother after his mother is taken to the hospital. This is scratching the surface on all of these, and they all deal with heavy, at times brutal themes without ever seeming preachy or morose. Honestly, the sheer depth of the writing here is something that I’ve rarely seen in the comics world. Lots of people seem to skip the idea of captions dictating the thoughts of characters these days, but Joe uses it brilliantly. Happy endings are far from guaranteed here, but real endings are, and that’s plenty for me. Pick this up if you’re losing a little faith in the comics medium in general, it’ll remind you why you started reading these damned things in the first place… $16.95
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Between the Cracks: The Bride
Dialogue is a crucial thing in comics. Well, at least the ones that have dialogue, I suppose. A wrong turn of phrase or two can throw off the whole mood and effect of a comic. This one is a perfect example, as it kicks off on the wrong foot immediately and never really recovers. The basic story here is a retelling of The Bride of Frankenstein, or maybe that’s too much of a leap on my part, but it’s about a dead woman reviving to gunshots and violence. The rest of the book is about her going through her new life. She doesn’t seem to display much emotion about anything after her disturbing awakening until the climax of the story, but I know better than to talk about that. Anyway, my problem is that there’s the obligatory mad scientist that created her at the beginning, and, you guessed it, he says a lot of mad scientist cliches. “She lives. She lives!” “Live, my precious. Live for me…” “You can’t have her. I … I made her!” If the book was a parody of bad horror movies or something, fine. The problem is that things get increasingly serious and grim from there, and it was just impossible for me to connect with something that had such a silly beginning. There are some good things about this book, don’t get me wrong. The art was solid and there were still bits that were haunting. I’d be curious to see other stuff from this guy to see where he goes from here, but this is something that could pretty much be avoided in my book. Check out the website, he has samples and other books up there…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
E-mail
Panda & Jess: Jeopardy
There’s a whole lot to be said for the comics where everything happens in the margins. In this one Panda and Jess may or may not be dating (although it looks to the untrained eye like they’re just having sex on the side but have also gotten emotionally attached) and this deals with Panda finding out that Jess is getting married. To somebody other than him, that is. A “conversation” ensues, again where most of it is left to our imagination. Great stuff all around. This story could be something huge or something tiny, and it’s nice to be able to have to figure it all out for myself for once. This is, I should point out, also part of Shiot Crock #11, which you can find more out about at the Comic’s Journal messageboard somewhere in the forums, and they should really work on getting some kind of a website together if they’re going to keep putting these things out…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
The Confessional
Let me just give you the tagline, so you don’t have to guess what that cover is trying to tell you: “Having spent the last 4 million years as an outcast, the devil has had enough! Tired of his role… he confesses all to a Priest”. That’s using the … thing to trim a quote up a bit, not to change the meaning. Blurb gatherers, take note! Anyway, the first thing this reminded me of was the Lucifer series from Vertigo. That’s fairly obvious, as they’re both about the devil, but they’re also both about the devil quitting, they just have different ideas about what the devil would do when he quit. The ending of this showed that this is an original story, but I’m not going to give it away or anything. The bulk of the story is with the devil talking to a priest, first trying to convince him that he is the devil, then trying to convince him that he (the devil) should kill himself. It’s an interesting theological debate, if a little bit basic. It’s a self-contained comic, so there’s no series here to keep up with. It has a Vertigo-ish feel to it, obviously. so if that’s your thing it’s an interesting comic. Here’s a website, they have a few comics there for you to look at, and it’s $4.50.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
E-mail
Pigeonanity #1
It’s my “job” as reviewer to say things that people might not agree with, but I feel compelled to point out that the ending for this book is just stupid. The book isn’t bad up until that point. An interesting concept, even if it’s kind of been done by Anders Nilsen, about a bird trying to find some meaning in his life. Nothing really gets answered, and the conversation that would have been of the most interest (where the wise bird tries to convince him that life is worth living) is ignored entirely. Nice art, and I liked the picture of the man in the bird wings on the last page, but this would have to be considered as a work in progress more than anything completed. Does that make any sense? I mean mostly that he still has a ways to go in my book. All the basic tools are there though, so it probably wouldn’t kill you to send him an e-mail to see what else he has around.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Hold Fast, Sisters and Brothers!
In reviewing a comic, I sometimes have to stop and put things in perspective. This comic, for example, dealing with veganism and how awesome it is, looks great. Travis has a cast of fairly adorable characters, the dialogue is well written and things even wrap up with a mildly amusing joke. The trouble is that I can’t stand being preached to, and the self-righteousness of the general vegan crowd is enough to make me want to grab a burger. Don’t get me wrong, I admire their commitment to a cause, and more power to them for choosing to live that life. That being said, being preached at by a vegan nut is about the same as being preached at by a religious nut. Travis even briefly acknowledges the preachiness in the end, but it wasn’t quite enough to kill off my overall crankiness. The central conflict in this comic is between the main character and half of a leftover cinnamon roll. Just one bite wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Well, it turns out that the roll is Satan in disguise, which further reinforces the notion in the comic that us meat eating folk are all at least mildly evil. One thing I’ve always wondered about veganism in general: if it was eventually proven that plants have a rudimentary consciousness and/or feel pain, would vegans stop eating them, or does the sympathy only extend to cute critters? I’m trashing them way too much, granted. Animals are raised and killed in genuinely horrific conditions, and they do serious harm to our bodies and long-term health. Still, eating meat does not make me or anybody else a horrible person, and not eating meat does not make someone automatically righteous. Some of the biggest assholes I’ve ever met have been vegetarians, as well as some of the nicest people. It’s one tiny check-marked box that makes up a person, and I just think there are way more important things to worry about in the world at the moment. Wow, who knew I had such a rant in me this morning? This comic really does look great, and if you’re less upset and some preaching than I am (or are a vegan/vegetarian yourself), you’ll probably love this book. I’d like to see some less preachy comics from the man, that’s all. No price, so… $3?
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Fastidious Frog #1
Another random buy, and I only have one major problem with this comic: it was way too fucking short! 7 pages of comic, that’s just not enough of this brilliance. It’s basically the story of Fastidious Frog offending a clown at a circus by dressing up in clown gear himself, but he only did it to “make the clowns feel at home”. He spends the rest of the (much too short) issue trying to apologize to the clown, who has since forgotten him. High-larious. Order it and ask him to do some more.
David Nichols PO Box 249 Yarraville, VIC 3013 Australia
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Kate and Leopold
Slightly different format than usual, mostly because the man makes it very clear in his intro that he doesn’t want any part of this book reproduced, so I’m not going to mess with it. Granted, he probably doesn’t mean for review purposes, but you never know. Anyway, you can tell from the back cover what the book looks like. It’s an adaptation, I guess, of the Kate and Leopold movie that came out recently. Or was that the one that was called back at the last minute because people thought it was creepy that the woman was in love with her distant ancestor? Whatever, this book was OK. It looked like shit, obviously, but that’s most of the charm right there. It’s funny and short, and I get the feeling it was put together for FLUKE specifically. Worth seeing, if for no other reason that the names on the shirts so you can tell who is who. I’d guess it’s a buck or two, e-mail the guy to make sure or just send him money at: 565 Sunset Drive Athens, GA 30606.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
PDF file of this comic
The Abstract Artist
Well, this has to be the first posthumous review of a comic on this website. That’s awkwardly worded, as it’s the creator that died a few years back, but I think you get the idea. Still, Squidworks put together a collection of his minis and you can still see this whole comic online (and in color) for free, so why not add it? This is the story of a dissatisfied artist who wonders why nobody ever buys his abstract art. At the end of his rope he muses that he’d sell his soul if only he could get his paintings to sell, and that usually (in comic books and movies) brings the devil around. Sure enough, he pops up, but is instantly rejected by the artist, who isn’t satisfied with the offer. He eventually talks Satan into giving him three wishes, to be granted every six months. Things don’t work out in the end, as Satan generally manages to find a loophole, but it’s a funny ride to get there. The sheer self-absorption of this artist is breathtaking, and he goes from being at least a mildly sympathetic character to somebody who you can’t wait to see taken down a peg. The art is fairly simple (the first page is one of the few where you’ll see backgrounds), but as it’s a story about abstract art, it doesn’t need a lot of additional work. This is worth a look, which you can do for free at that .pdf file I linked above, and now, of course, I’m curious about what else this man has done. Luckily there are a few free comics at the link posted above, so it’ll be easy to catch up on his work in mini comics.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
A Stoopid Pigeon Treasury
This is the easiest sort of review to write. Why Because my opinions are completely irrelevant when this website has an enormous archive of what looks to be all the Stoopid Pigeon strips ever done. Oh, I’ll still ramble a bit about things, but if you have a job where you’re constantly looking for things to kill the long, dull hours and a boss that isn’t picky about profanity, you’re in luck. This is a collection of strips, not the four panel kind but the kind that takes up a whole page. Steven obviously influenced this a bit, and good luck finding a better strip to be influenced by than that one. It’s basically the adventures of an odd collection of characters involving a severed head, a robot, an exotic dancer with a skull for a head, an extremely cranky squirrel, a pumpkin and, of course, a pigeon. Oddly, the pigeon isn’t in most of these strips, and when he is in them he seems to be the only one with any sort of a conscience. But when you’re trying to make people laugh, who needs a conscience? Topics in here include babies as slave labor, a Diaper Club, killing frogs, drinking, random acts of violence, and the robot sleeping with everything that moves, just to name a few. Mostly pretty funny stuff, which I have to admit I wasn’t expecting based on that title alone. Sure, sometimes the jokes fell flat, other times I didn’t get the point at all, but more often than not I found myself chuckling. Of course, you have to have a pretty dark sense of humor, but that’s why you’re clicking around that website listed above, so you can find all this out for yourself. This is $4.95 and a pretty big book for that price, if you find out that you like this sort of thing…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website where you can buy this
Pumpkin
One of many comics that Robert Goodin of Robot Publishing just sent me. Finally some answers about them, I’ve been curious for months. This one is all about Jennifer’s dog (I’m assuming that this is autobiographical), Pumpkin. A nice little story, and this is one of very few Robot Publishing titles that doesn’t feel too short. She utilized the format as well as she could, I think. As always, the book looks amazing. All these books, whether or not I like the insides, look like a great deal of care was put into their production. This one is $2, you can get it from the Top Shelf page, if you’re interested. I’ll let you know any personal information or company website info as soon as I get it…
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
Creased Comics #1 (reviewed by Jason Dupuis)
Let me start off by saying that there is only one thing that I did not like about Creased Comics #1. I will not, however, go into that thing yet. Instead, I will tell a story. Once upon a time, I got married…to a woman. That woman then went to a conference in Houston a couple of weeks ago. From
there, she went to Austin to see bats fly out from under a bridge. In Austin, she went to Funny Papers comic shop (I think that’s what she said) and asked
for any comic from any local artist. The gentleman working the register, sold my wife Creased Comics #1. The wife and the comic then traveled all the way from Austin to Bloomington, IN, non-stop. Reuniting with my wife after being separated for over 5 days was the cake, Creased Comics #1 was the frosting.
I was immediately enamored with Mr. Neely’s drawing style. It is deceptively simple – kind of how John P.’s is. This collection of single-panel one-shots contains a range of subjects – from mushy faced, strangely proportioned monstrosities with ghosts of ill-erased pencil markings haunting them, to beautifully deep, minimalistically rendered scenes drawn from unique perspectives. And all that’s just the looking part. When you get the the reading, it gets even better. These comics made me laugh. They made me cry. They made me feel strange. Well, maybe I didn’t cry, but some of them really have a quiet sense of sadness about them. And if you like weird, Neely’s got that down pat. A lot of these comics are just plain strange, but in an almost poetic way. Great content, hands down.
Now, for the downside. This single, 15 page (plus a front and a back cover), 8.5×11 inch comic cost 5 bucks! Before you point your fingers and shout ‘Cheapskate!’, hear me out. If you need letter sized papers to convey your work, I have no problem with that. If you want to leave some unerased pencil marks or weird xerox blobs in your comics, good for you. If
you want to cut off one or two panels, leaving a gaping hole in a couple of pages, that’s fine too. All of the previous quirks can be found in this comic and all of them are perfectly okay. But why, oh why, would you print every page on card stock and charge my unsuspecting wife 5 dollars for your comic? I know that people live and learn, so I hope that Mr. Neely decided to use card stock for only the front and back covers of his subsequent comics (Creased Comics No.’s 2-5), if he chose to use it at all. Frankly, I would be happy with no card stock. That’s right, I can live with plain old, regular thickness copy paper. How pedestrian of me.
Finally, let me end on a good note. As much as I hate to admit it, this comic is worth 5 bucks. I read it at least 5 times the first week I had it. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve bought quite a few comics in
my life which were only read once or twice. So, if you want to compare price to amount of times read, 5 dollars is quite a deal for this book. Why don’t you e-mail Brad Neely and order one for yourself?
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Myspace page
The abc’s of Truckhead Now Available! $2
If I’ve only seen two comics where there’s a page for each letter of the alphabet,is it OK to compare them even if they have nothing to do with each other? I thought so. This one is much more complex, sure. The art is more intricate, the writing (or at least the concepts) for the pages is better, but for some reason it didn’t make me smile as much. Maybe I’m a simple lad, or maybe I’m just sad, but this book does hold up pretty well on its own. Like the title says, each page in here starts with a letter of the alphabet. “K” and “L” sum up the complexities of this book nicely. “K” is for “Karma”, and it’s a one page epic of screwing, leaving and beer. “L” is for “Lethargy”, and it’s a simple cartoon about doing nothing. Truckhead doesn’t say much, but then, he does have a truck for a head. This book is much more complicated than the title might suggest. Lots of the pages look like a ton of thought went into making them, and you couldn’t really ask him to spend more time with the art. Here’s an e-mail address, as the website doesn’t appear to be working. $2!
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
The F.E.D.S. #5
I always hope that readers of this site get that I appreciate anybody who tries making comics these days, that it takes an admirable perseverance to even make it up to 5 issues of a series. Which is sad, but it is what it is, especially with there being very little hope of financial reward. That being said, I’m one of those odd reviewers who doesn’t really love slamming a book, mostly because it’s always at the very least a labor of love for the creator. But this comic… oh man. One look at that cover should tell you enough and no, it’s not a parody. Most of the sentences end in exclamation points, the anatomy of the characters is at least mildly awkward and, speaking for myself as always, it’s not the kind of thing I would ever willingly read. This issue tells the origin of that guy on the cover and the meeting of the team with Lizard Man, in case you were curious about the contents. My favorite line, and one that sums the whole thing up: “I use my special power for good – not evil!” There is a fair amount of campy fun to be had here, if that’s your thing, but there’s not a whole lot else here to recommend this. $1
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
It’s One Line
Full disclosure here: Eric is from Momence, IL, my hometown. It’s a place that has about 3000 people living in it, so it was something of a shock when I got an e-mail a few months back from somebody living in that town who also did small press comics. I was really nervous that I’d have to pan this comic, but luckily, it’s something that I’ve never seen before, so I have nothing but praise for it. See how that one line is sticking out over the left edge of the cover? Well, that one line is used for the entire comic. For any artists out there reading this, I’d have to think that that’s a pretty incredible feat. It’s impressive to me anyway; I don’t think I’ve ever seen in all the comics that I’ve read. OK, fine, it’s an impressive experiment, but what about the actual comic? Well, that’s good too. It’s about standing in lines in general. Waiting for a show, or being stuck in traffic, or the post office, everything that goes through your head while you’re stuck waiting and all the ways that lines effect your life. The lettering is (by necessity) a little blocky, but that’s distracting for all of the first page, then you get used to it. Kudos all around on this one, it’s something that I think more people should try. It’s $2, check out the website!
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
An Axe Fell
Looks like I still have a lot of work to do with the scanner. This color cover looks better than a lot of them did in the past, but I’d hardly say it looks great. Anyway, you didn’t come to this page to read about my scanner, you came to read about Brian! Or maybe you just wanted to check out a new artist, I don’t know. This is a tale about Brian losing a job he thought he’d have for the rest of his life and his inability to get back into the corporate game. The visuals in the comic tell a different story, but they perfectly illustrate his harrowing employment ride. Luckily it’s easy to see that life in the corporate world isn’t really going to lead to any kind of meaningful happiness (not to give anything away). Have I mentioned how pretty this book is? The art’s tremendous (good riddance for losing that job if it gives him more time to work on comics) and packaging on this book is something else, especially when I flipped it over and saw that it’s only $1.25. Go to the website and check it out, it’s well worth a look.
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Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Myspace page (probably)
Proof Positive
This is a collection of three stories written by Chris and drawn by three different artists. It owes a lot to the old EC comics like Tales From the Crypt, which could be either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view. I loved those comics, but they’re a really tough thing to pull off today, as they’ve been copied or made fun of so many times by now that it’s almost impossible to tell when somebody is paying homage or just using that theme in an ironic sense. Anyway, the comic. The first story (drawn by Rick Bonilla) is about a comedian making a comeback, but he has some old grudges to settle. The second (drawn by Jeremy Dale) is about an innovative jewel robbery, with a ludicrous surprise ending thrown in to keep with the theme. The third (drawn by Scott Reed) actually had me say “oy” out loud at the end, which I can’t say has happened more than a few times in my years of reading comics. It’s about the evils of vegetarianism, apparently, or at least in the EC way that I was telling you about. Overall the stories were interesting at least, even if that last one was, well, not that great. There’s potential here though, he just needs to work out the bugs, or maybe I just wasn’t able to get in that old-fashioned frame of mind, as I wasn’t even aware that that’s what he was going for until the end of the last issue. It’s probably $2, here’s his e-mail address and the website of the publisher.
Comments Off on Murrin, Chris – Proof Positive | Reviews | Tagged: Chris Murrin, Jeremy Dale, Proof Positive, Rick Bonilla, Scott Reed | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
E-mail
Stoopid Toons #2
Here’s a good random collection of stories from San Francisco (via Chicago), although one of the strips looks suspiciously like one of those Stripburger guys. I’d chalk it up to a cosmic coincidence more than any intentional similarity, as very few people around here have read those collections. Anyway, in here you have a severed pig head, resurrecting the dead, house music, and fucking a turkey. Just implied, of course, no pandering to the prurient turkey fucking crowd here. It’s funny and absolutely bizarre most of the time, which means that it’s a wonderful comic in my book. It’s $1, send the man an e-mail and wonder how long it’ll be until there’s a website with samples, because you guys should really see more of this than I should show here for review purposes…
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Posted by Kevin
