May 2, 2010
Website

I Hate My Mom’s Cat And Other Tails
Spoiler alert: if you can draw convincing (or at least amusing) cats, you automatically get a good review from me. It’s just that easy! This is all about Corinne’s hatred of her Mom’s cat, which was picked up right around when she left for college. It’s a fat beast of a thing, which is explained away by saying that it’s “fluffy”, which is also the excuse I use for my fat beast of a cat, so she lost my sympathy right away. The “other tails” mentioned on the cover deal with previous (and now deceased) cats, all of course much better than the current cat, all for different reasons. It’s a great read for people who love cats, or really, for people who hate cats, as the bulk of this book is dedicated to hatred. There’s also has a wonderfully mean-spirited ending that I won’t give away here, because why ruin something like that? $2

Comments Off on Mucha, Corinne – I Hate My Mom’s Cat and Other Tails |
Reviews | Tagged: Corinne Mucha, I Hate My Mom's Cat |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

The Backwards Folding Mirror #2
If I had an actual list of people I’ve heard of but haven’t read, Jesse Moynihan would be at the top of it. It’s a name that has been floating around for years, but as I mostly go by books I get in the mail or at conventions these days, I haven’t really had a chance to see his stuff. This comic is from 2005 (it’s 3/28/09 right now), but Jesse’s website does mention that this is a bi-monthly book. Sorry, I figured out that that was rarely true many years ago, and judging from his website and wandering around the internet this is the last issue of this series. That’s an imprecise way to judge, granted, so a bit more digging seems to show that he’s at least done plenty of other images, although I can’t seem to find any sort of a store that has a definitive pile of his comics. Note to cartoonists: make it a bit easier to find your stuff, as I’m usually lazier than I am today. Regardless, it’s easy enough to find this issue to buy, so I’ll shut up about it already. What’s it about? It’s a dreamy, disjointed thing, and I mean that only in the best possible sense. Things start off with a garden gnome the size of a regular human (or so) who finds his friend, the Sad Pony, suffering after breaking its leg. The gnome is asked to put the pony out of its misery, but upon asking another creature for help the gnome ends up watching the Sad Pony being carried away through the sky by… himself. Following this is a mostly subjective quest to find the pony involving an angry elephant, a dark secret, an expanding and contracting keyhole and some serious moral ambiguity. The second story is another half-awake, half-asleep kind of thing, dealing with the same gnome sleeping with his girlfriend. The gnome has a serious out-of-body experience, but calling out to his girlfriend pulls him back to reality and ruins the whole thing. Finally there’s another story about the girlfriend, as she wakes up and wanders into a lake to confront a hairy bird-like creature. Said creature pokes a hole in her head, which eventually leads all the way back to the Sad Pony, as the gnome enjoys getting to use the entire bed. There are layers and layers past what I’m conveying here, obviously, but the fun in these comics is figuring them out for yourself, or making your own reality with it. It’s gorgeous, haunting in all the right places and occasionally even uplifting. I also got the impression that the secret of the universe was in here somewhere, if I could just dig a little deeper…

Comments Off on Moynihan, Jesse – The Backwards Folding Mirror #2 |
Reviews | Tagged: Jesse Moynihan, The Backwards Folding Mirror |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Scott’s Blog
Website

Noble Boy
First things first here: this book is gorgeous. Seriously, you’re not likely to see a better looking book than this this year, or really in very many other years too. The colors, the layouts, the constantly impish persona of Maurice Noble floating around somewhere on every page… you could stare at this book for hours. It’s the story of Maurice Noble, a man who teamed with Chuck Jones for some of the best cartoons ever produced and did some damned fine work on his own for decades, and it’s also the story of how Scott Morse learned under this master about the craft and about life in general. My problem with this book is a problem I’ve had with other books, and it’s something that I don’t share with most other people: the poetry. The story is told with one full page picture on one side, the text on the other side, but the text is all done in four line rhyming stanzas. At times this works beautifully, and at other times it descends into doggerel, so says the man who mostly doesn’t like poetry anyway, so don’t forget to keep that at the front of your mind. Because that’s the only thing going against this book. The story is fascinating, although it would have been a bit meatier without the poetry and with a few more details, although short word bursts probably work best here with those stunning pictures constantly dragging your eyeballs over to that side of the page. So the bottom line here is that I seem to have just the barest idea of what I’m talking about, and all you have to do to decide if this is something that you’d like is to look at the sample and the cover. $12.95

Comments Off on Morse, Scott – Noble Boy |
Reviews | Tagged: Noble Boy, Scott Morse |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
E-mail

Church Vs. State
On occasion here at the old Sloth I go out on a limb with a comic, as contact information is often scarce, or the book is over 5 years old and I don’t have any idea how accurate it might be, those sorts of things. This one is a doozy. No name (the e-mail goes to jackmolech@hotmail.com, so I’m assuming that the guy is named Jack Molech. And you know what you get when you assume…), no clue of when this was made, and the only real clue is that this was made by something called “Naked Chick Publications”. Seriously, try and Google that. You probably shouldn’t do it at work or you’ll get in trouble (unless you work in porn), but no useful information. So why post this up here at all? Because I love a mystery and, well, why the hell not post it? I’m sure plenty of the books I list here have invalid e-mails or home addresses by this point anyway. So how about the comic? It’s a mildly amusing history of various religious leaders and how their followers did after the leaders died. The whole thing turns deadly serious in the last few pages, reminding us how the separation of church and state is under attack at the moment, and that’s one of the fundamental reasons for our liberty. So, is it a serious book or a joke? Or both, and the guy just felt the need for a moral of the story to round it out? Who knows, but it’s worth seeking out, even though the art is sloppy and the writing is all over the place. Or maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment and regular people wouldn’t like this at all… $.50

Comments Off on Molech, Jack – Church Vs. State |
Reviews | Tagged: Church Vs. State, Jack Molech |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website
King of the Lillies
Here’s the last of the Actus Tragicus stuff (again, all kinds of stuff at their website). Right up until the very end I thought I was reading the best of the bunch, but the ending feels like it was just made up on the spot with no thought for the rest of the story. The story is about a plastic surgeon and his love for a woman that he was raising after her mother died on his surgery table. She was trying to get him to implant a beard on her so that she could continue her circus career, as she was slowing down as a trapeze artist. Her girl runs away before the doctor can ask her to marry him, and he spends the rest of his time trying to get all the women who come to him to look just like his Lilly. A fantastic, thoroughly original read right up until the very end. Hunt down this bunch if you can, it’s definitely worth it.

Comments Off on Modan, Rutu – King of the Lillies |
Reviews | Tagged: King of the Lillies, Rutu Modan |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

Full Sanction
OK, first off, it’s not very often that I could say that I could probably draw a better comic than the one I’m reviewing, as my artistic skills are laughable, but this was as simple as it could be. That doesn’t necessarily matter in a book like this though. The concept is that one of the stick figure people wants a monkey but, because they all smell like “trash soup”, the other stick figure decides to get a sloth instead. Hey, points for sticking with the theme of the site, anyway. It’s a tiny, short book, one that I was smiling throughout, simple art and all, before the ending. Now, I won’t give it away, but it was tremendously unsatisfying, and probably not for the reasons you think. I think, and I’m not sure on this, that the copier cut off the bottom of the last page. It’s either that or the ending makes no sense at all. I think I get what they were going for, but it’s impossible to tell for sure, and that’s a pain in the ass. Look, I know the people at Kinko’s can be dicks, but you really have to make sure that all of your pages are visible. If somebody takes the minute and a half or so (in this case) to read your comic, don’t you want them to be able to get what you were going for? This book was cute and funny at times, but that last page was just annoying. E-mail the creators to yell at them or just check out the website, I can’t imagine this was more than a dollar.

Comments Off on Mochove, Jose – Full Sanction |
Reviews | Tagged: Full Sanction, Jose Mochove |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
E-mail

I Can’t Draw Theater #2
This is an excellent idea for a comic. If you can’t draw, why not just make your comic with pictures? There’s some process he used with these pictures, I think he may have even told me what it was at SPACE, and I forgot all about it in the months since. The story here is about a street hockey goalie who left an injured toe untreated for two years and eventually had to get surgery. It’s a good story (especially to somebody as biased as a former street hockey goalie like myself), and the pictures have an interesting effect. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why there wasn’t more story to this mini. Granted, the length of the mini is purely up the artist, it’s possible he just felt like this was the perfect length for this story, but hell, if it’s the art that takes most of the time in comics, why not throw in a few backup stories and bulk this up a bit? It seems silly to me. Still, if my only complaint is that it’s not long enough, that’s not much of a complaint at all, is it? It’s an engaging (if too short) story, and I like the concept. I would have just liked more to go on. No price either, but let’s say $1.

Comments Off on Mitchell, T. Perran – I Can’t Draw Theater #2 |
Reviews | Tagged: I Can't Draw Theater, T. Perran Mitchell |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010

The Extended Dream of Mr. D
The story here is that the main character went to bed, like any other night, and woke up, like any other morning, except for the fact that forty nights had passed. When he woke up he filled three notebooks with what he was dreaming about, and the comic is that dream. I’m guessing that it’s not a true story (a few things just fit too neatly), but it doesn’t need to be. The ending bugged me a little but I thought the bulk of the story was incredible. Max did a great job of making everything feel like a dream, which was absolutely essential to the feel of the thing. The main character, Christopher, runs into a few characters along the way, all of them either offering him things, taking them from him or both. This is probably time #154 that I’ve said this in these reviews, but I really don’t want to give anything away because it’s a great journey. I will tell you (it mentions this on this first page, so how much is that giving away?) that Christopher was deeply dissatisfied with his life and had to either keep dreaming or go mad. Intrigued? Well fine, go ahead and spend your Christmas money somewhere else. I thought it was great… OK, he doesn’t have a website but you can learn more about what else he’s done (and there’s a lot of it) here.

Comments Off on Max – The Extended Dream of Mr. D |
Reviews | Tagged: Max, The Extended Dream of Mr. D |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

The Prince of Golovec
Just plain fun. The theory is that you’re in a video game playing as a Prince. You get to make choices (already made by the author, of course) and follow along with the action. It’s done in the old Commodore 64 style and it looks like he has scanned Space Invaders and a few other older games that I don’t recognize. It becomes the tale of the Prince trying to find some ingredients for warm French onion soup to make an evil monster happy. Not much to this really, but it’s good clean fun.

E-mail him or just send him money at:
Pot Na Golovec 6
1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija
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.
Comments Off on Lavrencic, Matej – The Prince of Golovec |
Reviews | Tagged: Matej Lavrencic, The Prince of Golovec |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

Odd Jobs #1
Ah, the abbreviated last name. Always fun for a website like mine that at least sort of tries to keep things in alphabetical order. This is the first book of Eric’s that I’ve seen (unless he put out other stuff with his actual last name attached), but I highly doubt that it’s his first book. Either that or he was born with an innate knowledge of making comics. This series (and it better be a series after that ending) is about Chickenbot needing to find some work and heading out to the local temp agency. He gets to pick from a list, ends up with with the job of Werewolf Hunter, and sets out to complete his task. Once in the town he asks around about the beast and finds out that it has appeared 20 times and only killed 3 people and that the townspeople are utterly helpless on their own, unable even to clean up the dead bodies until outside help arrives. Disgusted, he attempts to back out of the job, but due to his terms of employment he isn’t allowed to get another job until this one is completed, so off he goes to confront the monster. No sense spoiling the rest of it, but I will say that most of the fight, if such a thing is going to occur, is going to happen in the next issue. The fun in this issue was getting to it, as Chickenbot is consistently entertaining, even if he does seem to have stolen his eyeballs from a character in the Neil Jam universe. It’s worth a look, although I’ll hold off going all nutzo about it until I see future issues. No price tag, but with a color cover I’ll go with $2.50 for no good reason.

Comments Off on H., Eric – Odd Jobs #1 |
Reviews | Tagged: Eric H., Odd Jobs |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

Lucky Dog Comics
Right off the bat, I’d like to say that I wasn’t expecting much from this. Call me biased, but anything with a cover like this just sends off all kinds of warning bells in my brain. Still, they had a table all to themselves at FLUKE, and they were both incredibly nice people and willing to trade to somebody as broke as me, so I have no problem at all with them as human beings. If that’s what I was basing this on, I’d say buy a million of them. This mini has the story of two 35 year old guys trying to pick up girls at clubs, a long random story about furniture and a guy with a railroad spike in his head, and a two page strip that always ends with the main characters falling in love. Sorry if that ruined anything for you, but it’s obvious after you read the first one, and it’s just the same characters over and over again. In case you couldn’t tell yet, this one wasn’t for me. If you like anime maybe you should pick this up, as you could relate to this. For example, I’m pretty sure the strip I sampled is funny if you watch a lot of anime, but I’m not sure. I’m putting it here just in case. The longer story in the middle isn’t bad at all. It kind of reminded me of the work of Mario Hernandez with, again, anime elements thrown in. It’s only a buck if you want to give it a try, but there wasn’t much in here for me to recommend.

Comments Off on Minuk, Shaindle – Lucky Dog Comics |
Reviews | Tagged: Lucky Dog Comics, Shaindle Minuk |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
E-mail

Tender Morsels of Mischief #1
I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that “S. Millionz” is not the actual name of the author. I’m going to go further out on that limb and call the author “he” from now on, just because. This is a good old fashioned mini: it’s a tiny thing, cheaply available for $1, with as wide a selection of random stories as is possible. There’s a couple of short strips (funny only if you can’t get enough of utterly disgusting humor), a young girl lured into a van with the promises of chess and soda, an odd conversation at the dinner table amongst some Greeks, a family that excretes different types of food, a Rabbi stuck in a room with some breast milk and a cat, and finally an unfunny one-liner. I sampled the one I thought was the funniest (as always), so that may or may not tell you something. Overall this was a mixed bag. I must be getting old, as the gross-out humor doesn’t do a thing for me anymore. If there’s more funny surrounding it or if it’s done for some other reason, maybe. Presented like this (with the last one-liner about crab being stuck in a dick hole being a prime example), it’s just not that funny to me. Crap, it looks like I may be maturing. I’m also mystified as to why S. draws most of his people as bags of goo with chicken bones as appendages. I would just assume that the man can’t draw, but the art on the rest of his strips is decent enough. It’s an odd ascetic choice. Two funny strips here means the man has some potential, and the “#1” is an encouraging sign if he follows through with a #2. $1

Comments Off on Millionz, S. – Tender Morsels of Mischief #13 |
Reviews | Tagged: S. Millionz, Tender Morsels of Mischief |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
E-mail

Loaf
This is probably going to sound like I’m picking on Todd, but I mean it as a general question: what’s the benefit of rushing to get something put together for a convention if you know it’s crappy? Todd mentions in his remarkably sloppy intro that time got away from him but he wanted to get SOMETHING out there, so he apologizes for this issue and promises to do better next time around. How does this help him in any way, or anybody who does this? All this does is get the very least of your abilities and talent out to people who are, frankly, tired of seeing shitty mini comics after a day or so of a comic convention. If you’re already an established or slightly established presence in the mini comics world, OK, crank something out, it’ll probably be better than nothing. Or do a 24 hour comic! If that’s shitty, well, it’s a 24 hour comic, what did you expect? But this… blech. In case you haven’t gotten the idea yet, yeah, I didn’t like this much at all, and it’s a shame that I have to trash something that is clearly not this mans best work. There’s a two pager at the start that goes nowhere, a couple of one page strips with remarkably stupid punchlines, a mildly amusing strip on unforeseen irony, and a couple of serious rush jobs on the back inside and outside cover (but hey, at least he wanted to fill up the entire comic). The bulk of the comic is a story about Santa Claus having a really bad year, as his wife leaves him, the reindeer are lethargic and the elves quit. It’s a long way to go for not much of a punchline, and it’s a little depressing when the funniest part of the strip is Todd hand-lettering the pages and making a crack about Kinko’s screwing up. On the plus side I did like the art, or at least I did for the pages that weren’t clearly rushed. If it seems like I’m being too hard on the guy, well, maybe I am, and I’d love to see something he’s done since then (this came out in 2005) where he made a decent effort, but this is a review for THIS comic, and this comic sucked. $2

Comments Off on Miller, Todd J. – Loaf |
Reviews | Tagged: Loaf, Todd J. Miller |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

Northangle Nocturne #1
I’d have to say it’s always a good sign when a book wins me over halfway through. That should go without saying, but it’s possible that I’ll start off loving a book and have it go steadily downhill from there, or just maintain a constant level of “blah”, and this one managed to avoid that. It’s the story of a tiny Massachusetts town that lost the only real business enterprise about twenty five years ago, and it’s become a shell of itself, trying to find the next big thing to get it going again. There’s a mayor who’s eccentric and possibly crazy, a man who collects stories, a wandering skeptic, and Sol Syllabub. Sol is the man on the cover, and he’s also the one who tells us (directly) most of what we learn about this town. Which, at the time, struck me as a ridiculous narrative contrivance, as the first part of the comic was set up like a regular old comic, and I really hate it when a writer suddenly starts talking directly to you in the middle. Well, after that gets explained a bit it’s what won me over on the whole thing, but there’s no sense in my blowing that for you here. It’s an interesting first issue, which may or may not fall apart with future issues. Hey, you never can tell, but the man is certainly off to a good start. The $5.75 price tag is insane, but it’s 40+ pages and it looks gorgeous, at least…

Comments Off on Miller, Russ – Northangle Nocturne #1 |
Reviews | Tagged: Northangle Nocturne, Russ Miller |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

Khaki Shorts #2
Technically this is apparently the second edition of this series, but it’s only notable to people (not me) who have seen the other stuff, so I’m just calling it #2. Just on the off-chance that anybody was worried about that. This is an anthology of various folks in the UK, there is no table of contents and some of the stories aren’t labelled, so I’m going to go with my best guesses. First up is a piece by Shug 90 called The Wildebeests, dealing with conspiracies over the years while substituting animals for the humans. Hey, it’s funnier than it sounds.  Next up is an ongoing story by John Miller called Star Trudge, and if you were guessing you had a 50/50 shot of getting it right: it’s a parody of Star Trek.  Once again it’s funny stuff (and I’m sensing a trend), as the Captain starts off waking up to a drunken crew and has a series of adventures throughout the book. Float by Martin & Adam Smith is next, which is about some guys who wake up, um, floating. It’s a long way to go for a poop joke, but at least it’s a funny poop joke. Generic Street by Alrite Miller (no, I don’t know if that is Rob or John either) is next, and this piece breaks the trend by not being funny but instead being extremely odd. There’s some genuinely odd imagery in here to go with word balloons coming from arms, and I’m not even going to try to explain it. Following this is the story from the cover, which immediately follows their story from the last issue, which leaves the reader a bit lost. The hyper-inflated superhero team and the incompetent archenemy bit looked like it had some potential, but three pages was way too short to get much of an idea. John Miller has a piece up next that makes me a bit dizzy to think about, as that panel structure was all over the place, and I’m frankly not entirely sure what was going on there. Dollyforce 2020 (by Adam Smith)follows and it’s the longest piece in the book, dealing with a group of kids and an adult trying to free their grandma from a small army of robots, all being controlled by a man with a crush. It meandered a bit but really came together in the end. There are two more short pieces by Rob Miller and one on the back cover by John Miller, but I’m leaving them a surprise for when you pick up this book for yourselves. Have I mentioned that it’s consistently funny? And when it’s not funny it’s thoroughly bizarre and inventive. I’ve felt all day vaguely like I got hit by a truck, so I apologize if this isn’t up to my usual standards, whatever they are. I just wanted to make it perfectly clear: you will not regret getting this comic. That is all.

Comments Off on Miller, Rob (editor) – Khaki Shorts #2 |
Reviews | Tagged: Adam Smith, Alrite Miller, John Miller, Khaki Shorts, Martin Smith, Rob Miller |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

Witch
Once again I learned that it’s never safe to assume anything. I kind of figured that a book with an intro by Peter Bagge would be one of those funny ones, and this is, at times. I guess it could be best summed up by “emotional roller coaster”, if that phrase could ever be cleaned from all the cliche Hollywood connotations. That’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s better not to get too complacent in a book. What’s it about? All kinds of short stories, mostly from her mini comics. She reminds me of… Lorna Miller. Seriously, she might resemble certain people for certain stories (the Jack Kirby story was fantastic. Who knew that domestic abuse could be funny?), but this feels like her book. There’s a story about Jane, wife on Tarzan, out on her own. There’s a recurring strip about “Angela” and her troubles with the world that feels at least slightly autobiographical. Throw in a depressing story about Catholic school that ends really abruptly, some diary-like stories about the Berlin wall and Lithuania that are done better than anybody except Joe Sacco (not that very many people do this, but this is done really well), and a lot of really short strips and you have a great, well-balanced book. I’m assuming that there is more material out there, so kudos to Slave Labor for putting this together so well. It’s pretty cheap (11;95) and a long read. Anybody who’s in the mood for something random but good, look no further. Check out her website for samples and other stuff if you’re curious.

Comments Off on Miller, Lorna – Witch |
Reviews | Tagged: Lorna Miller, Witch |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website (for Larned Justin)

As The Miller Told His Tale
I’d better clear something up right off the bat: Larned Justin put this book out, and the only contact info in here is for him, which is why I linked to his website up there. Anybody interested in getting this book should contact him so, until I get some sort of website or e-mail address for John, that’s the only contact info I have. Who is John Miller? He’s a guy out of Scotland who’s been making comics for at least 25 years, and these are a sampling of that time. His art, as you can see from the sample, is in that old psychedelic underground style which is almost completely missing these days, which I absolutely love. Stories in here range from one page to four, with most of them being of the short variety. What are the stories about? Well, here’s where things get a little less literal. There’s an underlying theme of fighting the establishment throughout this, which is just about the only unifying thread. Other than that, he deals with spies, repressive societies, records on a radioship, an elite group of special people, tongs, Blotto Woman (the best super-heroine ever), Zooty, Consumer Wars, bomb craters, and, of course, cats. Frankly, the stories in here (while I enjoyed them for the most part) are far less important than the art. That’s what really sticks with you, the sheer inventiveness of just about every panel. Rarely do I enjoy in the full page spreads as much as the actual story, but it was nice to see that art get a little room to breathe outside of those cramped panels. This is well worth a look if you’re interested in that ever-elusive “something different”. $2

Comments Off on Miller, John – As the Miller Told His Tale |
Reviews | Tagged: As the Miller Told His Tale, John Miller, Larned Justin |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

Ngaitana!
Female genital mutilation! That’s the nature of the random review grab pile I have on my desk, folks. Granted, I would have liked to have come back to reviewing after an exhausting election season and had something lighthearted and cheery, but the power of the random grab compels me. This was originally attempted as a 24 hour comic and Lupi says that it ended up being more like 48 hours. That’s fine, it probably looks a lot better this way. This is historical fiction, taking place in Kenya in 1956 after the Brits attempt to ban female genital mutilation. Crazy, I know, but this story is mostly about the young women of the time having a hard time accepting that fact and eventually doing the mutilating themselves. Who’s right and who’s wrong here isn’t discussed, as this does an excellent job of staying a fairly straightforward piece of historical fiction. One note for the especially squeamish: that cover talks about graphic images but it’s really only a graphic image, that of a razor being held up to a vagina. I still don’t know exactly what gets cut during the mutilation process (although I can infer from the image in here) and, frankly, I’m good without that particular piece of information lodged in my brain. This whole comic is up at Lupi’s website at the moment, along with other comics that (I’m only guessing here) have nothing to do with genital mutilation. All told it’s a fascinating story and I appreciate the ambiguity, especially with something that damned near every thinking human being has long ago disregarded as an absurd and horrific practice. No price, but let’s say $2.

Comments Off on Miguinti, Lupi – Ngaitana! |
Reviews | Tagged: Lupi Miguinti, Ngaitana |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

Gapo the Clown #1
Oh look, another comic about a drunk, gassy clown. Hilarious! I wasn’t expecting much from that cover (this was one of my blind grabs at SPACE ’07) and, well, I didn’t get much. About half of the tiny mini comic contains “stories” while the rest is sketchbook pages and the like, so you’re really not getting your moneys worth even if you like this type of thing. As for the actual content, Gapo burps, farts, shits his pants to top a farting baby, beats up an old lady for her denture cream, and pukes. Not a whole lot to analyze, really. That either sounds hilarious to you or not, I’m not going to be able to say much here to convince you either way. The art looks sloppy and rushed, and don’t get me started on the “you’re/your” problems. My only hope for this as a concept was that it was something Tony tried (he says in the intro that he did the character as therapy after watching too many children’s shows) and moved on to bigger and better things, but one look at the website kills that hope. Gapo is a twice weekly webcomic, and if you’re intrigued there are pages and pages of free archives. It does look better than the art in the comic, and he’s expanded his cast of characters (Gapo is apparently doing a children’s show now), but the punchlines are the same: burping, farting, and puking. At least he’s trying an actual story there, if I have to say something nice about this. Recommended if you’re 12 or have the sense of humor of someone who’s 12… $1

Comments Off on Miello, Tony – Gapo the Clown #1 |
Reviews | Tagged: Gapo the Clown, Tony Miello |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin
May 2, 2010
Website

You Are Here #3
Is there an expiration date on mini comics? This one is from olden times (2003), but I got it recently in the big Poopsheet mini comics sale, so hey, it’s new to me. A brief bit of research shows that Jen is still doing comics, or at least has done at least 5 more issues of this series. Well, she has a cover for Volume 2 Issue 5 up at her website, so she probably did a lot more than that. This is a collection of four stories, drawn in a fairly simple style (except for one where she uses collage), but it fits the tone of her stories. First up is Head Injury, which tells the tale of her time at 15 in a college summer camp and how she, after not getting any advice at the top of a huge water slide, apparently gives herself a mild concussion on the way down and is too embarrassed to say anything about it. Next is Children Run In Fear, as she trades haircuts with a friend who, it turns out, has no idea how to cut hair. She tries to salvage the mess, ends up shaving her head completely and well, you can probably tell from the title where it goes from there. Next is her collage piece, dealing with a dream she had where she and her boyfriend killed everybody on a cruise ship, told in collage form. It didn’t do a lot for me (although it was a fascinating dream), mostly because photocopied mini comics don’t convey collages very well and it was often hard to tell what was going on. Finally there’s her fictional description of four types of bosses, all of which, trust me, you’ve probably had at some point, assuming you’ve worked more than a few jobs. I’ve certainly had them all, anyway. So, bottom line, if you can find this it’s worth a look, flaws and all. I’d check the Poopsheet page or there’s always her website, although I didn’t see anything there that looked like a link to comics.

Comments Off on Michaelis, Jen – You Are Here #3 |
Reviews | Tagged: Jen Michaelis, You Are Here |
Permalink
Posted by Kevin