O’Malley, Harris – Between the Cracks: The Bride

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…


O’Keefe, Paul – Panda & Jess: Jeopardy

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…


O’Connor, Lee – The Confessional

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.


Novak, N. James – Pigeonanity #1

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.


Nichols, Travis – Hold Fast, Sisters and Brothers!

May 2, 2010

Website

holdfast1

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?

holdfast2


Nichols, David – Fastidious Frog #1

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


Newsome, R.L. – Kate and Leopold

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.


Newman, Al “Owl” – The Abstract Artist

May 2, 2010

Website

PDF file of this comic

abstract1

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.

abstract2


Neveu, Brett & Sparks, Richard – A Stoopid Pigeon Treasury

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…


Nelson, Jennifer – Pumpkin

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…


Neely, Brad – Creased Comics #1

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?


Neal, Nate – The abc’s of Truckhead

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!


Myers, Steven – The F.E.D.S. #5

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


Myers, Eric – It’s One Line

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!


Musikoff, Brian – An Axe Fell

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.


Murrin, Chris – Proof Positive

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.


Mullett, Jeffrey – Stoopid Toons #2

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…


Mucha, Corinne – I Hate My Mom’s Cat and Other Tails

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


Moynihan, Jesse – The Backwards Folding Mirror #2

May 2, 2010

Website

backwards21

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…

backwards22


Morse, Scott – Noble Boy

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