April 27, 2010
Website
E-mail
Events #0
Huh? I’m not sure what the proper response is to a 8 page comic with no idea what it is or what it’s about, but I’m pretty sure “huh?” sums it up. Let’s see… There’s a man, and he’s concerned about a woman, and it’s too soon for them to do… something… and then there’s a robot baby. I’m going against my policy of telling you what the comic’s about, but that’s pretty much it. So why’d I bother to put it up? Well, because I put everything up that people send me. It’s #0, so he obviously has plans for where it’s going. The art’s nice, even if the man is a bit too “ripped”. And there’s a robot baby! That’s enough to win me over right there. I’d say wait a few months until he has an issue or two out, but he might be worth a look. I’m guessing that this is $1 because it’s so small, and you can send it to 16 Payne Avenue Sag Harbor, NY 11963. Or you could just e-mail him and ask him what the deal is.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Monday
Everybody out there probably knows the story of the first week of creation from the Bible. Hilarious! Anyway, what, theoretically, happened in the second week? Can’t say that I ever gave it a whole lot of thought, but Andy sure did. This is the first day in that second week. God, after his day of rest, is nowhere to be found, and Adam is terrified. He convinces Adam to go with him to God’s headquarters as they try to find out what happened. Broken bits of animals are everywhere, and… I’m giving too much away. It’s an interesting concept, and he sure got me wanting more after this first issue. He also did an amazing job of conveying Eden, which is pretty impressive when it’s, you know, paradise and all. This is $3 and it’s looking like the e-mail address in here is no longer valid, but here’s an actual address: 1193 64th St. Emeryville, CA 94608. I’ll post website and e-mail info when I get something valid, but this is worth seeking out.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website (with information anyway)
Alternator
I have one basic, fundamental problem with this comic, then I can get on to praising the parts of it that I like: it’s not a comic. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there are words and pictures, just like in comics, but there’s just no need for them. The characters are never doing anything but talking. They’re either sitting on the bed ruminating, or on the couch doing a video diary, or laying on the floor talking on the phone, or sitting in a chair telling a story… there’s just very little interaction. This would have been better served as a fiction zine of some kind. Teacher Dream is the only story where people actually move, and they’re just sitting at a table talking, so they don’t move much.
All that being said, I still liked this comic, and that should tell you something. The stories were fantastic. Mostly filled with despair and hopelessness, with a little bit of cautionary dating thrown in. I loved the story about her brother making her a jewelry box in the mental ward too. So, should you buy this? Yeah, I think so. The art is a bit raw, but it’s almost completely inconsequential anyway. The stories make this well worth the price of admission, and she should only get better from here if she keeps at it.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
E-mail
National Waste #2
Great as this comic is, it’s invaluable for one simple reason: it gives recent contact info for Paper Rodeo, which is one of the best catalogs of mini comics in recent memory. You can e-mail the author to make sure the info is still current (the comic is about six months old so who knows) or you can just send a SASE and a couple of bucks to: Paper Radio P.O. Box 321 Providence, RI 02901. That being established, this is a wonderfully random collection of short comics. Throw in a Ben Jones strip and you have almost a perfect thing. Here are some of the subjects disussed: giant cats, sleep, D.C. Bird, robots, God getting a rectal probe, warplanes, and pizza. It’s hard to describe this without being able to show it to you, as everything in here is incredibly visual. Maybe that’s a stupid thing to say about comics, but there are people who use their dialogue to better effect than their art and vice versa, but this is something that really has to be seen to be believed. Incredibly inventive and eclectic, this is something that’s well worth the $4 Quimby’s was charging for it. E-mail him and get a catalog, if he’s still doing it, and order everything he has. I mean it!
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming
Add this to the list of books that I’m not sure what to think about. The characters were all done well, the art was great, it was just a bit… dull at times, I guess. Still, this has the feeling of a prologue more than anything else, and time will tell whether or not this whole series is worth getting. She’s off to a good start though, and I can see where the Xeric grant came from. This is the story of Amy, in theory, but it’s really about the whole town and all the people that Amy deals with. There’s a vast array of characters and I found myself flipping back to the character guide at the start of the book a couple of times, and that’s rare. I don’t know who to recommend this to. If you like fantasy, well, a lot of the fantasy elements are here (knights and dragons, for example), but nothing much happens with them. This is about the characters through and through. I don’t know, maybe the minis would be of some help. You can get them at the website, by the way, but there doesn’t look to be much in the way of samples there. The heart of any good story is good characters. If this really is a prologue, she’s set herself up wonderfully. If it’s not, I don’t know if this is strong enough to stand on its own. Talk to me in a few years when I have the answer to that and I’ll be able to tell you more about it. Until then, it’s still a fun story to read, if slightly puzzling.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
A Child’s Life
I’ve read Phoebe’s stuff in Weirdo and other publications over the years, but she honestly never struck me as somebody that different or vibrant. I’m getting pretty used to being wrong these days. This book is one of the more important things put together in recent memory. Bill Griffith says on the back of the book “Read this book. Find out why comics are art.” I hate it when I have nothing to add to the press clippings, but there it is. This book documents her upbringing and some of her teen years, and I won’t even begin to hint at all the horrible things she goes through. The fact that she came out of it (from what Robert Crumb says in his intro, anyway) unscathed is nothing short of astonishing. The offhanded way that she describes some of these atrocities might be unsettling for, I don’t know, everybody out there, but that’s kind of the point. Her art is incredible as well. I haven’t often seen that level of expressiveness in characters, and those sketches… Listen, you can’t go wrong with this. It’s a creepy, uncomfortable read because of the subject material, but it’s a completely open an honest work, which is rare in any medium. She said herself that she let herself be this open because she figured that most people didn’t read comics anyway. Well worth your time and money.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Midnight at the Oasis
I’m leaving the review above this one as I wrote it, even though I regret the tone of it, to show you guys a few things. One of them is that I’m not a nice guy all the time with these books, and the other thing is that I can be an unfair prick at times. It doesn’t matter how much I dislike a book, I always try to throw in some kind of positive remark (I know how hard it is to put out comics and risk people commenting on them), and I didn’t. No, I didn’t like the book at all, but there are more diplomatic ways to say that then what I did. That being said, I was glad to get another comic in the mail from Tatiana. An informed opinion is always much better than assuming the worst after one early comic. As for this book, well. I liked it a lot. This book has two stories in it, one about a vacation Tatiana took with her family to Tijunana (complete with pictures, the reason for which is obvious once you read it) and the other one is the story of the music she’s listened to throughout her life. A couple of thoroughly entertaining stories, well worth a look. I’m guessing it’s $2 or so, check out her website to see what else she has available.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Spyfi #2
Sometimes you really can tell a book by its cover. I saw this in Chicago Comics months ago and put off reading it until now. I guess it was my subconscious trying to save those 3 minutes of my life. Hell, you can all read the blurb at the bottom of the cover. Imagine it getting worse from there, and you have this comic. I kept waiting for the punchline, but it looks like this is for real. Want to read the dumbest dialogue ever? OK, probably not ever, but it hurt my eyes to read it. Obviously corrected lettering, misspellings… The art was the best part of this and it was just OK. Sorry, but this didn’t do a thing for me. It mentions in here a project that Tatiana has with David Lasky, so I’m guessing that she’s capable of better, but yeesh. E-mail Tatiana or Craig if you’re feeling masochistic…
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website (sort of)
Lies
What a tiny, tiny mini. There’s not much to go on here, but luckily he’s one of the many comics creators who knows the value of a good website. All kinds of samples here. Scott drew a strip called True Artist Tales for a Houston newspaper for 10 years before deciding that he wanted to focus on larger, more self-contained work. The samples here are almost too tiny to comment on. These strips are about trying to eat while hunters are talking in gruesome detail about some of their kills, popping a zit with alarming results and finding that special item in the supermarket. Not bad stuff at all, but I’ve always been a bigger fan of comics work than strips, with a few very rare exceptions. Some of the strips on his page are pretty damned funny though, and it looks like he’s making a serious effort to create some longer works, so it looks like we’re going to have to wait to see what he’s really capable. If you’re thinking that I probably shouldn’t have put his name up if I didn’t have much to say about him yet, that’s not the way I see it. In my opinion, if somebody sees his name here and sees that I’m excited about whatever he puts out next, maybe they’ll think twice about buying it when they see it, instead of just passing it by. Unlikely, maybe, but I’m living in a dream world and I think we should support whatever he does next. If it sucks, well, that’ll be a different story. But this didn’t suck, and most of the strips that I read on his site didn’t either. Got it?
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Tits. Ass & Real Estate
What left for me to say when Robert Crumb sums everything up in his intro? Her style is undeniably messy and unpolished, and it would be a tough sell getting anybody who doesn’t read comics to look at this. That’s a shame, because under all the messiness are some great stories. Eve has had a hard life, and that’s putting it mildly. She’s done every drug in creation, she’s been homeless and has had all kinds of crappy jobs. She’s not afraid to tell every sordid detail either. Stories in here are about her travels, her real resume, some fiction about various people that she met and all kinds of musings. This is an ugly book but it’s well worth $10 or so to check it out. There’s also a great interview in the back of the book so you get to actually hear from the author of these tales about her motivation for writing them and how she uses some of the horrible things that happened to her as therapy. Here, in case you thought I was kidding about it being messy…
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
E-mail
Chaos #29
No, that’s not the real name of the creator of this comic. And, frankly, I have my doubts that that e-mail address is still valid, as the website it’s connected to sure doesn’t seem to be working. So why do I bother? Mostly because I’m always impressed when a comic hits double digits (let alone #29), and my theory is that somebody out there knows who made this comic, where they can currently be contacted and whether or not they’re still making comics. After all, 2005 wasn’t all that long ago. So how about the comic? It was mostly funny, which makes being unable to figure out who made this even more annoying. First up is the only long story in the comic, a 6 pager about a fake drug that lets the user control the minds of people within ten feet of them. Once they get outside that range, however, the person they were controlling knows that they were used and is bound to get a little angry, so they have to work fast. Naturally guys start using this to trick women into having sex with them, but this is a little tougher than the users initially think. The rest of the book is mostly one page strips including a fake ad for drugs, a list of personal worsts in terms of drugs, the fact that the author doesn’t know anybody who has ever tried heroin (starting to sense a theme?), a fascinating story about Rube Waddell (look him up, you won’t be sorry), a conversation about the new remake of Assault on Precinct 13, Iraqis voting, how to break into underground comics and a recruiter trying to get soldiers to reenlist. This leaves the one other (slightly) big piece: a story about a recruiter who successfully talks a young kid into joining the army. So, really, that’s why I’m writing about this even though I have no idea who did this or how to get more copies of it (other than through Poopsheet, as they do have absolutely everything): he/she talks about current events and even gets a little political. Well, that and the comic is gorgeous, as you would expect after 29 issues of practice. It’s worth a look if you can find it, and if anybody knows more about this please contact me. Oh, and if you can find it, according to the cover, it’s free…
UPDATE: Thanks to Rick Bradford of Poopsheet and Larned Justin of the mini comics world for letting me know more about this guy. It turns out that he just up and quit one day after cranking these things out for years, so it looks like the only way to get more copies at the moment is through whatever stock Rick has left in his store. Still, I thought it was funny and worth pointing out to people, so it’s something to keep an eye out for, mostly for the people who dig through bargain bins at the better comic stores, I guess.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Blood Orange (with art by Grant Lee) Now Available! $.50
It’s always mildly demoralizing when I see a review quote on the back of the book that’s miles more insightful than anything I’ll ever say. Ryan Claytor (yes, that Ryan Claytor, the one with all the books for sale on this site) nails this book on the back cover, and I’m going to do the best I can to ignore that quote and press on. This is, essentially, a childhood memory. There was a week when Justin (at least I’m guessing it’s Justin, what with him being the writer and all) ate nothing but oranges. They had a tree in their backyard, his parents had had a check bounce and there was no margin for error for such things. This brief comic follows the progressing mortification of his parents, even as Justin admits to it not being all that bad at the time. Of course, he was a small kid who went along with it being “just a game” to eat oranges all week, but outside of not being able to avoid thinking about it whenever he drinks orange juice, I think he came out OK. It’s even timely, what with the current recession and everybody cutting back on non-essentials. It’s worth a look, and as they sent along some extra copies for the store just to get a little exposure, here’s hoping that cheap price will convince some of you people to check it out. $.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Dirty Beast #1
Just so I can get it out of the way in the first sentence for people who like easy comparisons: this comic reminded me more than a little bit of Arsenic Lullaby by Doug Paszkiewicz, except funnier. This mini is a barrage of short pieces with no story titles or anything to indicate any changeover in the story, except of course for the fact that the story changes. It got me wishing for another page or so more than once, so I think that means Chris was doing his job as an artist. Or he was failing miserably in not satisfying me with however many pages he already had planned out for each individual story, depending on your level of pessimism. As it’s pointless to review humor bit by bit, I’ll just give you some of the general themes (along with the early comparison to Arsenic Lullaby for reference) and you can decide if this fits your humor level or not, OK? There’s awkward touching, an adaptive prostitute, wanton destruction, finding humor in a stroke, sex follies, getting the pictures of strangers developed, swimming with sharks, and kidnapping. That’s probably vague enough to not give anything big away, don’t you think? I chuckled out loud a few times while reading this, and those empty white eyeballs in his art had me damned near hypnotized after awhile. Definitely worth a look to see where Chris goes from here, as more genuinely funny comics (sad that they’re as rare as they are) are always a good thing. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
The Factor #0
Here’s another case of a book being 5 years old, but I did get it at SPX in 2003, so I’m guessing he’s still working on it. It’s basically the human angle on what happens behind the scenes when a superhero comes and saves the day, with three short stories in here. They all have different artists too. The first is about the news networks response to a superhero, which they’ve apparently never heard of before. The second is about one of the tellers involved in the bank robbery that started the whole thing daydreaming about the superhero during a date with her dull boyfriend. The last story is about a crook trying to take advantage of the new fame of “The Factor” (yes, that does seem to be the name of the superhero) with the other crooks. Here’s my obvious problem with this. Nat mentions in his intro that it took years to get this to print, that he actually had this concept before Astro City and others. The thing is, whoever had the concept first, they did it a whole lot better than this. Not that it’s terrible or anything, the art is always adequate and the writing is fine, it’s just not as good as the other stuff, so why bother? That is one man’s opinion, obviously, but there you go. Here’s an e-mail address, it’s entirely possible that this series got a whole lot better in later issues…
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Bob #1
When is it too expensive for too few pages? I don’t think there’s an answer to that, but I will admit to almost putting this back on the shelf. I had about $30 to spare until payday and more bills to shake a stick at, and this is $3 for 9 pages of actual comic. Granted, it’s in color and it looks incredible, but it’s still serious money when everything else is a buck or two. I guess that means it’s lucky for Jay that I really liked this tiny book, huh? Well, for one thing, he’s a 15 year professional. I guess he stopped for a while in there, but he apparently did some Grendel stories years ago, and man can he draw. He takes what could be a silly, generic character and makes it real. The story so far (as far as I can tell) is that Bob (whatever he is) is flying around when he hits a rock, crashes, and loses his head. I’d tell you more, but it’s not a big book and it’s best to keep as many surprises as possible. If my opinion is enough to convince you of buying something, well, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Go to the website for info about a few different comics people, and if you like the look of the sample here, well, you decide what to do…
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
E-mail
The Orgasmic Faces of Lucifer
Is there a word for a comic that’s barely even half comic, with the rest of it being sketchbook filler? “Halfsies”, maybe? There needs to be a word for it so people can avoid it right off the bat if they’re looking for a whole comic. I bring this up, obviously, because this is one of those. It’s a damned shame too, as the story in here is pretty funny. Titled “He-Man Goes To A Party”, you can probably guess what it’s about. The various other characters don’t want to invite Prince Adam (He-Man’s alter-ego, for those of you who didn’t watch this cartoon as a kid) to the party because they see him as a narc. Eventually they run out of beer, so decide to call the guy to bring some beers, but Prince Adam has already called the cops because of the noise. What follows is an unfortunately brief scene of mayhem. The only other thing that could even slightly be called a story here is a two pager that starts and putters out because Ryan got tired of it, then many pages of pinups and sketchbook stuff. Well, not all that many pages, really. I like his art a lot, which is what makes this such a frustrating comic. There’s potential for a lot more from this guy, at least from the tiny bits I’ve seen here, but this comic doesn’t come close to covering that ground. No price, so let’s say $2.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Puddle Love
Hooray for cute, wordless minis! This one is about an elephant who thinks he sees the elephant of his dreams at the bottom of a body of water that he’s drinking from. Not much to this one, honestly, but it’s done well (in red ink on a gray background with a little zipatone thrown in) and it’s entertaining. A good book to read for about a minute, smile or reflect on it quickly and then move onto the next book. The back of his book says that he has a couple of other things available, but this was done about three years ago. This one is a buck, by the way. He says he has Yip! Yap! Comics for $2 and Dogs and Their Lunches for $1.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Nisha #2
This one was a hodge-podge of stories. Nisha is a comic that he started last year, kind of a La Femme Nikita but with silly comic dialogue. At times, anyway, as sometimes it was just fine, other times it made me groan a little bit. I’m curious to see just what makes her tick, as she seems to be unlike most of the spy characters that I’ve seen, but the bits with the “henchmen” and the captive husband and daughter didn’t do much for me. Most of the rest of the comic was filled with something called Wally W. Weber, which is a Dilbert-style strip about office life. A funny punch-line here and there, which is about all I can ask from that type of thing. My favorite thing was the back page, which I’ll put up here for you to see. Check out the website, as he puts up pages from Nisha as he finishes them.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Super Tube! #5
Once again, I should always check for an address before I start to review something, because it’s incredibly frustrating to know that nobody can ever buy his book. Luckily, this is going out over the internet, and I’m sure somebody somewhere in the comics world will eventually read this and tell me where I can find this guy. Right? Right. Anyway, the book is great, that’s why I decided to put it up here. I loved the writing style, even if he admittedly didn’t have a clue how it was going to end or what was going to happen next. It felt a lot like something that Paul Thomas Anderson would do. This is #5, so he obviously had some time to perfect his writing, or maybe he was just great to begin with, I don’t know. Anyway, there are all kinds of stories going on here at the same time, and it mostly doesn’t make any sense, so it’s going to be kind of hard to explain. Ok… naked bank robbers, bounding balls, drunk driving, underage drinking, spaceships, police, screwing cows. Get the picture? If and when I get the contact info up here, order this thing. It’s probably the best thing I’ve read in the last month, or pretty close to it. Almost too self-aware at times, but that’s hardly a crime.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Blue Collar Invasion #1
There’s a really great premise for a comic series set up in this first issue. The “Galactic Community” sees the progress Earth is making towards reaching distant stars and decides to set up a base on the moon, minimally staffed, to make sure we don’t spread our war-mongering and resource-devouring behinds into outer space. As time goes by, with nothing but tv to keep them entertained, these aliens eventually get to like Earth culture. This was all said in a recap that was filled with all sorts of typos and grammatical errors at the start of the book, which continues to bug the hell out me, so I’ll continue to mention it when I see it. If you can get past that, this is more of a preview than an actual issue. The aliens nab a pizza delivery guy (for the pizza), decide who’s going to get stuck giving him the probe and play video games. It’s broken down into one page segments, although to me it would be better served as more of a continuous chunk, but I’m just some guy with a website. Once you get past the grammatical and spelling errors that possibly only bother me anyway, the art is gorgeous. Rob has obviously put some time into designing these aliens (he includes some sketchbook pages in the back) and there are some imaginative and creepy things on the horizon, even if this issue only had the three mostly plain aliens. I’m very curious to see more, although I wish he would have somebody read over the dialogue before putting out #2. The possibilities here are endless if he sticks with this concept…
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Posted by Kevin
