April 27, 2010
All the Wrong Places
Here’s another one of those people who was recommended to me so often that I finally broke down and bought the book. See, I really will get to all those people, it just might take me a little while. Anyway, the setup to this book is pretty simple. There’s a young man who is taking care of his terminally ill mother while developing a “relationship” with a woman who is seeing someone who is away in the military. OK, maybe it’s not that simple, and it gets a lot more complicated from there. It’s a quiet, contemplative type of book, dealing with loss, betrayal, and regrets. Not exactly a pick-me-up on a Sunday afternoon, but a book that I feel better for having read. Tom knows what he’s doing. He must have had a lot of experience with minis that I haven’t seen. Or he has a natural gift for pacing and telling a story over the course of a six issue series, it’s hard to tell. Can’t find a website anywhere, but here’s an interview, if you’re curious to learn more about the guy. Click on the title link if you’re interested, or send $15 plus shipping to: Laszlo Press 34 Moorland Road Rochester, NY 14612.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Bum Action
Well, I guess it’s not exactly a pseudonym, but I still have no idea who John G and Kevin F are. Plausible deniability later in life? Who knows, but there’s a functioning website (with links to two others on that website), so you can satisfy whatever curiosity you may have about these two. As for the comic, you can probably get a good idea of what’s going on here from that cover. This deals with a day in the life of a few bums (subtitled “What time do bums wake up?”), culminating in the collected bums sharing an ancient can of potato soup. A fairly amusing book, although the deep blacks all over the place do swallow up a bit of the dialogue. This is a tiny thing, so it’s probably around a buck, maybe you’ll have better luck than I did searching around those websites…
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Boy’s Club Now Available! $5
In case you were wondering, yes, things stay pretty much the same as that sample throughout. This is the story of four roommates drinking, smoking pot, hallucinating, puking, drawing crap on the faces of their sleeping friends, farting, eating a giant hot dog, catching the bird flu, dancing, and watching tv. The hallucinations are the highlights, as there’s nothing quite like watching these creatures evolve, devolve or just generally freak out. I know there’s more going on here, but the overwhelming impression you’re left with is of drunk and/or stoned college guys messing around, doing their best not to do anything remotely productive, and the whole thing leaves me feeling kind of “meh”. It’s amusing enough on its own, more or less, but would get old in a hurry with a second issue without some major changes. That’s what I think anyway, chances are Matt could make this into a regular series and become a millionaire, it’s not like I have the slightest idea why the tastes of America are what they are. $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Magic Everywhere
Eliza sent this tiny little wisp of a comic to me over the holiday (and, as you can tell from that cover, clearly got the season right), a silent mini about, you guessed it, finding magic everywhere. She’s out at the tar pits and, while chasing a snowflake, stumbles across something much more interesting. You’ve got a hand printed, gorgeous cover and a tiny message of optimism to start the new year. What more could you ask for? $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Bittersweet
What a creepy ending… geez, I don’t want to give anything away, but… Another book from the Actus Tragicus folks (check out their website! Try to get them to put this Victor series back in print!), this one is about a man who works at a chocolate factory and a girl who has been chosen to be the mysterious girl of the month. The art is blocky but incredibly expressive and the story itself is, as I mentioned, just plain creepy. well worth checking out and hunting down, as most of the books in this series seem to be. Did I mention that there are samples of the other work from these people on the website? For the curious, there you go. And you can get more than a few things from the Top Shelf website, in case you were wondering.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
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Random Milk #2
This was a totally random purchase from when I was out in L.A. There was nothing all that striking about it, but it did help that it was only $1. Was it worth it? Well, not really. It was OK, but that was about it. And it’s not that I’m writing off their talent (although they don’t say who does the writing and who does the drawing so I don’t know who is responsible for what). I’d love to see something that they’ve done in a couple of issues. They seem to have their hearts in the right place, but so does everybody who puts out their own mini. There was one page with a parody of Fisher Price dolls and it was funny for a second until I saw the bottom of the page where they apologized in case they might have offended anybody. Just in case either of them ever reads this, I have one piece of advice for them in their young careers: never apologize! If you’ve done a piece that you think later was wrong or just plain stupid and you regret doing it, then it might be OK to apologize. If you’re just doing a page where you’re afraid that you might offend some Catholics reading, and you think that it’s funny (and they must have thought it was funny or they wouldn’t have put it in the mini) then you have nothing to apologize for. Stand up for your work because by apologizing you risk offending everybody involved with your wishy-washiness. Overall it was kind of a mess without any one piece standing out as anything over average. Still, if you want to give these kids a dollar to encourage them to keep trying:
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
E-mail
French Lessons #1
Most people out there who’ve rented apartments have at least one story about a horrible roommate. Sometimes it’s some random stranger who you were forced to live with out of convenience, sometimes (and this is the worst case scenario) it’s somebody you’ve known and trusted for years and they suddenly become a rampaging asshole/lunatic. My last roommate in Champaign certainly fit that bill, as he went gradually insane. Unlike this comic, however, I was never threatened with physical violence, or at least not until I was safely out of his house and he knew that he would probably never have to make good on his threats. He was a real hero! Anyway, enough about me. I’m rambling, believe it or not, to make a point. Some of the best comics for me are the ones that I can personally relate to, and at least try to learn something from. This one certainly fits the bill, and it was even based in Chicago. It looks like he’s planning on doing these on a number of different subjects, but he certainly has my support. Oh, the synopsis, in case I went around it without actually telling it: Dale moves to Chicago and basically only knows one person, the old friend that he moves in with. Said friend goes insane, threatening physical violence, and Dale moves in with another friend. He goes back to the apartment to get the rest of this stuff to find… but why ruin it? It’s a good read, and it says a lot about the value of true friends (and they’re harder to come by than you might think) in more ways than one. Here’s an e-mail address, this is $4 because it’s huge!
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Beyond the Kuiper Belt #1
Am I being a little too optimistic to give these guys their own page when I have so much crap stored on the assorted Various pages? Maybe, but judging from their website they do make a fair amount of comics. This is what they call a “graphic novel magazine”, which sounds like they were just picking comics words out of a hat. Hey, it could all make sense if they keep these stories going and serialize them in a few years. The first story is Killer Cortez (by Keith Murphy, Alex Rivera & John Escobales) dealing with an, um, killer. We’re given the basics on his background and meet him while he’s fighting other people in something resembling an arena. He’s taken captive by some people who need him for a political dispute (although he was captured off-page, which was a damned odd and confusing choice if he’s the baddest of killers), and it’s tough to say much more about this without reading future installments. It has potential but the writing can be a bit stilted. The art’s amazing though, no troubles there. The other comic story is Black Roses (by Matt Ryan & David Kaminski), dealing with a crew of space pirate ladies, their captives and a floating pile of parts they manage to assemble into a robot. Again, it’s tough to get too much from this short piece, and things were flying around so much that it was a little tough to keep track of what was happening, but it has some potential once the characters get established. There’s also a short story by Michael Glenzel but, at the risk of losing my reviewers card, I didn’t read it. Lost interest almost right away, which is far more of an indictment on me than it is on the story one way or the other. One thing I really liked is that this book started and ended with words from Maximillian Lehrer, a man who lets the reader know the purpose of the book, the history behind it and gives us peeks into the future. Throw in a hefty (and quite possibly fake) letters page and it really makes the comic. Little extra things like that always get bonus points from me, as I’m all for widening the range of the average reading of a comic (or graphic novel magazine). For that reason alone this is worth a look, even if the jury is still out on the actual comics. $3.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Seafood
Here’s a gorgeous silent comic about underwater creatures and something like an average day in the life of a tuna fish. Informative stuff, but not in a dull way. In the back of the book there’s a long rant about the delicate ecosystem of the ocean and how our hunting of certain types of fish have long ranging implications that we never even think about. I have one question about the whole thing. One of the things that Josh says that we can do to help the whole problem is to “vote right”. I follow politics pretty closely, all things considered, and I can’t say that I’ve ever heard any of them talk about the plight of the tuna fish, so I just don’t get that comment. Still, a intricate, fascinating comic that’ll do quite a bit to make you think about things that (at least for me) you probably haven’t thought much about. Here’s a website, this one is $4.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Website where you can buy this
Time Warp Comix #3 Now Available! $.75
OK, technically this is a Dan Taylor production (as this is a series of anthologies he’s working on) but, as this issue is Brad Foster only, I thought it was a good chance to get the man a page on this site and have his links be more readily available. Brad has been doing comics for as long as I can remember reading them, even if I’ve mostly missed his stuff when it was out. I do remember that he did an adults only comic many years ago (the title has gone down the memory hole) that led to me realizing that it was possible to see naked ladies in comics and not have parents or authority figures pester you about it because they were, after all, just comic books. This is a shortie and the story is mostly Brad bitching about how much better things were in the old days, when people actually had to draw their own comics and wait by the mailbox if they were trying to put together an anthology. Trust me, it’s much funnier than it sounds. It’s only a buck and this is somebody you kids today should know about, if you have any interest in the history of mini comics…
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Snake Oil #1
Ah, the random submissions, they do keep me going. This one has just the right mix of a definite story starting somewhere in the confusion and thoroughly random plot points that’ll probably all come together in the end, assuming Chuck doesn’t give up on things completely. Things start off with Tim and Bob together in a restaurant. Tim is down about a breakup so Bob is trying to cheer him up, but Tim vanishes after a strange man and two men with the head of buffalo take him away in a black body bag. Meanwhile Darryl, Bob’s son, finds a pipe and his friend Kim smokes it, putting her in a damned near catatonic state. Oh, and Tim wakes up in a field and finds a small naked boy in a tree, trying to reach his father who is flying overhead in a plane. Where is all this going? What the hell is going on? No idea, but that’s the joy of first issues, especially the ones where there seems to be a master plan at work. There’s also an excellent unrelated story at the end of the book, dealing with a drunk man who may or may not secretly be a giant bird. Probably not, though. It’s $5, fairly hefty, gorgeous and more than mildly thought-provoking, so what more do you want?
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Monkey Food: The Complete “I Was Seven in ’75” Collection
I have to admit, I was ready to give this book a bad review. Most books can’t save themselves after 50 or so pages of so-so stuff. Then it slowly dawned on me that it wasn’t mediocre stuff, it was just stories told in a really low-key fashion. When you’re done with the whole book you have a really great portrait of what it was like growing up in the 70’s, which is all the more impressive because of the fact that these strips were done mostly in weekly installments. She tells about dealing with the possibility of someone figuring out in grade school that her last name rhymes with “horny”, going to a nudist camp with her parents, her stupid dog, traveling, and her parents getting in trouble for having pot, among many other things. It totally won me over, anyway. I don’t know if she’s still doing a weekly strip, but she has a few samples on her page. Unfortunately it’s only a few samples, so you’re going to have to make up your mind from those (and the one I’m putting up) as to whether or not you’re interested. I think she’s worth a look, but who am I anyway?
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
What Are You Going to Do!?!?
Here’s another tiny mini from FLUKE. How much can you say about a book that’s only 8 pages, with one big panel per page? This is the story of a boyfriend and girlfriend sneaking up to the top of a school building to skate. Just them having a conversation and looking at the stars, nothing more complex than that. It was over before I had a chance to register much of an opinion, honestly. It was OK, but it was one of those things where I’d need to see more from the guy to be able to really recommend this. Check out the website, maybe you can find more to help make up your minds there…
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Flung #2
I’m going out on a limb with this one because it’s in my pile of older minis and I’m not entirely sure that this guy is still around. No date on the comics but I think I got them a couple of years ago and his website isn’t coming up, but I did e-mail him to see what was up so you’ll know soon if you can still get this. This issue is autobiographical (as is the first one) and it’s done pretty well. Just the story of G. going out with some friends, leaving the bar sexually frustrated and running into some really beautiful prostitutes. A moral (and monetary) dilemma follows. The problem with a lot of autobio is that the author doesn’t really have much to talk about, and that problem is taken care of here with a thoroughly engaging story from his life. This was a lot tighter than the first issue, which was still good but had a few short stories. The (almost) issue length story suits him well. True, this book isn’t going to set the comics industry on its ear any time soon, but it’s a solid, well done comic. Well worth the $2.50 he’s asking for it, assuming that anybody can find him. Here’s his e-mail address. Hey look, he was kind enough to send me the address for his site, which has Flung #3 up on it! Here’s his address too: P.O. Box 241 Kirkland, WA 98083.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Life of the Party
I’ve been a fan of Mary’s work for as long as I’ve been reading independent comics, I just didn’t know that she had a book out until recently. For those of you who can’t wait to know what I thought, that means yes, I loved the book. I’ve long thought that she was vastly underrated and that she should be one of the rich and famous comic people, but apparently I’m in the minority in that. What you get here is the best that autobio can offer. Her life was fascinating and she doesn’t hesitate to tell a lot of the sordid details. Unless, of course, these are all just invented stories and I’m just falling for it, but it really doesn’t matter. The important thing is that the characters are compelling and the situations are fascinating. What more do you need? She also invented a type of cartooning called “cubism”. It’s basically just… well, look at the cover. There you go. Sometimes it’s used to incredible effect, when characters are in severe distress (or extremely happy through drugs or sex or whatever). Other times it throws off the rhythm of the book for me, but those times are rare. This is pretty cheap at $14.95 considering the amount of stories in it, and there really wasn’t a bad one in the bunch. The stories include her playing bass in a band, talking about her roomate with giant breasts, surfing, dealing with abusive boyfriends, killing slugs, her lesbian experiences… All kinds of fascinating stuff. If you haven’t been reading comics that long you might not know who she is, as she apparently doesn’t do much in the field these days (anybody out there want to fill me in if I’m wrong?). I think she’s incredible, somebody that I would mention in my top ten of favorite comics people of all time.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Star Babe, 510 Enchanted Way, San Antonio, TX, 78260
3-D Pete’s Star Babe Invasion Special
That’s a bit of an awkward title, but you probably get the idea: this is a comic (mostly) about various attractive women in older science fiction movies and tv shows (mostly). Ladies, if you’re instantly offended, all I can say is that Mike mostly used images of faces, so it’s not like he was a total perv about all this or anything. Bookending this comic are two examples of Raquel Welch in science fiction stories, and they’re not the ones that you’re thinking of. Assuming that you were thinking of Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years B.C., that is, as the examples Mike picked were from her 1970 TV special (that you can find at You Tube) and her guest appearance on an episode of Mork & Mindy. Next he talks about the 1954 movie Devil Girl, its strengths and weaknesses, and goes on to draw how it would look today with an actual budget. He follows this with a dozen babes (hey, I’m just going to use his language for the purpose of this review) from Lost in Space and the original Star Trek, and wow did those pictures kick in the nostalgia part of my brain. The sampled page is next, a brilliant retelling of his watching the show with his family and how it challenged him to think. Now we get to what had to be included in this issue: full color centerfold! Not as salacious as you might think. There’s a bit of quiz next, as you have to match the pictures to the actual actress. Sadly, my dork cred isn’t nearly what I thought it was, as I only got the two obvious ones (Princess Leia and Barbarella).  I almost sampled the next page instead of the Star Trek story, as it’s an image of a scientifically accurate space babe, and she’s just about as horrific as you might imagine. Finally there’s an excellent two page story about Gort (from The Day The Earth Stood Still), with some fun facts about the movie and the various actors involved. Finally there’s an “interview” with Gort which was one of the few things in the book that I didn’t like, but by that point the comic had already won me over. This is for anybody who grew up on science fiction movies and shows from about 1950-1980. Ok, more specifically men, but there’s enough stuff here for geeks of both genders. $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
The Tenacious Facts of Life of a Woman
Who here really loves poetry? Anybody out there keep up with any of it on a regular basis? Just curious. This book is the interplay between a letter that a young man gets from his father and his own interactions with the world. The writing is fascinating, stream-of-consciousness type stuff. It’ll take a few reads of this book to get everything out of it, and I feel kind of like I cheated because I only read it once so far. Lots of good observations about women and the world and about man’s animal nature. This isn’t for everyone, but it’s stuff like this that Xeric should be funding, so I guess all is right with the world. Go to the website and check out what it’s all about, won’t you?
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Minimum Wage Vol. 1
How many times in the past year have people told me to read Minimum Wage? A whole bunch. I came close to buying it a couple of times, but it was one of those things that I never had the money for. Now that I’ve read the first book… I’m an idiot. So the collected book has the second half AND 40 new pages? OK, before I get started, if you missed this one completely like I did… go get the collected edition. I’m guessing, I suppose the second half could fall apart or something, but this first book was incredible. It’s basically the story of Rob, an artist who makes a living drawing cartoons for porn magazines, Sylvia, his girlfriend who seems to be more than a little bit crazy, and Jack, Rob’s roommate who seems to have a few issues with the idea of Rob and Sylvia moving in together. Before you dismiss this as a soap opera, there’s a whole lot more to it than that. Bob explores making a living doing something at least slightly degrading, going to clubs when there’s no reason to be out, public sex, private sex, public urination in open wounds… There’s all kinds of stuff in here, and some of it is probably going to be pretty disgusting to you. The fact is that the man has an unbelievable ear for dialogue and I can always appreciate someone who packs his panels with as much stuff as he does. Damn it, I can’t afford to buy a collected book when I’m moving in a few days. Anyway, buy this, read it, and love it.
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
Website
Untitled
Actually, there is a title on the inside cover, I just can’t read it. You know the gang script you sometimes see plastered on walls in shady neighborhoods? I’m not nearly cool enough to read it, so I’m leaving it untitled. The closest thing I can come up with is “Gaycore”, and chances are that isn’t right. Anyway, how about that comic? There are three different stories in here, with a few pinups mixed in. First up is a crazy man rambling on the street about his time being the champion of the earth fighting martians, among other things. Generally it’s funny stuff, a good start to the comic. Then you have the bulk of the comic, a story that I’m really torn about. It’s a silent tale of a man fighting his way up through floors of various ninjas and monsters. It’s a good concept, but it isn’t pulled off well. For one thing the same page is printed twice in a row two different times, making following the story almost impossible. Then there’s at least one case where the hero gets out of an impossible situation by… who knows, maybe that page got eaten when he copied the wrong page in. I’m torn about the whole thing because the ending of the whole thing is fantastic, nearly making up for the chaos that came before it. Lastly there’s a sword fight on the roof of a comic convention, a decent enough story, but it feels like it’s in the middle of a much larger story without letting the audience in on that fact. There’s plenty here to build on for future issues, that’s for sure, but this one is a bit of an uneven mess. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 27, 2010
David’s blog (about comics, mostly)
E-mail
Soft Anchor #1
You can pretty much always get a thumbs up from me if you start a comic series off with some serious ambitions. You know, something like a projected 50 issue storyline or, in this case, David’s attempt to apparently tell his life story. Why is that considered so ambitious? Well, in the first issue of his series he’s only dealing with being seven years old. Assuming he’s in his 20’s now and given the rate most minis are produced, that’s leaving a lot of story yet to come. It’s already obviously a worthy story, given some time to grow and advance. This is basically a series of events from when he was seven, and it took a dozen pages or so for me to feel comfortable with the pacing, as he essentially hopped from event to event with no warning. Once it clicked with me though, I couldn’t imagine a different way to tell his story. It’s not like the memories of most people from when they were seven are a coherent, linear storyline, so why not just pick up on the memorable bits? In this issue David talks about his abusive (but religious, as that’s always a good excuse to beat your kids) father, playing doctor with a friend, lying about his birthday, wanting to be a ladybug in a play, and spending time with his grandmother. He needs to work on the lettering, as there’s no reason for it to be that sloppy (just erase the pencil outlines completely), and there’s some serious stiffness with the characters and their body language. Still, those are things that are worked out with a little practice, and the core story here is fascinating. $3
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Posted by Kevin
