Optical Sloth

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Blammo #5

You can already tell it’s going to be a good day when a new Blammo arrives in the mail.  If Noah gets Wilford Brimley to read that in a commercial I believe that he’ll be set for life, assuming Wilford Brimley is still alive and is willing to do a commercial for a comic book.  Noah decided to take a little break from his Abe Lincoln graphic novel after getting the urge to release another Blammo into the world (and after life threw his girlfriend one of those “you have got to be fucking kidding me” problems) and I’m glad that he did.  Um, not of the circumstances that led to it though.  Not a fan of that at all.  Stories in this issue include a thank you note to all sorts of people, the adventures of the fastest (balding) man in the world, practical jokes with a time machine, chickens resuming their endless wanderings (and being accosted by both skeleton people and cops), a very old and mysterious haunted house (and all of the strange stories that come with such a thing), his reaction to constantly being asked to draw science fiction stories, how he would fare in prison, the many freaks that ride Greyhound (and how he had to wait 8 hours in the middle of nowhere after a clearly faked bomb threat), a clinical description of paranoia and a chance encounter with an old crush.  Like last time Noah has used every tiny bit of this comic, clearly emulating the Native Americans of old, and it really does improve the whole package.  See, this is what I’m talking about when I bitch in reviews about the importance of doing the basics correctly.  There are letters, praise from other comics folk, links to people he fancies at the moment, little comics crammed into blank spots and even an update on his life.  And did I mention that the whole thing is in color?  It bears mentioning.  Look, I’ve already praised this guy up and down, there’s no longer any excuse not to check out his stuff.  I’d say just send him $20ish and buy the whole set of #1-5, but that’s just me talking.  $5 (not $4 like the cover says, which is going to cause him no end of troubles, I’m sure).

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Blammo #4

To give you readers a peak behind the scenes here at Optical Sloth Inc., generally speaking comics that come in the mail come with some form of letter, usually just a post-it or tiny note that requests (or occasionally demands) a review, and about a quarter of the time they come with no notes at all, correctly assuming that when I see their comic in the mail that I will instinctively know to review it.  Spoiler alert: I review every comic that comes in the mail regardless of the note.  Really, if you’ve sent a comic that I haven’t reviewed, it’s because I never got it.  Anyway, the point of this intro is to note that on very rare occasions the comic comes with an actual letter, clearly with a bit of thought put into it, and this letter was wonderful.  A bit daunting, as at the end of it I’m told that the future of the underground comics scene is in my hands (as if I’m the only guy out there rambling about underground comics), but this is just a long, rambling way to say thanks to those actual letter writers out there.  Hey, isn’t there a comic I’m supposed to be talking about?  Well, assuming that anybody made it past that long intro, it is, once again, a wonderful thing.  Stories include taunting a neighbor with a gorilla mask, getting to them before they get to you, the true story of the Denver Spider-Man (it’s not what you think), an absolutely hilarious chicken story (picked up, more or less, from the last issue), a bad dream that goes just fine until his nose falls off, how Bob Dylan influenced a young (er) Noah in his wandering around years, and a longer piece about a masked artist and his inability to face the world without his mask (because he’s brutally ugly).  Noah gets all kinds of bonus points from me for not wasting even a tiny bit of space, as there are letters on the front inside cover and extra comics on the back (including an excellent tip for avoiding panhandlers).  The Denver Spider-Man was my favorite of the non-funny pieces, as it tells the true story of a man in 1941 who lived in a tiny, tiny attic of a house until he was caught stealing food and killed the owner of the house.  It was creepy and fascinating, and definitely piques my curiosity about his upcoming Abraham Lincoln graphic novel, something that didn’t really interest me until I saw this.  Of course, I have no idea if he’s doing a serious Abe Lincoln story or something involving Abe as a cyborg child molester, but either way I have no doubts that he can pull it off.  He also mentioned on his back page that reviewers didn’t seem to be getting the chicken stories and that they weren’t supposed to go anywhere; they were just fun.  Fair enough, I’m easily caught up in the idea that all stories are supposed to go somewhere, and this time around the thug who was going to beat up a chicken from the end of the last issue gets rocks thrown at his head, lodging in his nose and the back of his skull, and this whole story had me laughing out loud, always a good sign.  And that bit about us all eventually turning on each other was brilliant.  Well, more ramble there for your buck than usual, but there’s some really great stuff in here, Noah is doing everything right as far as I can tell, and clearly I have to do my part to get the word out.  He says this is in my hands, but really it’s up to you people to buy his books.  All I do is talk about them and he needs the cash to survive.  Won’t all you good folks help him out?  $4

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Blammo #3

I must have said this a few hundred times by now, but it remains true: three cheers for random submissions.  Sure, it’s nice to have the regulars send in all their new books for review and see them develop as artists.  Or give up completely, as a bunch of them end up needing to avoid poverty and quit with the whole comics thing.  That being said, Noah has all the potential to end up being one of that rarest of cartoonists: one who will be able to eke out a living through sheer talent alone.  This isn’t meant to indicate any lack of talent on his part, as this is still early days for his work and he already has plenty of things down pat, it’s mostly due to the fact of the tiny, tiny number of people who read these things.  How about that new year pessimism?  Anyway, the strip sampled below is brilliant, with many of the other pieces reaching that level.  He has everything from longer pieces to one page wonders, including the pathetic tale of Carter (a man with no neck and no luck with women), the creative stimulation of a horrible breakup, a long piece about two chickens wandering through the desert that didn’t seem to go anywhere (but it’s “to be continued”, so who knows), the story of his poor and crowded childhood, whatever happened to Scott, the daily struggle to get up and go to work (and as somebody who called in “sick” today for no reason, I can relate), accidental Daisy Dukes and his inevitable fate.  There’s one other thing that I love on his website: if you send him $50 he’ll put your name in his next comic.  A brilliant idea, and I am hereby stealing it for this website, so get those donations in!  Seriously, other than the chicken story, this was a great comic all the way through, and even the chicken story had the best “chickens on acid” page I’ve ever seen. Plenty of sample comics on his website (and even a few in color!) and, like he says on the cover for Blammo #2, he probably is a future cult favorite.  If you don’t get in on the ground floor you won’t be nearly as cool as you think you are.  $4