April 24, 2010
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Raven’s Children #9
Anybody out there who’s been reading this series on a regular basis knows of the ongoing conflict between Jained and Jemer. If you haven’t been reading this series regularly, then why are reading a review for #9 anyway? In any case, this issue looks to resolve that conflict, and it does it in a pretty interesting way. Not much more I can say about that without giving a bunch away, but take my word for it. As for the series as a whole, I’ll get caught up with where it is one of these days. It has to be on at least #13 by now, as I got this and #10 at SPX ’03, and it’s the kind of thing that is definitely best read in chunks. The art’s looking better than ever and the story is completely engaging. Check it out. Seriously now, there’s a graphic novel and everything, you’ve run out of excuses. $2! Oh, and for once it’s not my scanner screwing up the sample, it’s just that the panels for the page I wanted to use drift over to the next page. It’s a nice effect, it just doesn’t translate well for a sample. Maybe I shouldn’t have used it then? Logic has no place here!
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Raven’s Children #8
This is kind of like a review for the last three issues (6-8), so bear with me. This universe of hers is really starting to come together. The only real problem I had before was that some of the characters kind of ran together in my head, probably because I read the issues as they came out and there wasn’t enough space to properly give them each their own identity yet. These three solve that problem nicely, as chunks of time are given to a lot of the characters and I’m finally starting to get a real feel (I think) for what’s going on. A complaint, or suggestion maybe, would be to not put different storylines on the same page. #7 had a chunk where the top part would be dialogue between two characters, establishing motivation for both, while the bottom part would be two completely different characters and what they were up to. It was a bit disconcerting and I just read one bit and then the other after a while, but maybe my short attention span is the problem here and nothing else. This story takes patience, there’s no doubt about that, but the rewards for that patience are already starting to come. It’s not like I read a lot of fantasy comics regularly, but this is the best one I know of currently going. Check out her website to see what her schedule is like and get the first book to see if this is for you.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Raven’s Children: Shadow of the Snow Fox Part One
I already reviewed most of these issues separately (though in my usual rambling, barely-even-mention-what-the-plot-is kind of way), so I’m not going to get into too many specifics here. You already know that I like this series and, as this was the first time that I’ve sat down and read a chunk of them in a row, I have to say that I was impressed. It was obvious from the beginning that she had things planned well in advance, so it wasn’t that shocking to see how well little things fit together, or how throw-away lines were actually completely thought out and planned (the appendix to this book is a tremendous help, but not essential if you’re just looking for the surface story). What really surprised me is that while the art, and especially the lettering, got substantially better as the book went along, the actual writing was never less than stellar. It’s 1/21/04 as I’m writing this, meaning that the second book is probably either out or about to come out, so that means you can get a huge chunk all at once. This is something I’m going to have to pay closer attention to, as I’ve just discovered that the rewards are greater if you read it all in a row. It’s $14.95 and you can get it on her website.� Seriously, it’s worth a look.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Raven’s Children #4
Well, this one eased my worries about keeping a consistent schedule a little. She has the writing and the art down (I think), her main problem is sticking with this and letting people discover it. The trade is available too on her website, and that collects #1-5 even though, as far as I know, #5 isn’t available. Here’s hoping that I’m wrong about that. This issue is more of the same, meaning essentially that it’s more of the story that left me wanting to just keep reading. I’m a sucker for well-written fantasy comics, what can I say? If you want my advice, get the trade. That way there’s a big enough chunk available so you can really tell what you think about it, for better or worse. Uh-oh. I just checked her website and it said that #5 was supposed to come out in May and #6 should come out this month. Now, I work at the local comic store (we’re both in Champaign, IL) and I would think that they would get it if a new one was out, but I could be wrong about that. I’ll post more here when I know it…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Raven’s Children #3
OK, let me get a few things out of the way first. Consistency is what’s essential for a series like this. Your comic can be the best thing in the world and it’s not going to matter much if people forget what happened in the last issue because there hasn’t been a new one in a year. I’m happy to say that it looks like she’s keeping a regular schedule, so no worries there. I wasn’t sure what to expect out of this and am happy to say that I liked it quite a bit. The fact that I couldn’t wait to get to the next issue (hell, the next page in some cases) is about as great of a compliment as you can give to a series. The art gets better all the time and it wasn’t bad to begin with. It’s obvious too that she has this whole world already set up in her head, as the tiniest things are explained in the back of each book. It was also a good idea to explain things like that without disrupting the flow of the story. Don’t worry, she didn’t go all Dave Sim and explain the hell out of things that people don’t care about. She kept it all pretty short and pertinent. If these samples aren’t enough, go to her website. All kinds of stuff there. Hm, maybe I shouldn’t have picked the last issue to review, because now it’s going to be tough to explain what the series is about. I’ll make it vague: it’s about repercussions, ancient history, dogs, a “peace” conference, and relationships. Which barely scratches the surface, but there you go. Buy the first issues, sit back and enjoy the ride. That’s what I’m doing…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Tardcore Comics #2
Please read the review for Tardcore #1 before coming back to this one, as it’ll clear up my basic opinions of this sort of thing. Done? OK, good. Now that you know where I’m coming from, how about this issue? Well, it’s one big story, not the few stories pieced together like the last issue, so it’s much easier to either love it or hate it. The story is simple enough, and even slightly heartwarming, at least for a few panels. In the world of the aliens from the first book (you know, the one that wanted the bum to touch his mar-mar), retardation is not acceptable, so every time a retarded baby is born, it is killed and eaten immediately. However, in a large, fancy ceremony, the queen of these aliens has a retarded baby. She loves the little creature instantly and decides to hide its retardation from the world at large… but that can only last so long. Eventually the�child gets out and, as babies are made on this planet simply by touching the mar-mar, soon the child learns the pleasure involved with getting his mar-mar touched and this alien world is visited by a plague of retarded babies. Oddly enough, I enjoyed this one quite a bit more than the first one. Maybe just the mood I was in at the time, but the art in this one is even better than the first issue (and that’s not one of things I had a problem with the first time around anyway), and this is a story that was really helped by being the focus of the comic instead of one of many stories. Granted, it would be nice if some of the spelling mistakes were fixed (“thrown” for “throne”, the eternal wrongness of “your” instead of “you’re”), but in a story this ridiculous, it’s not going to be the straw that broke that old camel’s back. Either you’re going to enjoy the sheer absurdity and offensiveness of the story already or you’ll hate it, in which case a few spelling errors aren’t going to be what drives you away. Worth a look if you like this sort of thing, and the sampled page isn’t like most of the rest of the issue, but I couldn’t resist posting the part in the story where the author loses all hope and questions everything. $2.99
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Tardcore Comics
Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m really starting to wonder if I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. I think this is a book I would have thought was hilarious 5 years ago, but now… not so much. It’s all about the gross-out humor, which has made me chuckle in the past, but didn’t get a thing out of me here. There are two big stories and the one page that I sampled, in case any of you didn’t know what “mung” was. First is the story of an alien trying to convince a bum to touch his “mar-mar”, and second is the story of Billy blowing out his asshole while trying to win a weight lifting competition in high school. Both of these are told in gruesome detail, and I can’t argue with Lee’s talents when it comes to drawing the nasty stuff. The writing is fine too; there are some genuinely funny reactions from people when Billy is trying to hold himself together. It’s a cop-out, granted, but maybe it’s just me, getting older and significantly less interested in this sort of thing. If you haven’t reached an advanced stage of fuddy-duddytude yet, check it out, it’ll give you a good laugh or two. If you have, please feel free to join me over here, holding my pinky in the air while I read only the finest of the fancypants comics… $2.99
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Tripe #1
Wow, after the previous two issues on this page, this one ends up looking downright wholesome. It’s a collection of short pieces, not a coherent single story like his previous books. First up is a fairly dopey but good-natured piece about a traveling sno cone salesman, complete with a little dance number in the middle and an abrupt ending. Next up is the highlight of the piece, in which Frankenstein and his girlfriend are having an argument about her past history with the Wolfman. Well, she’s having an argument, Frankenstein is mostly groaning. Then there’s an absolutely adorable silent love story, involving a Ziggy-ish creature falling for a woman he sees while walking around, although it does get a little less adorable in a hurry. Finally there’s a piece about a man with an unhealthy competitive streak who’s unable to beat a mentally handicapped kid at bowling. There are moments of hilarity all over the place in the final three stories, only the first one here didn’t do much for me. Not a bad ratio for a $2 mini…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Rashy Rabbit #4
You know, I’m starting to get the impression that things are never going to end well for Rashy. In this issue we get to see the hilarious fate of Morie after his quest for the lesbian, Rashy dealing with his stoner cousin (who seems to have effortless luck with the ladies, unlike Rashy), Rashy dealing with his mother, and Rashy being the nice friend who doesn’t take advantage of the drunk, seemingly interested female friend. Josh has this sad little world thoroughly nailed, and this could easily turn into something vast and rewarding over the next five years, with all sorts of subplots and twists and turns. …or he could drop it completely to focus on other things or because of a lack of free time from his “real” job, as seems to happen to most people. Either way, enjoy the funny while it’s around. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Rashy Rabbit #3
I do believe, for all you obsessive compulsive collector type geeks out there, that the previous issue was actually Rashy Rabbit #1. Or this issue is really Anxiety, Sleep Problems & Depression #3. I have no idea which of these is right, which must be driving you compulsive types crazy, but you’ll have to live with it. Or go to his website and research it, if it makes you so crazy. Anyway, the comic. Rashy seems to be in a pretty crappy place in the world, as the comic starts with even a seedy massage parlor turning him away. Things seem to be looking up as he happens across a possible job (at a coffee shop) and an attractive pot dealer, who promises to “hook him up” later in the evening. Things fall apart in a hurry from there, of course, but half the fun is watching it all happen. There’s also a subplot with Rashy’s friend Morie who is trying desperately to get into the pants of a lesbian at work. The art is phenomenal again, with all sorts of little things happening in the backgrounds of panels (my favorite was the mama bird bringing back a used condom to feed her baby birds), making this one of those comics that rewards you for repeated readings. It’s a great read overall; you can just feel Rashy sinking deeper and deeper into the shit as the issue goes on. $3, stay away kiddies, here there be boobies…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Boom Boom #4
Hey look, a flip book! Are you allowed to do that if you’re the only person involved? Well, Dave sure thought so back in 1994. There are plenty of interesting stories in this one, mostly largish biography pieces. The first side of the flip (the sampled cover) deals with the story of John Lee Hooker, a legendary blues man if you didn’t know, and how he slowly rose up and made money singing the blues, even with his unique style. Following this is a story of Dave as a young artist learning his craft, trying to anticipate where he should go with his answers and picking up a lot through it. Once you flip the book over there’s a dense, thickly black (just a mildly different artistic style) tale of Pablo Picasso in a quiet time, telling the story of his early years to a woman he’s just met. Finally there’s an utterly random piece detailing the adventures of the Iron Duke fighting his way free against a giant eyeball. It manages to be short enough to stay funny and still packed enough to tell a very quick story. Sure it’s a parody, but he manages to keep the story logically consistent, and that’s no small feat. Again, this is almost certainly out of print for those of you without time machines, but it is worth seeking out if you have resources, or one of those rare comic book stores in your area that has old mini comics available. Or do those places only exist in my head?
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Boom Boom #2
Here it is, another in what’s turning out to be a long line of “what do you mean this guy or girl doesn’t already have a page here?” posts. It may have taken me until 2010 to put the guy up on my website, but he was one of the precious few comic artists that got me hooked on this mini comic business. His adaption of Ulysses into mini comic form was a thing of brilliance, and that probably should have been the comic I posted first, but hey, that just leaves something good for later, right? This particular issue is, essentially, a birthday card to his dad. He wanted to do something different for his dad’s 55th birthday, so he asked a bunch of relatives and friends to tell their favorite stories of the man and illustrated them. He kept things interesting by illustrating these tales in a lot of different styles, including old school Popeye, Matt Groening overbite, and Peanuts, including a few more that I probably just didn’t recognize. Stories in here include his dad growing up, running away from home and picking cotton at the age of 13, volunteering to discipline some neighbor kids, telling the kids that they’re going to the zoo and having the day fall completely apart, never paying his parking tickets (and eventually getting his car booted), accidentally joining a spa for the elderly, and how he had an endless supply of stories to tell his sons at bedtime. It’s sweet, it’s funny, and even if you’re too cold-hearted to care about am over-sized birthday card to the guys dad, the variety of artistic styles alone should be enough to keep you interested. I didn’t see any way to buy these on his website but, as is often the case with these mini comics folk, somebody really should put all this older stuff into a collection of some kind. It’s a shame to have so much of it be impossible to find trivia at this point. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Window #9
I probably should have checked here before ordering another random issue of this series, but this is looks to be self-contained, so no continuity issues here. This is all about Dave sitting through a fire alarm at the school where he teaches and watching a fight that seems to alternate between serious and joking around. He seems amazed by the lack of willingness of the people around to do anything to stop this fight, and there’s an especially disgusting finale to the whole thing. There’s also a tiny story at the end about why people don’t seem to mind if there are racial epithats on the walls. Anyway, it looks gorgeous and it’s an interesting mini. This seems to be one of those comics where you could do a lot worse than read a bunch of them in a row, which is somewhere on my to-do list along with reading every comic in the world… $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Window #6
This is the trouble with picking only the latest issue of a series when you’re picking out stuff on the indispensible USS Catastrophe site. Chances were pretty good that I wouldn’t be entirely sure what was going on. This is an autobiographical strip, or at least it appears that way, about Dave going through an old journal, having a conversation with a couple of kids about angels and a man getting his head smashed on the steet, Dora (one of said kids) getting teased and harrassed at an art center, and a conversation Dave had with a student in his art class. Unless I read that last part wrong and he’s not an art teacher at all. It doesn’t matter. This is as honest and heartfelt a comic as I’ve seen in a while, and another one of those where I feel the need to go back and catch up with what I’ve been missing here, and there’s no greater compliment to a book. Oh, and he seems to be friends with Chester Brown, which can never be a bad thing. If you like the autobio stuff as much as me, this is something that you’re not going to want to miss. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Stray Bullets #30
After what’s been going on in this series lately, this issue could almost be considered a break. And there’s a happy ending! You might think that I’m giving too much away, but the title of the story is “Happy Ending”, and how much does that really give away anyway? The story here is that Bobby takes a gun to school to impress his classmates. Not that much funny there, but there’s actually a funny line here and there. Compared to most of his stuff, this is almost lighthearted. Kind of a “break” issue in the big story (at least that’s my judgment, but what do I know), but that almost makes it a perfect comic to pick up and try if you don’t know where to try out this series. Why don’t I have the website linked anywhere up there? Oh well, it’s fixed now.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Stray Bullets #29
Did I say that that last issue was a good place to start? No, actually the best place to start would be at the beginning, that was only if you were broke and wanted to pick up one of the issues instead of one of the collections. Honestly, I’ve read this in chunks that have been too spread apart for me to know how coherent this has been from the start (I’m getting to it, really I am), but it’s really coming together now. This has become the best noir comic going and David even has the common decency to put it out on a regular basis. This issue is about the police trying to find Virginia Applejack, who you may remember from way back in the third issue (or the second), or maybe from other parts of the series that I’m too lazy to reference right now. Contact info is way up there but I’d still recommend that you get the books to see what’s going on here. There aren’t many comics out there that come out on a regular basis and are this engaging, so buy it already.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Stray Bullets Vol.1
I think this reviewing thing is a virus sometimes. Here I am, sitting at work at the comic store. I realize that I haven’t read Stray Bullets in a while so I sit down, read it… and I realized that the section on my page for this book was blank. Damn you website, why can’t I just read one book without blabbing about it? Ah, my problems, they are serious. Anyway, I thought that maybe this book wouldn’t age well, what with the incredible work he’s doing these days with the series. It’s different, sure, but the kernals of what makes it so great now are right here. All kinds of familiar faces too, but I’ll learn more about that when I get through the whole run. In these days he mostly only did stories from issue to issue. The first story (unrelated to the rest except for the fact that it introduces the mysterious “Harry”) is about a couple of hired goons trying to dispose of a body. Nothing is ever that easy in this series, as you’ll see. The second story is about a little girl who witnesses a murder and has one of the most… what the word when it feels like your stomach just jumps out of your body? That’s what the ending is like. The third story is about a party after a job and it introduces all kinds of characters that come up later: Beth, Nina, and Monster that I can remember, and I’ve never read this stuff all in a row. The fourth story, well, I don’t want to ruin anything for you but it took the edge off one of the other stories in the book a little bit and has a completely unexpected ending, what with the theme of everything else in here. If you haven’t read this series yet, this is one of those cases where the first book is a perfect place to start. It’s only $11.95 too, so it’s not too expensive to just go crazy one day and buy the whole mess of stuff…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Murder Me Dead
There’s only one reason that David wasn’t one of the first people that I put up on the page, and that’s because he doesn’t have a website. Stupid, I know, and it takes away from the point of having most of the page be dedicated to small press stuff. What’s more small press than not even having your own web page, even if he is getting some kind of “mainstream” (it’s ridiculous to even use that word in connection with comics) acceptance? Anyway, I decided to sit down and read this whole series at once today, and I can longer accept not having him on the page. This was a long, good book from somebody who was already very good at telling short stories. This is a noir tale about a man who has his rich, aloof wife kill herself and the problems he deals with from there. It’s not as simple as that, obviously. He finds an old crush from high school, and there’s the current mistress he has to deal with. Throw in a private detective hired by his mother-in-law who wants desperately to see him suffer and you have a smorgasboard of deceit and betrayal. Nobody involved in this is an innocent in any way, and the story had me guessing right up until the very end, which is all you can ask out of a story like this.
Even with as good as this was, it was obvious that he’s still learning. He had this planned as an eight issue series and it ended up being nine, with the last one being twice as big. I thought it could have been shaved down just the slightest bit, so maybe he should have stuck with the original plan. Still, it’s tough to use a lot of the noir dialogue in the modern day, so it’s tough to say that it would have worked any better if it was wordier and shorter than it did when there were large silent chunks in this to tell you what was going on. This is a major work from somebody who is still learning his trade (don’t forget the fact that he’s prolific, which is so incredibly rare in quality comics), and I for one can’t wait to see what he does next. I’ll put a link up to buy this as soon as I find one, but until then you can always just contact the author if you’re really interested and don’t live near and good comic shops, as most of them would at least be able to get this: El Capitan Books P.O. Box 351508 Los Angeles, CA 90035.
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Reality on the Rocks #1 (written by David Arroyo)
If you’ve read the other stuff on this page, you’ll be happy to know that this issue is better than the other ones. The only real gripe I have is that the black people in this book are written like they’ve never seen a black person, or if they have they’ve only seen them in bad movies. The boobs, which were almost overpowering at times in the other books, have been trimmed down to more realistic levels, which is a good thing, because this book is about young people going through life as realistically as possible. It’s basically about four people. One of them is addicted to video games, another one is doesn’t have much of a personality at all yet, and the other two are the very odd black guys. It’s hard to say too much about a book like this until you get a few issues worth of personality. I don’t know how good the prospects are for that, frankly, because there wasn’t any kind of publication date for #2 in here and it apparently took about three years just to get this issue yet. If I had to give Juan any advice at all, I’d say to stick to one series and get a few issues out, see how that goes. If those aren’t the characters you want to deal with, move on to another series, as you have a few to choose from. Just my advice, anyway. Contact info is up there, as always…
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Posted by Kevin
April 24, 2010
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Esoteric Hunters #1
Just yesterday I was begging to read a crappy book, as I had read nothing but good stuff for a long time and was afraid that I was going soft. Well, this is a crappy book. It’s half of a split book with Faire, reviewed a bit further down. What’s this about? Well, have you seen the movie Blade? Do you remember the scene with the vampires dancing in the spray of blood from the sprinkler system? Substitute werewolves in for vampires, and you have this issue. Oh, and somebody named Cristopher in the role of Blade. Yes, it really is that simple. The art’s not terrible, although it’s one of those “boobs a’plenty” artists (which is odd, considering that Michelle, the artist, is probably female). The writing is pretty much the cliched stuff that you’d expect from a movie ripoff, with the added bonus that the grammar is terrible and punctuation is nonexistent. Look, I always try to say something nice about the comics I review, but there really isn’t much positive here. The stories might be going somewhere, I guess, but they’ve both gotten off to such a terrible start that I don’t really care where they’re going. They should (if they want my advice) consider this a learning experience and start on their next project. Here’s a website, check out their stuff for yourself.
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Posted by Kevin
