April 23, 2010
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Ogner Stump
Andrew clearly has no interest in helping reviewers like me along, as he seems determined to call every mini he puts out “Ogner Stump”. Oh well, if that’s the biggest problem I have today it’ll be a pretty good day. This is a little different from his other comics, as even though this continues the 1000 sorrows (#81-94 this time around, indicating that he will indeed be working on these well into his old age), the sorrows are aspects of larger stories and no longer clearly pointed out. He does list them all in the beginning though, so half the fun is finding them yourself and seeing how he works them into the story. The other thing that’s different is that this is in full color, and if there’s ever been a concept that calls out for full color, it’s this one. Anyone who has read anything else from Andrew knows it’s a bit difficult to nail them down in regular, human terms, but I’ll do my best. Stories include Swamp Gas (a long, lyrical journey through the swamp and beyond), Ogner Stump Meets the Green Fairy (in which Ogner wishes for lemonade and gets a lot more than he bargained for), The Eye Hand of the Carolinas (see the bottom of the page, it was previously released as its own tiny mini), The Hex (in which Andrew explains, in great detail, how make a hex) and Andrew’s true story about taking a stone from the grave of a “voodoo queen” and what happened after. I’d swear that Andrew’s writing has gotten even better, or at least certainly more lyrical than last time. The art was always excellent, and it’s even better now that it’s all in vivid color. However many of these he can afford to do in color, it would be great if he could stick with that as long as possible. Also, Andrew sent me an extra copy, so the first person who buys the rest of his books on this page gets it free. Note: if you’re reading this years down the road and wonder if anybody has taken me up on this offer, go ahead and check. Sometimes these free comic offers get taken up right away, and sometimes they sit here forever. $4
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Unlucky #2 Now Available! $1.50
Another preview mini? That’s all well and good, but where’s the great big graphic novel full of these stories? When that’s my main complaint for an issue, you know I probably liked it a whole lot. There are two stories in here. The first (drawn by K. Thor Jensen) is about a sexual adventure Matt had in college that led to an infected nipple. It’s a long way to go for a punchline, but it is quite a punchline. And there’s gratuitous sex, so it’s hard to complain about that. The second story (drawn by MK Reed) deals with an awkward conversation waiting in line to order food. It’s all over a penny, but kudos to Matthew for standing up to an asshole. With this collection of talent combined with the ability to tell a fantastic story, I’m really excited to see a larger collection of these stories, so get to work! Or just keep these previews coming if you must, but I want a big pile o’ stories…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Rocket Girl #1 (with Jesus Antonio Hernandez Rodriguez) Now Available! $2.25
After many, many years of being disappointed with comics that have superheroes in them, I’ve learned to take anything with a superhero in it and assume that it’s crap until it wins me over. Luckily, this one did that about one page in. The first page is a spread of the main… well, obsession of the main character, a superhero called Fire Chief. I’m not sure what else Jesus has done, as this is from a few years ago, but holy crap is this man a gifted artist. That single page was enough for me to turn the cynicism off and let this thing win me over, and then the writing kicked in. Yep, that’s all you need for a great comic, so I was hooked. This is the story of a woman named Polly Harris, a seemingly ordinary woman who has a massive crush on one of the more famous superheroes in their town, the Fire Chief. Why she has a crush isn’t immediately clear, as he’s in a baggy costume with a bucket over his head, but she has an absolute obsession, which eventually leads her to try the superhero thing out for herself. That may be a spoiler, as most of this book is the “origin” issue and we don’t see her in costume until the end, but come on now, the book is called “Rocket Girl”, how did you think it would turn out? Anyway, great stuff all around, completely engrossing, and kudos to Jesus on the choice of making the werewolf more like the old black and white movie werewolf and less like the giant beast that seems to be in all the movies these days. You damned kids! $2.25
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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This Is Still America #2 Now Available! $2
George reprinted most of the review for #1 inside this book as a synopsis/review, so for those of you who only picked up the second issue and are wondering why there’s such a crappy synopsis, that’s sort of my fault. Hey, if I knew that people were going to be taking these rambles and using them to summing up their last book, I would try to make them a little more coherent. In this issue we get to see exactly why the young man from the first issue didn’t care that his Dad was gone. Some of it you might expect, other parts of it you probably won’t, but it’s a pretty powerful indictment of shitty parenting where the parent is crazy enough to think that they’re teaching the child some good life lessons. This is essentially a day in the life of this young man, so there’s not a whole lot more to say about it than that. I still love the linework in this book, as a book without any solid blacks is oddly soothing, and I’m still fascinated to see what happens next. Both good signs for a book only on its second issue. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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This Is Still America #1 Now Available! $2
That’s right, it’s just George. Hooray for pseudonyms, I say! It shouldn’t take anybody more than a quick glance at the art here to see that it’s something unique to the comics world today. I guess you’d call it a cross between Ron Rege and Harold Gray (from Little Orphan Annie, and that’s mostly for the eyeballs). And, for those of you who are terrified of politics, don’t worry, despite the title there’s nothing remotely political here. It’s the story of a young man who gets word that his father has just died. We get to see one of the more visually rewarding dream sequences outside of Rare Bit Fiends, then he takes us on a flashback through his earlier childhood years when he was forced to go live with his father for a bit. This issue is a setup for that meeting, basically, as his father was somebody he was perfectly happy to see leave his life. Everything about this is just right. You know how some comics are ruined by silly or inane dialogue, sloppy art in places, a seemingly forced plot or just a sense of phoniness in general? Not a bit of that here. Excellent work for a first comic, if that’s what this is, and I’m already looking forward to #2… $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Spaz #2
With a mini comic (or any comic I guess) there’s really only one question to be asked about the second issue: was it better than the first? In this case the answer is an unqualified yes, as she spends more time writing, has more funny bits and just generally kicks the ass of this comic. Not that I had a problem with the last one, but there’s not a weak piece in here. Things start off with a tale of her job in general and the t-shirt she wears specifically, as it says “Obama Eats Here”. She lays out the map, shows where he used to live, where his kids went to school and where he taught for 12 years and yeah, it’s pretty clear that he would have eaten there at some point. Naturally, this t-shirt leads to all sorts of (mostly stupid) questions, and Emi does a great job of running them all down and explaining it all to the slow folks. There’s one more page dealing with her job, but if I say anything about it I’ll ruin the joke, so forget it. Other than that the comic basically breaks down into two parts: stories about her relationship with her boyfriend and her “conversations” with a zygote. Her relationship with her boyfriend seems horribly strained, but in a “funny for comics” kind of way, and it mostly seems to end well. You’ll probably have to read the comic for that to make sense, but trust me. Her conversations with the zygote deal with her asking it about the wisdom of having kids with her boyfriend (as she worries about what genes he would pass on) and going on a cruise with it, as it hopes that said cruise will lead her to reproduce. This zygote is a hilarious font of useless, contradictory and just plain wrong information, which is always fun when trying to get advice. Also, I checked for that “atrocious error” she mentioned on her website and didn’t see anything. I generally catch spelling mistakes, although grammar errors sometimes fly right by me. Maybe something in her localized map of Chicago? Either way, it sure wasn’t a big deal. It’s another issue that’s well worth checking out, here’s hoping she keeps up this pace because there’s some serious potential here. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Guessbook
Wow, it’s been far too long since John’s page has been updated. It looks like a homage to my older, crappier scanner over here. Guessbook is a sketchbook comic, and I think I’ve made my feelings known about sketchbooks in general, but a chance to get a peek into John’s brain isn’t something I’m ever going to complain about. Everything is so precise and structured in his comics that’s it’s almost a relief to see messy sketches and half-finished ideas, in an odd way. As always with sketchbooks, it helps a whole bunch if you’re already a fan of the artist’s work, so if you’re somehow not familiar with John, check out some of his other stuff first. If you already are a fan, images in here include people, places and things, some done in a surreal way, and bits of things that never went anywhere. Yep, that’s just about the most generic description I could give, but it’s not like there’s a linear story here for me to comment on. $4
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Spaz! #1
I’d like to start this review with something utterly irrelevant to the comic. As I know a good chunk of you read this at work when you should be doing other things (and hey, if it wasn’t for my work blocking me from accessing this site at work I’d probably be writing it there), try saying Emi’s name out loud. Go ahead, your coworkers already think you’re crazy, especially if you’ve ever brought a comic in. That’s just a fun name. Luckily she also makes a pretty great comic. There are a variety of stories in here, mostly to do with her time working at a restaurant, some not so much. There’s her getting hit on over by the phone (in an incredibly creepy fashion) by a guy ordering wings, waking up on a bad hair day and having very few options for what to do about it, losing patience with profoundly stupid questions at work and a gallery of the many creatures living at her apartment. There’s also the heart of the comic, a story about a guy who comes into her restaurant on a regular basis, something he’s apparently been doing for decades. It does a nice job of going into how hard it is NOT to speculate about the personal life of anybody who is a bit odd and how unlikely that speculation is to be anywhere near the truth. Personally, I’m also going with the theory of a tiny alien controlling his human body, but I guess we’ll never know. She also has regular updates to her website, a four panel strip twice a week that’s half comedy and half therapy, but she explains it far better than I could. I also happened to check out her site right when she mentioned that she found “an atrocious error” in the second issue, which she was also nice enough to send along, so it’ll be fun trying to find that next time around. As for this, it’s funny, the art is fantastic (especially if this is her first issue of anything), and there aren’t enough minis like this around out there these days. Send her some money to reward good behavior! $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Weird Sister
Anthology time! Well, sort of. Is it still considered an anthology if different artists do each story but they all have the same writer and focus on two central characters? Actually, probably not. This is the story of a witch (more or less) and her eventual familiar, the ghost of a dead dog. Sort of Tales From The Cryptish (again that comparison, sorry), but with a witch calling on the gods for help and Elizabeth using Tarot cards to help her plot a few things out. The first story (art by Adam Boorman) is about said dog, who the witch discovers while he’s about to be killed by a gang of thugs for not being a good enough guard dog. The second (drawn by Dash Shaw) deals with the witch catching a man about to drown a young girl who can see his thoughts and has told him how he’s going to die. Finally, the third story (drawn by Jeff Zornow) has the witch running across a young girl who’s in a graveyard, mourning the loss of her junkie/drunk boyfriend, or at least mourning that loss until he rises from his grave. There are also a few sketches in back by Leland Purvis and Brian Wood, so maybe it is an anthology after all. It’s a pretty entertaining pile o’ stories, and I even learned a bit of the basics about witches and Tarot, although not much more than I already learned from watching Buffy. Still, it was interesting to see how lonely life was for the witch and how she still felt compelled to help people and animals. Worth checking out if you’re into this sort of thing, or I guess avoiding if you hate everything related to witchcraft, you model Christian citizen you… $4.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Red (drawn by Kevin Colden, cover by Miss Lasko-Gross)
How many of you know the original, genuinely horrific original story of Little Red Riding Hood back even before the Brothers Grimm told the story? This is based in the loosest possible sense on that. I’ve been watching far too much Tales From The Crypt lately, as the twist ending was something I could see coming a mile away (even without knowing about the fable connection until the end), but it’s still a creepy and tense story. A serial killer starts his day lamenting about “the one who got away”, and ends up running into the girl in the street, so he runs her down and starts up a conversation. Right away you get to wondering who is hunting whom, and it’s a bit of a race against time from there. Pretty great stuff all around, and the splashes of red on the inside were a nice touch. Oh, and Miss Lasko-Gross apparently has a memoir coming out from Fantagraphics later this year, so for everybody who’s been wondering where she’s been since Aim, there’s your answer. Oh, and Kevin has done some excellent work here and with some previous pieces in the Mauled! series, which is why he looked so damned familiar. I’m guessing this is around $3…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Angst Comics
First off, no, I’m pretty sure that you can’t buy this at all. This is kind of a bonus for everybody who likes her work but only found it in the last couple of years. Hey, maybe I could make this a regular thing, posting samples of out-of-print minis that I have laying around. Sound like a good idea? Creators, how about you? Generally speaking, do you care if somebody posts a bunch of pictures from things that will probably never see the light of day again, or would you prefer that they either stay buried or are only republished when you put something together yourself? Regardless, here are a few pages from this one. There’s also a great story with Elvis in purgatory and a story about cafe hopping, but I didn’t want to put everything up. Enjoy…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Bomb Pop Comics and Stories
Yet another person who should have been up here since day one. I had this comic all along and I knew her name sounded familiar, but it was in with my magazines like old copies of The Comics Journal, so I didn’t really check that pile. Did you all get the impression that I’m slightly disorganized yet? Good, that’ll make things a lot easier on you. Anyway, she was recommended by several people, and for good reason. She has a fantastically cute drawing style (those eyes couldn’t get much bigger on some of the pages) but that never causes you to lose touch with the core of her comics. In this one she interprets part of Rumble Fish (the novel, not the movie), tells the story of a lonely girl playing Space Invaders on a Friday night, and one about another girl on the racing circuit reading a letter from her father. I remember way back when you were all just whippersnappers (or something like that) when she put minis out all the time, but I think there’s just this and a coloring book that she has done in the last couple of years, unless somebody can correct me. It’s obvious from her website (which is fantastic, by the way) that she’s working a lot on other projects, and more power to her. I hope she makes a pile of money doing it. Still, more comics would be nice…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Punk Anonymous #9
He had to change the name because of some crappy funk band, but it’s still the same comic. The comic about him dying, going to heaven and meeting Cyndi Lauper is fantastic, but overall this one’s a bit thin on actual comics. Still a lot of content though and still worth getting, as are all the ones I’ve seen. Sorry if all the samples I’m using are depressing. Most of his comics at least seem slightly upbeat, but I’m using mostly the one or two page strips, which all seem to be depressing. Or maybe it’s all just the mood I’m in and I’m projecting, I don’t know. Anyway, buy them all and make Jerome a rich man.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Funkapotamus #7
Dreams, teenage memories and feeling like shit. All great tools when the artist knows what he/she is doing, and Jerome certainly does. Anybody out there know why he hardly does comics any more? Am I just missing them? Doesn’t look like it, according to his page, but at least he’s working on a lot of stuff. You can’t go wrong with these minis, what can I say? Whenever I scrounge up a few bucks (after FLUKE, that’s for sure) I’m going to try and get some of the issues I missed years ago.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Funkapotamus #6
Jerome would have been on here from day one if I had known that he was still around. I hadn’t seen anything from him since #9 of this series, and that was at least six years ago, so I just kind of assumed that he had stopped doing comics. Shows what I know, and that a little research can go a long way. This one isn’t available but I’m putting it up here anyway because it was in my pile of Funkapotamus minis. OK? Anyway, he’s one of the originals that I started reading way back when I was getting into small press stuff, so it’s tough for me to be objective about this. Random poetry and stories about killing time as a teenager are all over the place in these books, and he does both pretty well. You can’t buy this one but there are plenty of other ones available on his website. Here’s a couple of samples so you don’t feel like my putting this one up was a total waste of time…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Flying Saucer Attack
Here’s a partial list of who’s in this: Jessica Abel, Joe Chiapetta, Jennifer Daydreamer, Fawn Gehweiler, Tom Hart, Megan Kelso, James Kochalka, Dave Lasky, Ted May, John Porcellino, Brian Ralph, Zak Sally, Jeff Zenick, Jenny Zervakis and Aleksander Zograf. There’s more, and I can’t believe that there’s no review for this anywhere on my site, as it’s really one of the best anthologies of all time, not that I’m biased or anything. It’s also from 1995, so it’s one of the early small press books that I read, so there’s probably a bit of nostalgia going on over here. Still, take a look of that list of talent and tell me that it wouldn’t be great.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Bogus Dead Now Available! $10
I knew as soon as I saw this book that it was going to be great. Here I am, in the middle of my personal “anthology week”, and I’ve already read the best of the bunch. Prove me wrong, people! Anyway, this is a collection of the best small press people (although why John Porcellino isn’t in here is beyond me) doing zombie stories. As that combines two of my favorite things in the world, they’d have to do a lot wrong for me to hate this and, well, they didn’t. Thoroughly entertaining from start to finish, everything in here was tremendously innovative. I mean, there are only so many things you can do with zombies. That’s what I thought before I read this, and I’m more than happy to stand corrected. I’m not going to list everybody in here, as there are 43 folks and you can just go here and order the thing for $10 and read everything you need to know about it. Highlights? OK, but you have to understand first that everything was a highlight, these are just some moments that stood out: Tom Hart with the married zombies, Graham Annable with the almost somber “Revenge”, and Ariel Bordeaux’s ghost being embarrassed by her zombie body. Simply put, it’s the best anthology I’ve read in quite a while.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Faux-Pas #2
It what can only be called a major coincidence, it looks like Sam started up a website today, 2/14/07. Or at least today was the day he updated the thing, who knows? Either way, whether or not you’ll like this book boils down to a simple question: do sloppy comics bug you? You know, the ones that look like they were rushed through for large portions, regardless of the quality of the actual stories? If you don’t mind a bit of a rush when the stories are still entertaining, then you’re in for a treat. If slop makes you put the comic down, this isn’t for you. There are lots of little (mostly funny) one page gags here, and also a few longer stories. The longer stories deal with a taxi getting messed up on bio-diesel, a man realizing that the worst thing he did in his life was look at his friend’s sister as she was bending over and never apologizing for it, and hammering home the point that everything can kill you. Plenty of other comics are more aesthetically pleasing than this one, sure, but there’s a pile of good stories in here regardless. And it’s cheap! $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Fatal Faux-Pas
Apparently I was a bit wishy washy with the review for Sam’s mini, the contents of which are mostly included in this collection. So why, if that’s the case. do I have such unreserved love for this collection? Eh, I’m a mass of contradictions, what can I say. It’s also going to be tough figuring out what it is I love about this so much, as it’s a mass of unconnected stories, gags and strips, some tiny, some not so much. The uniting force behind this, the thing that made me laugh so many times, was the sheer absurbism on display. Spiderman wondering if Dr. Octopus is squeezing or hugging him, for example, is an image that either makes you smile or it doesn’t. Ditto with a series of four page gag strips involving The Fonz, the series of Faux-Pasta strips involving things that aren’t pasta, theories on what’s inside of Oscar’s trash can, and the drama of being a cat (with an indispensable set of drawings of a cat freaking out). When the worst you can say about a book is that not every page was hilarious, well, chances are it’s a pretty great book. This book is right around a hundred pages and full of things that you’ll enjoy discovering for yourself, so I’m not going to ruin anything by revealing the use of tacos as digging implements. Apparently it’s not widely available quite yet (as of 6/9/08 anyway), but it will be by October. In the meantime you can probably find it at cons, or just get a few minis from the guy. $10
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Monster Tales #1
What an awesomely pointless story. This is the story of a creature who pushes a boulder up a hill, pauses for a second too long in satisfaction, and sees all his hard work ruined. Seriously, that’s it, just a dozen panels or so of effort, followed by an excellent expression of surprise, then a moment of pure rage. Um, spoiler alert. Ah, what difference does it make? It looks good and it’s fun. I do have to admit to being incredibly curious what future issues of Monster Tales contained, assuming there were any future issues. This is worth picking up if you find it (or if you wanted to get it through Poopsheet’s insane sale too), but I wouldn’t spend too much time seeking it out. $1
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Posted by Kevin
