April 23, 2010
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Pillow Talk #1
Depending on your perspective, this comic is nothing like what you’re picturing. If you’re just going with the cover image, you probably have it more or less right. This is the story of a pillow who notices a bird in a tree and decides that they should be friends. He climbs the tree (pillows climb trees in a shimmying motion, if you were curious) but the bird flies away. The pillow is sad, but doesn’t have much time to dwell on it as he gets caught up in a broken tree branch and attacked by a murder of crows, and boy you never get a chance to use that term in casual conversation, do you? The bird reconsiders when he hears the pillow calling for help (as the crows have carried him off and are picking him apart), and a monkey notices all the soft stuffing falling from the sky and tries to eat it.  There’s also a mysterious vine-like figure who talks to the severely damaged pillow where he lands and some reluctant assistance from the monkey, but I’ve given away too much already. The book is a pile of fun and that’s what’s important. The only problem is that the story comes to a screeching halt because it’s the first of a projected five issues, but I can’t find anything on his website (which is amazing, by the way) that indicates if there was ever a second issue, and this did come out way back in the dark ages of 2004.  I want to see what happens to the pillow, dammit! If this is the whole story it’s a fun but maddeningly incomplete story. If there are more issues then I recommend it unreservedly. And I don’t usually plug upcoming projects for creators, but Jamie is working on a Batman versus Godzilla comic that has the potential to be one of the best things in the world. He only has a half dozen pages or so up at his website now, but it’s something I’ll be keeping an eye on. No price, but let’s call it $2.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Nina the Librarian Now Available! $4
Here’s another great comic from Sharon. This one is all one big story instead of the collections of short stories that she was doing, and she’s considering turning it into a regular series. To which I say: do it! Seriously, one issue in and I’m already invested in the characters. As you can probably tell from the title, it’s all about Nina, who’s a librarian, and her dealing with work, a stalker (or just a slightly creepy admirer, it’s tough to tell so far), and an old singing bag lady. She’s a quiet, mousy girl who spends a lot of time writing in her journal and fantasizing about her life, what could happen with it and what it happening with it. I was smiling ear to ear throughout this book, and if that’s not a recommendation I don’t know what is. It’s $4, which is a bit steep, but it’s a pretty big book and it’s worth it. Contact info is up there, maybe if enough people buy this she’ll make a regular series out of this…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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I Had To Get A Stupid Root Canal
That Matt Fagan, he does give good title. It’s been years since I saw Domestic Partner of Frankenstein and was naturally thrilled to have something else to put up on this page, even if it’s just a $.50 shortie like this one. This, very briefly, describes Matt’s root canal. His reluctance to go to the dentist seemed to have carried over into his reluctance to document the experience, as it’s mostly about the time before and after the root canal, but who can blame him? Anyway, here’s hoping there’s more from the man in my Chicago comics pile, as this was just a taste. Favorite non-sampled moment: the little Dutch boy trying to stop the bleeding in his tooth. Adorable. $.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Archipelago #2 Now Available! $1.50
This one seems smaller than the first issue for some reason. Maybe because there’s no real extended story in this one? Anyway, another great issue. There’s one of the best dream houses ever, documenting her obsession with junk, her mother telling her that she was really an alien, a list of nightmares, and a 9/11 story. It’s hard to criticize something that deeply affected the entire population of this story, and her reaction it obviously deeply heartfelt. Then there’s a seemingly pointless one page strip about… um, going on vacation, I guess. Hey, when the rest of it is great, who cares if I don’t get one page? Buy these minis while you can, I can see her just doing really great graphic novels in a few years…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Archipelago #1 Now Available! $3
Here’s a great addition to the world of “it might be autobiographical, or it might not, or maybe only parts of it are, otherwise it’s just good stories” comics. Kind of a long name for a genre, I realize that, which is why nobody ever uses it, but it sums it up pretty well in my mind. All kinds of good stuff in here. Broken hearts on the subway, an epic about candy and trying to connect, getting fired, the harassment that women deal with all the time, trying to return some keys from the subway, breaking your mother’s back and women with actual women parts. Solid storytelling and incredibly expressive art of various styles, showing more than a bit of range for a first issue. There’s a website or an e-mail address, it’s $2.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Johnny Public #9: Entering Bridgewater
You may remember that the main complaint I had from the previous issues was that there were too few pages and not enough of a chance to get what was going on issue by issue. Well, this is an extra dollar, sure, but well worth it because it’s a whole 20 pages and plenty more time to let you know what’s going on. Which means, of course, that a lot of it is still a complete mystery, but there’s enough going on here to keep me clamoring for more instead of just wishing I had a few more pages to go on. It looks like (and I’m certainly no expert here) this is the start of another story arc in the Johnny Public universe, which I explained in those other reviews, so I won’t go into it at length here. It starts with a traveling salesman seeing an unconscious girl on the road, so he stops to help. It turns out that a lot more is going on here than he thought, as zombies (apparently) are coming back to life, and he gets enlisted in the fight to get them under control. Which sounds like the most simplistic thing in the world, but the story takes some serious twists after that that I’m not going to spoil for you here. Suffice it to say that I can’t wait to see what happens next and I still can’t believe I don’t have the first story arc. Maybe next year at SPACE I’ll have a few extra bucks…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Johnny Public #1
If you’re curious about this comic, go ahead and read my review of their preview. Go ahead, I’ll wait. What you have here, on its face, is the story of a man trying to find the right word to finish a sentence in a novel he’s writing. He’s at a bar and gets advice from what appears to be a stranger, then that’s it for the comic, as it’s only six pages. That, by itself, would be a pretty stupid comic. Luckily for us there’s a panel by panel (mostly) synopsis of what was really going on there, and how the bar is inside the head of the main character. It’s a fascinating central concept and you really can pick this apart panel by panel, at least you can once you know what’s going on. And that’s a fundamental problem I have with this (and other currently poor people are probably going to have): $1.50 per every six pages of actual story is ridiculous. The cover looks great, don’t get me wrong, and I saw them all lined up at SPACE and they look great together. The way to go with this series, a lot more than most I think, is to get them all in a graphic novel and go from there. There’s just no way to get a good idea of the story in these tiny volumes. I’m intrigued by what I’ve seen and there just might be a really great story here, so don’t think that I’m blasting this comic for that reason. Anyway, there’s contact info up there, this is $1.50, and I think you could do a lot worse than get a collection of these stories, but one by one I just don’t think they’re worth it…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Johnny Public: Out of the Wilderness
OK, you can all see that this is only a preview, right? Because that point needs to be perfectly clear before I launch into anything. This is a sample of an (apparently) already published 80 page graphic novel about a man named William Denn. William has many, many personalities in his head, and the book is (supposedly) about all of them trying to work out their places in the internal hierarchy. I’m throwing all of those qualifiers in because the preview didn’t make much clear at all. To give you an idea of my reaction, here’s how I read this comic: read the intro from Wendi which, frankly, didn’t tell me much of anything about the actual story. Then I read the 8 page comic, followed by the issue by issue synopsis, followed by the glowing reviews on the back cover. Just a friendly hint to the both of them: if I learn more from the reviews than from the actual preview, you could have put out a better preview! Anyway, after I read the reviews, I turned the book over and read it again, hoping that it would make more sense. No such luck. So, what am I trying to get at here? Just that I can’t say much about this series one way or the other. It seems like an interesting concept, and the reviews were glowing, not that that tells you much. I’d say at least give the first issue a shot to see where it went, but I would definitely tell you to avoid the preview. Here’s a website, maybe some confusion can be cleared up there!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Slither #6 Now Available! $1
Kelly takes care of one of the worst problems with autobio comics right away here, as she has plenty of interesting things to write about. A fair amount of comics like this are just plain dull, and that is never an issue with this one. This covers the summer of 2005 and as such it’s a remarkably focused book, sticking to a pretty strict timeline. It starts off with an awkward date with an internet friend (portrayed as one silent page of panels) and keeps right on going from there into living with her parents again (at age 31, briefly), trying to find a summer job, her dealings with the people at her pizza place job, saying goodbye to everybody, taking a trip to Seattle and finally ending up back in Vancouver. She uses all sorts of different techniques here, sometimes going with silent stories following text pieces, sometimes going with the more traditional comics with text (although no word balloons, maintaining an unintentional website theme for the day), and occasionally even going with photographs. It’s a great layout for a book and even ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, even though I have some idea how it turns out, as this was about the summer of 2005, after all. And all that for a measly buck!
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Slither #5 Now Available! $2
I suppose I should pick one issue out of all these Slithers and recommend it to anybody who wants to get a good example of Kelly’s work. And that would be… this one! It’s odd, because this is the least “comic-y” of all her issues, as the bulk of this issue is a text description of her second semester at art school in Baltimore. Luckily for the reader, Kelly is equally capable of excellent writing as she is at the pretty pictures. Things are broken down into seemingly minute detail, but it never manages to get dull. She tries to adjust to a new city while having no money and few friends, starts counting all the time she’s wasting waiting for the perpetually late bus, walks the usual tightrope of trying to keep peace with a roommate, and starts a phone relationship with somebody she met online. This relationship seems to be the thing that takes the most out of her, as this guy lives across the country and their phone conversations pretty much have to occur at (for her) 3 in the morning. As usual, Kelly doesn’t disappoint with the effortless honesty in describing how things went with the guy, even including a free insert comic detailing how their eventual meeting turned out. It’s rare that you can curl up with a mini comic, but on this rainy March day this was a damned welcome way to spend a chunk of the afternoon. In my continued war against chronological order, this is the last issue of the Slither pile reviewed, and I have to honestly say that you could pick any issue out of this pile and still see what she’s capable of. A bit of a rarity, especially considering how first issues are generally just hints of what’s to come. She did improve over the course of the issues, granted, but there’s plenty to love all the way through. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Slither #4 (art by Chris Warren & Aaron Mew) Now Available! $1
Checking over that last review I can see that Kelly promised depravity this time around, and she delivers! Or at least she delivers if you consider talking about sex like an adult talking to other adults “depravity”. This issue covers a time span (I believe) through 2004, dealing with such things as traveling, dealing with her family for a wedding, visiting all sorts of friends, trying to imagine how she could ever fit in in New York, the sheer delight of kicking an asshole in a movie theater as he walks by, and Warren. Warren was her love interest (is there a more modern term for that I could use? “Love interest” makes me feel downright prim and proper) at the time, and Kelly honestly goes through how they got together, how she resisted at first but eventually got won over, how Warren lost interest once he saw that he had achieved his conquest, and how she let the whole thing die. The thing I love most about Kelly’s descriptions of her relationships is the absolute lack of any self pity. She tells a story about Warren telling her a pretty cruel thing, but it’s very clearly told because it’s an integral part of the story, not out of some desire to get sympathy from the reader. Self-indulgent auto-bio cartoonists, take note. The issue wraps up with the reader matching outfits to their respective cities, and a listing of the various types of people who ride buses, and I think I’ve seen all of them except the overtly paranoid guy. Another excellent issue, and anybody who doesn’t take a few minutes (and a few dollars) to get a stack of her comics is only hurting themselves.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Slither #3 Now Available! $1
It’s the second year of Kelly’s time at art school, and this issue goes through the horrors involved, or at least the highlights. Maybe “horrors” is too strong a word, maybe “uselessness” or “inanity” would be a better word. Essentially she’s there trying to learn, improve her craft, get a little sense of art history, that sort of thing, and what she gets are egocentric teachers: one who wants to do her work for her, one who has a creepy alter ego, and one who is so in love with the sound of his own voice that the class is lucky to get any useful information at all. She goes through the rest of her year in this issue as well, telling us all about nights out, a sexy wedding, an art show, her intimidating pilates class, an awkward night on stage with a comedian, a date with a filmmaker, and some things she will both have and never have, given her debt and imagined status in life, I suppose. It’s all wrapped up with a few pages of looks people cultivate to find a soul mate, and good luck not finding something to laugh at there. Another solid issue, although you have to forgive me if I’m a little more excited for the next issue, as she promises depravity inside. Yes, it’s Monday and I’m already looking for more depravity… $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Wormdye #2
That cover is just gorgeous. I don’t think this scan does it justice, and this is a pretty decent scanner. Again, I have to commend the sheer level of detail in this, as it’s the little things like that that always impress me. So what’s the story here? Well, you have a new race of people, a power mad Pope (like there’s any other kind), Medusa, and an island. Seriously, this one is more about the visuals, as there are more than a few pages here without dialogue and I could just stare at this for hours. Well, OK, lots of minutes anyway, as my attenion span has been severely shortened with all this computer time. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Slither #2 Now Available! $1
So who wants to read the sometimes painful process of living with your parents out in the middle of nowhere (Wisconsin) while pushing 30? Kelly has yet to disappoint with one of her minis and this one is no exception. This issue tells the tale of the time with her parents, with flashbacks thrown in occasionally to illustrate who exactly these people are and their meaning in her life. She also goes through a failed romance over her time in Wisconsin with an old friend who just happens to be married. Most of the book is dedicated to this time in her life, with the last few pages telling a morality tale about how maybe it’s not so bad to be trapped in corporate life after all. Another engrossing issue, if it wasn’t for my personal policy of reviewing stuff from people sporadically instead of all in a row (to give more theoretical readers a chance to see their name on the front page) I would have torn through all five issues already. $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Making a mini comic by Austin English
The Tenth Frame #12
Hm, I seem to have a bit of a Tenth Frame gap in the issue numbers. In the meantime Austin has decided to go with continuing stories, which is great in my book. First up is Parts of Christina’s Heart, a text-heavy piece about a girl reminiscing about her time as a child, but not the usual sappy memories about how great everything was when we were kids. This one is more about staying with friends out of habit rather then affection and overhearing them starting to lose interest in you. Then there’s the tale of Abby getting married when Austin was 6 to a security guard who was also a painter, and the efforts of the family to get him a working studio. Both of these are continuing stories and, on a completely unrelated note, Austin is only 21, so he has plenty of time to really develop into something special, at least based on what I’ve seen of his early work. No pressure or anything. This issue is hand colored, like some of his older issues, and is a pretty good deal at $3, considering all the work he puts into each issue.Contact info is up there and I think I’ve been pretty clear about how much I like his stuff…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Slither #1 Now Available! $1
And here I thought these Slithers were going to be something of a straight line in the life of Kelly. Turns out that there are plenty of surprises still to come in issues 2-5, as #6 (the one reviewed first, for anybody who’s reading this, not looking inside my head and is a bit confused) appears to come directly after #1, at least chronologically. This issue details Kelly’s return to college after about ten years away, her living with two stoners (never, ever rent a house unseen), trying to make friends in Vancouver, a spider with a vendetta, and a few throwaway pages at the end with senior pictures. It’s always tough to say, when checking out the early work of somebody you like, whether that work is going to be painful, watching them learn as they go. Kelly has the storytelling figured out right off the bat (although the art does get better as she goes) and I’m really looking forward to filling in the blanks in this series in the coming weeks. $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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I: You’re Living in the Past Now Available! $1
Thought I’d start with the afterward of the mini this time around, as it’s a genuinely wonderful thing and deserves to be quoted in its entirety: “Though both Eve and Josh do appreciate your patronage, it is their sincerest wish that next time you drop in to examine their wares you spring for something other than the cheapest book on the table.” Of course, that only counts at conventions (and it’s something I do everywhere, but then again I’m the guy trying to sample the wares of every table). For buying stuff online, I think it’s the best way to figure out if somebody is right for you. Maybe you looked at those Icecreamlandia samples and thought they were a bit too odd, or maybe that gigantic $3.50 scared you off. Whatever the case, now you have smaller, cheaper bites to check out. Oh yeah, how about that comic? It’s a shortie, hence the price, and subjects in here include a eulogy, columns, the Hollywood golden age, prank calls, and smart keys. Explaining this stuff in detail takes away some oomph, so I’ll just say that if you enjoy random funny and/or insightful unconnected bits strung together in a loose comic format, this is now officially in the price range of even the poorest person with an internet connection.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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The Cheapest S.O.B.’s Now Available! $1
I’d have a hard time listing all the reasons I still read comics, a general sense of masochism having to be one of them, or at least it feels like that on days or weeks when there’s nothing good to be read. But then there are times like this, when I read something that I’ve never seen in a comic: a woman tearing her still-living grandparents to pieces for being unbelievably cheap. Kelly makes it clear in her intro that she’s gone through stages of calling them frugal or thrifty, but that it’s simply impossible to give them any more credit at this point, and then she proceeds to thoroughly document why she’s right. And boy, they do not come out looking good in here. I sampled the most disgusting example of their cheapness, but she also throws in the fact that they reuse Christmas cards, steal vegetables from community gardens, dig through dumpsters instead of going to thrift stores, read old papers discarded from a retirement home, and attend cancer survivor picnics just for the free food. Like it or not, there’s probably at least something in here for everybody to relate to about some relative or another. I loved it, but maybe that’s because all my grandparents are dead and I had no guilt about laughing through this. Some of you more sensitive souls might have a harder time. $1
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Stewbrew #2: Meet Erin
Again, to make this all perfectly clear: Meet Erin is half of a collected two parts called Stewbrew #2, the second half being Coot’s Day by Max Clotfelter, and the whole thing is available from Max for $3. That being said, if Kelly and Max ever decided to combine these two real people into some sort of a fictionalized “date”, well, I would have to think that hilarity would ensue, even if the two would never speak in real life. This one is all about Erin, a woman that Kelly met while working in retail, and the sheer ridiculousness she brought to every day. From a fakey accent to reading Ann Coulter in public to seemingly everything she said, the woman was more than interesting enough to warrant a mini comic. We also get to see her briefly as an actual human, a sobering moment, but one which doesn’t last long. Great stuff, I have to say I like this even better than the other half of Stewbrew, mostly for the sheer level of dirt we get in this one. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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The Five Year Itch of Dorothy Barry
People have occasionally asked me over the years how I pick what I’m going to review on any given day, and it’s a simple formula: I keep a literal pile of comics, with the ones sent in the mail at the top (as they get precedence over the ones I buy), and sort of reach in and grab a random one. In the case of this comic, I’ve been moving all week, have no idea where much of anything is (and my “pile” is scattered through various boxes), but this comic fell out of a pile of old bills, and voila! Internet magic! This is the story of a resident at an assisted-living home where Kelly works, with the names changed to protect everybody, who flips out every five years, invariably causing her to get kicked out of wherever she’s living at the time. Kelly paints a great picture of the chaos that comes over the whole establishment as Dorothy starts to think that she’s actually the one in charge of everything, ending with a black eye for an employee and cops getting involved. Great stuff from Kelly as always, and my advice to her, which I’m sure she already knows: there are probably plenty of stories to be had from that job. I worked for a few years as a night watchman at a home for… is “mentally challenged” the right word now? Anyway, while there are lots of dull days, the ones that aren’t dull are certainly memorable. No price, but let’s say $2.
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Posted by Kevin
