April 23, 2010
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You Can’t Help But Feel Estranged
Have I made it clear yet that I really like this guy? If I had any doubts after the first issue, they’re gone after this one. Yeah, the heads could be a little more consistent at times, and yeah, it can be a bit difficult to tell who is who. Both minor things, and the second thing wasn’t an issue at all in this issue. There are three stories in here, but one thing holds them all together: loneliness and uncertainty. OK, that’s two things, but you get my point. The first is about going home to visit the family and not having a place to stay. Then there’s a sudden e-mail breakup and a friend who doesn’t want him to hang around that long and you have a genuine feeling of being lost in the world. The second story is about a chaotic drunken night at a Troma party and how it’s possible to be completely alone in a crowd of people. The last story, part 2 of “You’re the one for me fatty”, details a crappy relationship and why it’s so difficult to keep going back for more, even when there are other people on the horizon who obviously care about you and would like to be with you. Fantastic book all around, I really can’t recommend this enough. Any of you publishers out there want to make this guy “famous”? I’d guess this is a dollar or two, but whatever it is, it’s worth it. Here’s a website, go and convince yourself…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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No One Wants to Pay Me for my Broken Heart #1
What a great title! Sure, it’s a pain to type, but it really sums everything up after you’ve read the book. My computer decided that it didn’t like my last review so it’s gone, but I’ll try it again. It’s tricky to pull off a book like this. Relationship books have to make you care about the people involved and they have to make you believe that said relationship could happen, and this book pulls off both of those pretty well. The art’s adorable, the characters look a lot like those Fischer Price figures. The writing seems real and believable, which is essential. The story here is basically about a young man and his new girlfriend. The girlfriend has a comic strip in a school paper and the young man has just made a video about his feelings of his breakup with his last girlfriend. The video gets him his first real responses for his work, but it’s strained his current relationship a bit. This isn’t a perfect book, as there are times when the panel layout is confusing, and the art is so simple that at times it’s hard to tell some characters apart. Still, it’s a great first effort, or if it’s not a first effort then it’s still a really solid book. Send the man an e-mail or check out his site, I think it’s a buck of two…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Jam in the Band Preview
OK fine it doesn’t say “preview” anywhere on the cover, but Robin makes it clear in the afterward that this is a sampling of projected 300 page or so graphic novel dealing with the rise of Pitch Girl, how a romance causes issues with the band and their “rise to small time fame”. This preview briefly introduces the members of the band, a love interest of one of the members (or more possibly, maybe that’s part of the conflict, pure speculation on my part), and a music reviewer. This issue on its own feels unfinished and a bit light, but yeah, that’s what a preview is alright. Without that afterward I wouldn’t have had a lot of good things to say about this, but as the start of a long project it’s damned intriguing. Robin’s work has been consistently engaging and fascinating for years, and I have no reason to doubt that this’ll end up any different. This is $1, and Robin mentions that he hopes to have the first book of this mammoth story done by SPX of 2008…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Controller
Just so every non-dork out there gets it, that slip cover is a damned near perfect replica of the slip cover that old, original Nintendo games used to come in. When you slip it off even the back looks like the old video games, complete with (what I believe are) the warnings about extreme temperatures and how you shouldn’t clean the games with alcohol. This is a long-winded way for me to say that you didn’t have to be a video game geek in your past or present to enjoy this comic… but it would help immensely. This is, as Robin puts it, “loosely autobiographical”, and involves a long conversation with the Robin character and his friend Katherine. She wants to know where his obsession with video games came from and the bulk of the comic is dedicated to his detailing that obsession, from being one of his first memories through the really obsessive years all the way to finally realizing that there are other things in life besides video games. I can relate to this to some extent, as can practically every male I know of a certain age group, but this is also a great comic for anybody who’s ever known somebody who’s been obsessed with video games. He lays it all out clearly here (or clearly enough for these biased eyes) and is self-deprecating enough to make this funny for just about anybody. This is probably $2, well worth a look to dorks and lovers of dorks all over the world…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Party @ Horror Beach
Yes, as a matter of fact, I did have to use the ampersand in the title. As for this book, it’s always a treat to get something from somebody I like quite a bit after a few years, and Robin was nice enough to send a few books along, so he should be updated again over the next month or so. This is a collection of stories loosely related to horror and/or Halloween. First up is the tale of Crinkleman who is, clearly, a killer that comes out of the mirror and smothers you in your sleep. Next is the story that takes up the bulk of the book, Trapped In The Closet, which deals with Robin making out with a girl who is engaged while her fiancee is at the party in another room. He’s not depicted as a total asshole, as he does have some moral issues with it… until he’s good and drunk. Then there’s the story of a girl who waited far too long to go to the dentist, although she did at least get a gold tooth out of the whole thing (spoiler alert!). Finally Robin tells us all about a recurring dream he had as a kid about fictional Nintendo games and how that dream has changed as he’s gotten older. A pretty solid bunch of stories, as per usual from Robin, but nothing that really blew me away. Could it be that I like his longer stories better? It could be, and it could be that the other comics he sent may give me a chance to test that theory…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Preacher Book 9: Alamo
There was one thing that bugged me about this series, right up until the very last issue: how the hell are they going to finish this? Take a great story, ruin the ending, and the story doesn’t seem like it’s that great anymore. I remember going to see L.A. Confidential a few years ago, absolutely loved the whole thing, then had to swallow one of the main characters getting shot in the fucking head and still saving his partner. It ruined the whole thing. Granted, since then I’ve thought that I was too hard on it, that maybe it really wasn’t as bad as all that, maybe there was a way that he could have survived that bullet without totally destroying the credibility of the movie. Preacher was kind of the same way. I felt a bit cheated by the ending. Not quite to the same extent, but cheated nonetheless. I’ll tell why exactly in the spoiler section because, hey, spoilers don’t get much bigger than that, right?
The book tries to wrap up all of the loose ends and does a pretty damned good job of it. Arseface, Starr (or what’s left of him, mentally and physically), Saint of Killers, God, Cassidy, Jesse… they all have something that they desperately want. Are they all going to get it? Are any of them? Would they want it if they could have it? This book was tough as hell to read when it came out. I really envy anybody who just finds it now. When it came out, there was a delay of a couple of months between the last two issues, and if you knew how the second to last issue ended, well, you’d wonder how I was still sane. Couldn’t imagine how they could fix everything then, but they pulled it off. I’ve mentioned this at least twice already, but it bears repeating at the end of this wrap-up: this is one of the better series ever done. I felt like I had gorged on candy at times, maybe because I don’t read anything else at all that’s color regularly (hah! I’m so much more obscure than you! Indie rules!), I don’t know. Listen, I’m going to talk plenty about this in the spoilers section because there are still some things I don’t get. All I have to say about this right now is that I really don’t see how it could have ended any other way, and that’s a pretty big compliment.
If you find out, like me, that Garth Ennis is good, I have a warning for you: it seems to me that he’s only good when he’s paired with Steve Dillon, like he is on Preacher. He’s somewhere between OK and god-awful otherwise. Anyway, if you read all the Preacher stuff and find out that you love it and want more, here’s what else he’s done with Steve Dillon.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Preacher Book 8: All Hell’s A-Coming
If anyone tries to tell you that not a lot happens in this book, well, punch them in the nose. We finally get the backstory on Tulip (just when I thought he forgot all about that), we get the real story of Cassidy, and Starr has to deal with a threat from within the Grail. Combine that with Jesse coming back to find Tulip and meeting everyone who thought he was dead and, well, you have one of the better books in the series. Quiet, but absolutely essential reading.
The only dark spot in the book is the inclusion of the special Tall in the Saddle. Just not a good story. I was really excited to read this too, because I didn’t know anything at all about it until I got the trade for this storyline. I just missed it when it came out, apparently. I could have easily gone the rest of my life without reading it and wouldn’t have felt like I was missing a damned thing in the story. That’s one thing you can say about the other specials, good or bad: they told you something that you needed to know. The story of Arseface, Saint of Killer, Starr, Cassidy finally meeting another vampire… all of those were things that might not have fit directly into the tight structure of the story, but they were important to all of the characters. Sure, you could just say “And Saint of Killers went to hell and the place froze over” and move on with your story, but it’s necessary to see exactly what happened down there. This story was a total waste of time. A tale of Jesse, Tulip and Amy from back when they were younger and happy, this is basically about a bunch of horse thieves. I don’t know, maybe Ennis thought that that was the quintessential western story or something. It’s still not a terrible story by any stretch, but it’s average at best and does nothing to develop any of the characters. Amy, at least, could use some fleshing out, and we really don’t get it here.
So, is this book worth getting? Well, didn’t I tell you a second ago that this was one of the better books in the series? I’m sticking by that. Honestly though, I’d say that you could safely skip the last story. Unless you’re an absolute Ennis/Dillon junkie, that is.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Preacher Book 7: Salvation
How the hell can you have a Preacher book without Cassidy or Tulip? Good question. This is a good story, no doubt about that, but with the exception with the issue right before the end, you could pretty much skip this entirely and go on to the next book. Let me sum it up for you: Jesse is basically a shell of a man, operating without a purpose, since he saw Cassidy and Tulip together. He wanders into his hometown, becomes the sheriff and has to take on the corrupt local rich man. Has a few adventures along the way, makes a few new friends and sees somebody that he never thought he’d see again. He finally gets his shit together and leaves to continue his quest. Get all that? Then you can skip most of this book. If your main concern is the main storyline, that is. That goes nowhere in this book. If you’re just a fan of the Ennis/Dillon team and can’t get enough of them, then I won’t have to convince you to get this.
The issue before the last one in the book finally tells just what happened to Jesse when he fell out of that plane. I don’t want to say too much about it now because maybe this point got cleared up before the end of the series and I missed it, but why… OK, listen. I’m going to have a section on this page called “Spoilers“. In that section I’m going to talk about all the series that I’m going to be reading, and I’m going to say everything that happens in them. I’ll talk all about my problem with that issue in that part, along with everything else I’m reluctant to give away here. Needless to say, I didn’t buy it, and that’s a problem with something as important as that. A damned good issue though, and enough happens there to make this essential to your Preacher experience. Or go out and find #49 and ignore this if you’re too poor to get them all right now. The last part of the book is with Spaceman, the friend of Jesse’s Dad from Vietnam, telling another story of his past. I guess it shows what Jesse is trying to live up to, but it could have just as easily been a special or something and certainly wasn’t essential reading. I’m reading this stuff critically for the first time now. I jumped on this series at #49, so I was too wrapped up in what was happening to be too critical of it. Now that I’m looking at the whole damned thing under a microscope, I’m wondering how my opinion is going to change. I’ll keep you posted…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Preacher Book 6: War in the Sun
Well, here it is. The only good Preacher Special that Steve Dillon didn’t draw. Finally, some backstory on one of the most pitiable villains ever, Starr. Maybe that’s not the impression that you’re supposed to get from the guy, but with all the shit that he goes through in this series, how can you not? The first story shows his rise through the ranks as a member of The Grail and how he got those scars on his face. Maybe not essential reading, but every little bit helps with this guy. Why did he rebel against The Grail and what made him who he was?
The majority of the book is from the “War in the Sun” story. Jesse had the bright idea that he was going to go out into the desert, take some peyote and get in touch with Genesis. Starr had heard him talking about this before, so he was well aware of it when Jesse finally hit an Indian reservation. He called in a few favors and had the army there to help him just in case the Saint of Killers showed up again, and almost everybody was on hand for this one. I think they should have left the last issue of this volume out and saved it for the next book, the reasons for which should be obvious if you read it. If you’re just buying these things in the future and the book ends an issue earlier, well, you’re going to rush right out to get the next one. With the way this one ends, well, you… once again, not giving anything away.
How is this one? It’s the one I was most looking forward to (except for the very last one), and I can’t remember why that was. The actual battle was huge, of course, but it was over pretty quickly. Cassidy continues his slide into complete and total worthlessness. The key scenes with this one were the bit on the plane after the battle and Jesse’s reaction after his “reunion” with Cassidy and Tulip. The bit with Arseface at the end seemed almost totally useless to me, as it was just randomly thrown in the story to fill space and didn’t go anywhere. All in all though, it was a good book. Definitely a high point before the series takes a bit of a breather with the next book, so enjoy the plot progressing while you can.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Preacher Book 5: Dixie Fried
When I was looking ahead at reading series again, this was another one of those books that I wasn’t all that excited about. Why? Honestly, it’s because I know what’s coming next, and it’s just pure action candy. With all the stuff I read these days, you’d think I’d be able to look forward to a whole hell of a lot of character development too, and I have to say that this might be the best book in the series. It has the Cassidy: Blood and Whiskey special (which is by far the best of the specials, and I liked the Saint of Killers one more than a little bit) and also is chock full of hints about what Cassidy really is. You don’t get to see those bits in the first few books. Oh sure, his friend in the first book is a… I’m not supposed to be giving anything away, right? Anyway, it’s obvious that his friends aren’t much, but this is the first chance we get to see that some of them actively loath him. Why? What has he done that’s so bad? We still don’t see, but we do get a whole lot of hints.
The book itself is mostly about Jesse and his quest to try to get in touch with Genesis and what method he’s going to use to do it. We get some great lines on shrinks and psychology in general and he ends up deciding to use voodoo. The goth gang from the Cassidy special comes back to find him, and hilarity ensues. Or maybe bloodshed, I get those two mixed up. Have I raved about Steve Dillon yet? Man, I take that guy for granted until I see somebody else try to draw this story. I don’t know a thing about what he draws in the backgrounds, I’m sure it’s just fine. The thing that always stops me is his expressiveness with the faces of all these people. Cassidy when Tulip is telling him what she really thinks of him, Jesse when Cassidy overprotects him at a bar… Hell, nobody else in the world can draw Arseface. Glenn Fabry comes close with the covers, but he doesn’t quite get it right. Even if I think that this might be the best book in the series (and I have a few more left), don’t buy this one first. You need to see Cassidy as he can be before you see him as he really is…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Preacher Book 4: Ancient History
I wasn’t sure what I was going to think of this one coming in. I liked it at the time, but I was severely annoyed that it disrupted the narrative as much as it did. As I’m reading these about three per day for these reviews, the narrative isn’t disrupted much, leaving the book to stand or fall on its own. And… eh. It’s OK. The Saint of Killers four part story is good. Pure western all the way, and I don’t want to spoil a single part of his trip to hell because it’s pure genius. The story is stopped from being great by the sudden and inexplicable change in artists for the third issue. DC seems to have problems like this from time to time. They knew that they had a successful series, and they knew that these books would probably have a long shelf life. And yet instead of taking their time and getting everything done right, they had to rush this series out, so we’re left with a story that is a lot more of a mess visually than it needs to be. Honestly, I thought Steve Pugh was doing a pretty good job until I saw how much better Carlos Ezquerra did. Part 4 of the story looked rushed as hell too. If they had any sense they’d release another version of this that had solid art from the same person all the way through, since these books are going to be around for the forseeable future.
As for the other two stories, I could take them or leave them. The Story of You-Know-Who (apparently they couldn’t say “Arseface” on the cover of the book, or maybe they didn’t want to) was mediocre to bad up until the last page, but I just loved the ending. Not that I’m going to give anything away, of course. The story tells about how shitty his life was, and why he tried to kill himself. A touchy subject to make fun of, and it just wasn’t all that well done. Good Old Boys (a story of Jody and T.C. from before they were killed) was meant to be over the top and goofy, but instead fell kind of flat in my mind. It had its moments, as all of his books do, but overall it was just a pointless book meant to capitalize on the Preacher craze. The Saint of Killers told an origin that needed telling, Arseface had a story that kind of needed to be told, and that other one should have just been left in the idea bin. Do you need to buy this book? If only for the Saint of Killers story, yes. I thought originally that you could wait until you read the whole series and then go back to this one. I’ll let you know when I finish the whole thing again, but I think it might help to know throughout the whole thing about his trip to hell. If I can find a better, quieter place in the storyline where this might have fit, I’ll let you know.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Preacher Book 3: Proud Americans
Ah, now here’s a fucking book. It starts off with a tale about Jesse’s father, and I guess you could call it “filler”. Maybe they missed a deadline or something, but it’s still head and shoulders above most of the crap that’s in other comics regularly. Then there’s the bulk of the book, which involves Jesse storming the headquarters of The Grail to get his friend Cassidy back, and pretty much everybody is in this one: Saint of Killers, Starr, the father of Genesis, the Messiah, even God. More questions are asked than answered, obviously, as this is still pretty early on in the series. Oh, and it ends with the tale, finally, of how Cassidy became a vampire and some of what he’s done with his life. Told through his rather rose-colored memory, as we learn later in the series, but I digress. If you’ve still got your doubts about this series and you read this book and somehow don’t like it, then stop right now. It gets better, but this is a fine example of what this series can be like at its best. It sounds silly when you put it next to all the violence done in this book, but this series is really all about commitment and friendship. And pride in a lot of ways, but the main point of this series is not the violence. It might be a tough argument to make with a pile of bodies ten high in front of the Saint of Killers, but I’m standing by it.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Preacher Book 2: Until the End of the World
Maybe I’m just not cut out for the reviewing business, because more than anything else I want to do this so I can get to Book 3. OK, what was this one about. We finally get the whole story on Jesse and how he became the man that he is, and why he “ran out” on Tulip years ago. We get at least part of the backstory on Tulip, or at least why she was a hired killer when we saw her at the start of the book. And we get to see Starr, who went through more horrible shit in this series than anybody else by far. This seemed to be kind of a haphazardly thrown together collection. Sure, it was a series of issues in a row and it was linear. But the story ended rather abruptly, as opposed to the usual smooth ending that is in most of these books. Still, the first half of the book was fucking incredible. Getting to meet Granma, Jody and T.C. (and getting to see the shit Jesse had to put up with as he was growing up) was more than worth the price of admission, even if the whole thing was kind of a mess.
If I had to criticize anything about Garth Ennis, it would be his tendency to write characters into his stories just so there will be all kinds of crazy shit going on. Or maybe he was using it to let Jesse go on about buzzwords and PC bullshit, I don’t know. But it seems to me that he often throws in characters like Jesus De Sade because he wants to throw in titillating (and completely useless to the story) scenes. Turns out that the story did have a point, but that was mostly because Starr and his crew wandered onto their trail while looking for… someone who did something bad to Starr. Listen, I’m still torn about this reviewing thing, so I’m going to need some feedback on this: should I review everything about these books, thereby ruining at least a few surprises for the people who haven’t read this yet, or should I continue on with my half-assed “summaries” of these stories? Anyway, why second-guess the writer? I would have done things differently I guess, but I didn’t write the story and I don’t work for DC. If he thought that he needed Jesus De Sade in the book, then more power to him. He seems to know what he’s doing most of the time. If you already bought the first book, I won’t need to say anything to convince you to get this one. If you haven’t bought it yet, what are you waiting for? Unless you really hate all things from the big companies with an unreasoning fire, then this book is a fucking blast.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Preacher Book 1: Gone to Texas
It should say something about how much I love this series when you stop to think that I could have reread any series first for review purposes, and I chose this one. Cerebus, Sandman, Love and Rockets, the Big Books, Concrete, Hate, Sin City… I’m looking forward to rereading each and every one of them (some more than others… Cerebus, for example, I haven’t read since I reread the whole thing when it hit 200. That was five years ago), but this one is just the most fun that you can get out of a comic series. I said in my first half-assed review for the second book that you should start with that one, going back to this one when you get into the series. Let me take this opportunity to say that I was completely wrong. True, he wasn’t completely on his game yet. The series starts, for example, with the three main characters (Jesse Custer (Preacher), Tulip and Cassidy) sitting in a diner, talking about how they got there. They go to flashbacks for a little while, then I guess the story just took on a life of its own because he abandoned the “flashback” idea completely. This books introduces Saint of Killers, Arseface, and mention pretty much everybody you need to know for the rest of the series… except Starr.
What’s this book about? Well, Jesse is preaching to an unusually full church (the reason for that is funny enough that you should read it for yourself) when the entity known as Genesis enters the church and his body, and the resulting explosion kills everybody else there. The rest of the book is spent establishing who everyone is, with plenty of secrets being left out. It’s established right away that he’s looking for God, and not in the spiritual sense. It’s great to read this whole thing already knowing what happens too. I’m not going to ruin a damned thing, don’t worry, but even the things that didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense in the end really do. The characters were leading down that path every step of the way. Joe R. Lansdale says in his introduction that the book is intelligent without being intellectual, and that can be taken in a good or a bad way. It’s accessible to everybody, and I believe it was one of the better selling Vertigo books when it was out. It’s hard to believe and it rarely ever happens, but a book can sell really well and still be fantastic. I think a lot of people bought this book for the shock value, and there is a little bit of that. There’s usually at least a panel or two per issue that some dorks probably look for to point at as being the coolest thing about it. They’re missing the point, but their money probably means that Garth Ennis has his pick of projects from now on, so it wasn’t all bad.
The rest of the book is tough to review, because I remember how great it was for me to discover all this stuff. OK, how about this. A secret is discovered about Cassidy that you can actually read on the back of the book (which is one of the main reasons I try not to read the back of any book), not that the secret is all that surprising. Tulip was a hired killer at the start of the book, but we still don’t know why. Why was Jesse a Preacher at all, and why did he leave Tulip 5 years ago? Who is his Granma, and why is he so scared of her? How was it that he saw his Dad killed in front of him when he was a child? What role is Arseface going to play in this, if any? And can Jesse hope to find God when Saint of Killers has been sent to kill him? If any of this intrigues you, read the series. It really is one of the best things I’ve ever read. Not the most intellectual, and I’m sure I’m not going to be able to walk into a coffee shop and talk about this in the same way that I would talk about, say, Jimmy Corrigan, and that’s fine, because the books shouldn’t be compared. They’re both seminal works in their own right. I’m just afraid that people are going to try to copy this series in the same way that they tried to copy Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, and they’re going to miss the point completely just like they did back then.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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The Tenth Frame #9
I don’t know of anybody else who could have pulled off this concept, but Austin managed it. This comic comes with a CD with “In Walked Bud” on it, a Thelonious Monk song. You’re supposed to play it and read along in the comic, and there are boxes with the corresponding time of the song to keep you on the right track. There’s a tremendous amount of work put into this (as you can probably tell by the cover), and every issue is hand-colored, so they’re not cheap at $5. Still, this is a unique comic experience, blending music and pictures almost seamlessly, and I think he did a fantastic job. Oh, and he also made little figures of the band, and he included pegs so you can stand them up while you’re reading the book and listening to the CD. Contact info is above, if you order this you might have to wait a week to let him color an issue, but it’s worth the wait. Seriously. If you’re looking for something new in comics, check this out.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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The Tenth Frame #8
This man is redefining minimalism in comics. I’m sure there are people out there who’d disagree with me, and I’m not saying he’s the best thing going out there or anything, I’m just saying that he does more with less than a whole lot of people doing comics today. This book is probably more than 50 pages and you can read it in about 4 minutes, and it only takes that long because you stop to think about things that he’s said along the way. He has a few stories in here. The first is about how he was born, a meandering and vague tale that seems perfect for the subject once you’re done with it. Then there’s one about Charlie Parker, although the music is more implied than shown in this one. You also have kind of a remake of a story from the last issue, “The Story of Adele H”, as well as musings about work, his personal life and more music. There doesn’t seem to be much here at first glance, it takes a few minutes for everything in here to sink in. It’s well worth seeking out and taking a look at, and it’s pretty cheap at $2. Contact info is up there…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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The Tenth Frame #7
Oh crap, not another thoughtful, introspective book! For those of you who may be confused, well, obviously I’m joking. Even the worst of the books like this are still about people honestly examining their feelings and their surroundings, and there’s just not enough of that going around in the world. This book absolutely defies scanning, as you can see from the sample I have down there. There are a couple of wordless comics in here. One is about a list of everyday things, with a sad disembodied head floating through the motions of a day. I liked it; it rang true for me. Then there’s another bit about a jazz player and he Austin has a great way of communicating music through comics. Then of course there’s poetry and observations here and there, mostly in the middle of the book, with various pictures, hence “comics”. I liked it. His art has a casual, doodly charm that’s hard to resist. It’s $2 if you’re interested, (plus $1 for shipping, which I haven’t been mentioning on too many pages, but most people would appreciate it, and you already know that, so I’ll stop now). Send money to: 2892 Cesar Chavez San Francisco, CA 94110. Or e-mail him for info, as I think he’s moving soon…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Windy Corner Magazine #3 edited by Austin English Now available! $10
It’s good to be reminded on a regular basis of just how wrong I can be. I’ve been bitching lately about the lack of readable contents pages for anthologies and how I just want to know who did which strip. This issue starts with a remarkable series of images by Lille Carre and goes seamlessly into a table of contents drawn by Molly Colleen O’Connell. There are no page numbers, the actual information is strewn about the page… and I went away from the pages knowing exactly who did what and where. Kudos. Granted, once you get past those first few pages there are fewer contributors this time around to keep track of, but it’s nice work all the same. Austin gets most of the, um, page time in this issue, as well he should. First up is part 3 of the Francis story (and I am going to go back and review the first issue soon), which deals this time only with Francis’ mother and her life. After this Austin has a couple of short pieces dealing with Austin’s formative years drawing and a trip to the museum between a father and his daughter (mostly dealing with their relationship). Sakura Maku is up next with a series of vibrant pieces about a brassiere museum, dying and being turned into a tree and a guy who was briefly married to Janet Jackson. In other words, you’ll need to read it for yourself. Jason T. Miles then draws a letter to the magazine from Jesse McManus, which is mildly odd because Jesse could certainly draw it himself, but Jason has a unique way of interpreting it. Finally there are the text pieces, as Austin talks about Garth Williams (an illustrator who influenced him greatly growing up), Frank Santoro has a review of Garage Band by Gipi (reminding me once again that what I do here is a poor substitute for actual, in-depth reviews), and Vanessa Davis interviews Carol Tyler. I’d probably pick up #2 before #3 if I just had $10 to spend, but there’s plenty in both of these issues for all comics fans. Unless you just hate Austin English for some reason, but I don’t see how that would be possible. $10
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Windy Corner Magazine #2 edited by Austin English Now Available! $10
Why on earth would you put out a magazine like this (as it contains brilliant and vibrant colors throughout) and give it a black and white cover? Sorry, I just felt the urge to get my one tiny complaint about this issue out of the way early. This is more of an anthology than a traditional magazine, if that makes any difference to any of you. There are two pieces here that are full of text, one of which is Austin discussing the art of Lois Lenski at length and the other is an interview between Onsmith (interviewer) and John Hankiewicz (interviewee). This interview is absolutely priceless, as who in the comics world would you want to see interviewed more than John? OK, it’s possible that there are people you’d rather read about, but John’s work contains so much in every panel and every issue that it was greatly informative to see him break down what he’s doing (or trying to do, in some cases), how he manages to put that level of detail and crosshatching into every panel and how his creative process has evolved through the years. Then, of course, there’s the comics. This begins on the inside front cover with two short pieces by Mollie Goldstrom (contemplative pieces on the outdoors) and quickly moved to three stories by Austin. There’s a trip to the Planetarium as a child and his innocent and wide-eyed reactions, the second part of a series called Francis (and I really should have read the first issue before this), and the memory of a trip to the movies with his parents as a child. For anybody who complains about the price of these magazines, and they are a bit steep in these times, the fact that Austin’s work is able to be produced in color because of it is worth the price of admission. That still leaves two comics: a piece by Fiona Logusch about the entanglements of relationships and how hard it is to get free and an autobiographical piece by Dylan Williams about his mail relationship with Alex Toth, what he learned from him and Dylan’s own progression as an artist through the years. As a whole it’s damned near flawless, assuming you’re a fan of the people mentioned above, and why on earth wouldn’t you be? Even if you’re not, picking this up and reading this will make you a fan. Don’t take my word for it; a glance around this website will show you work from everybody in this issue, then you can make up your own mind. $10
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
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Windy Corner Magazine #1 edited by Austin English Now Available! $10
For the curious: in this series I reviewed #2, then #3, and now finally #1. I plan on reviewing future issues out of order as well (if I get more than one of them at a time) just for the hell of it. Sure it’s a stupid way to go about it, especially as this issue details exactly what Austin hopes to get out of the artist interviews (he wants artists to interview artists about, um, artsy thing, which makes it especially impressive that all three of them have all been equally accessible to somebody like me, who is decidedly not an artist), and also has the beginning of the story of Francis. Austin was also against using punctuation in most of these strips, which has the disquieting effect of making everything seem like a deeply relevant run-on sentence. Anyway, stories in here include Francis parts 1-4 (involving losing the money for dinner, Francis finding a suspicious letter in his dad’s coat pocket (and showing it to his mother), buying toys and eking out a living, and Francis selling some of his art), Austin showing us a few of his earliest memories, some painting by Paula Salemme, Austin interviewing Andrice Arp (if the name doesn’t sound familiar, trust me, if you read small press comics you’ll recognize the art), a story of actually learning something in art school by Steve Lafler, and a wordless piece by Richard Hahn, who should really finish the next issue of Lumakick already. Unless he’s just working on other stuff that I’ve missed, which is entirely possible. I still think #2 is the best of the bunch, but that’s probably just because I’m so biased towards that Onsmith/John Hankiewicz interview. Still, there’s not a bad issue here, I just hope the price tag doesn’t scare people off. $10
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Posted by Kevin
