April 23, 2010
Website
Gabagool #4 Now Available! $3
Holy crap! It’s a regular comic! Where the heck did they get the money to publish this? Anyway, more power to them, and it’s a deserved jump, as this series just keeps getting better. I think it’s up to $3 this time, if you were wondering. Chris gets laid off but gets a huge severance check, then hears about a great beach where there’s a lot of action easily had, and hilarity ensues. Or at least it probably does next issue, because it’s “to be continued”. Then there’s a fantastic story about a bunch of the guys sitting around and playing Dungeons and Dragons with the characters saying the lines that the players are saying. Top it all off with another Cousin Lenny rant (although it sounds like he might be going soft. Where’s the rage?) and it’s another solid effort. They seem to be able to keep to a schedule, which is key in comics like this, and they’ve managed to keep it funny every time so far. Check it out, support their self-publishing endeavor.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Gabagool! #2
This stupid scanner, I swear… Anyway, the cover is of the main character and a bunch of animals standing around happily in the sunset. Trust me, it’s funny when you read it. The whole story here is basically a date involving Christopher and a couple of his friends who meet the girl he’s interested and a bunch of her friends in Manhattan. Simple, but a funny story. It’s great to see that they put this out so quickly after #1 too. I don’t know how many #1’s I’ve seen of mini comics in my life, but there have been far fewer #2’s and even less #3’s. Keep up the good work boys, I think you’re onto something. Check out the website too. It looks like Mike is updating on a regular basis, and that’s always a good thing.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Gabagool! #1 (made by Mike Dawson and Chris Radtke, reviewed by Jason Dupuis)
let me start by saying that this comic is not bad. it’s pretty entertaining in fact. i just want to get that out of the way before i start complaining about it. anyway, the story is pretty good: a few friends
are sick of their jobs and decide to start bounty hunting. they place a comically terse ad in the “pennysaver” and after waiting a few days, they get a job from a friend. it turns out that they’re not the
greatest men for the job.
i like the drawing style. i like the writing. and the whole package is very well done. the thing i don’t really like is the format. the size is just weird. it’s larger than most mini-comics and smaller than most “mainstream” comics. that’s not so bad, but it seems like they left a lot of empty space. the actual comic panels could easily fit into a more traditional mini-comics size. all of this is still not so bad. what really put me off was the filler they used to round out this big book. okay it may not have been intended as filler but i felt that’s what it was there for. they included some weird stuff; poetry, advertisements, some rant from a character named cousin lenny, anime reviews, etc. which would be fine if this were mainly a ‘zine but i think it’s a comic. i kept expecting a punchline in that poetry but it sure didn’t come. it’s for-real poetry. i’m not trying to poetry bash… i guess i just didn’t appreciate it in this setting, and i’m certainly not an advertisement fan, even if it is for “new york’s hottest online video magazine!” overall, this comic is worth getting (it’s “one friggin’ dollar”).unless it’s a ‘zine, in which case, it’s not great.
Send money to P.O. Box 1638 Radio City Station New York, NY 10101-1638, or visit his website.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Cabaret Comix #2
And here I was starting to think that Mike was working exclusively on Gabagool these days. Don’t get me wrong, I like Gabagool a lot, it’s just that his work on Cabaret is a lot more quiet and reflective. More stories about people and less mayhem and humor. This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending completely on your mood. This comic is made up of two main stories and a short one on the back cover. The first is a wordless story about a day in the life of Mike. It’s wordless and it’s the portrayal of a quiet, average day, except for the part when he shoves something up his cat’s butt. Hey, I’m going with it being some kind of legitimate medical procedure, or he’s just created a new level for self-disclosure in autobio. The second is the story of a conversation between Mike and some friends that follows his friend Steve as he attends a protest to hang out with a girl he’s interested in. As far as I’m concerned this guy can do it all. He nails funny stuff in Gabagool and he quietly examines loneliness and the motives of humanity in general in Cabaret. Well worth a buck, contact info is above…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Cabaret Comics #1
I’ve had really good luck with the random comics that people have sent me in the mail so far. I don’t think I ever even exchanged e-mails with this guy and boom, there’s a comic waiting for me in my mailbox yesterday when I get home. And a damned good comic at that. I guess you’d call it a tale of relationships. The book is broken down into two parts. Part one is about a man and his “relationship” with a high school girl and the second part is about this man’s roommate and his sexually adventurous girlfriend. This worked a lot better than I thought it would, frankly. Flipping through the book before I read it, nothing really hit me over the head. I thought it might be an OK book but that would be it. This guy managed to hit me over the head with the goodness in this book and it’s a good thing he did.
You could say that the first part is a little weak, I guess, if you really wanted to nitpick. We get to see nothing of the relationship or how it happened, just what happens when his friend starts making fun of the girl for being in high school. Still, the confrontation and what happens afterwards is great. I really like his way of running the word balloons together and cutting off a lot of what’s said, it adds to the general chaos of some of the conversations. The second part of the book is disturbing as hell. It shows why the second couple showed up at the restaurant at all and why they were in such a big hurry to leave and a lot of it’s wordless. I’m becoming more and more of a fan of that type of comic. It leaves so much more up to the imagination and the skill of the artist, and guys like Mike can certainly pull that off. This one is $3 and it’s a welcome addition to anyone’s collection. Good stuff, and I hope he does more soon.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Negative Too
Really, I don’t have any Phonzie Davis comics on this website? Amazing. I’ve been seeing his work for years, but apparently only in anthologies. Anyway, there’s a warning right on the front of this one: “This is a Phreak-Hop Anti-Comik!” Meaning, I guess, that I don’t have to review it as a regular comic, as it just barely resembles one. It’s mostly wordless with two stories that are both visually gorgeous in a messy, frantic sort of way. With no panels and very little structure, it’s obvious that Phonzie is trying his own thing here, and kudos to him for it. As for what the stories mean, here’s where I get to sound stupid, as I’m still trying to figure that part out. The first story is about the world of rap stars after hours, dealing with the women going in and out of that world, and apparently one of them at least is capable of eating you alive. The second story, um… punt? My guess is that it’s about a young man, falsely accused, who’s about to get executed and all the various public reactions to that fact. Or I’m totally wrong on both of these stories, but hey, at least I’m trying. Regardless, it’s worth a look just to stare at that incredible art and try to figure out what the hell is going on. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Left Handed Sophie #1
Well that was quite a gap between comics for this man on this website. It looks like he’s kept it up, as the art shows some serious improvement (and it wasn’t bad to begin with), it just looks like I missed the stuff in between. This is the first issue in a series (regular comic book size) dealing with, well, Sophie. That’s the part of the issue that works well, and luckily it’s most of the issue. The trouble is that Phonzie is building a saga, so random characters show up with little to no introduction and just start talking about their issues. Really, in some cases I got more information out of checking out the cover again to see who some people were than I did from their couple of pages in the comic. Actually, the cover gives a good chunk of her story away, as under the title it says “the shocking saga of a young albino woman, corrupted by drug trafficking and the occult”. The trouble is that this issue doesn’t get into any of that stuff, so I guess now we know exactly where this is headed. This issue starts off with Sophie (at age 13) getting pushed around at school and standing up for herself. This goes directly into a scene with Spree (a mystery man from the cover) getting a blowjob, followed by the reverend and his crew, with very little idea of how it all fits into the big picture. This flows into a black-eyed Sophie getting adopted by a family of white hippies, and things seem to be looking up as she also gets a new sister out of the bargain. Now we learn more about Pipp, who may or may not be the biological sister of Sophie, as this flows right into Sophie learning more about her new sister.  This goes into a local picnic, and we learn that Sophie’s new parents were just looking for someone “ethnic” to adopt and settled for Sophie instead of getting a kid from overseas.  Now it turns out that Pipp is actually a young boy, as he gets chewed out for saying that he only likes white women. From here we get to meet even more new people, Sophie’s new dad starts to introduce her to voodoo and we see why Sophie’s biological mom gave her up. Visually, this comic is striking, as Phonzie uses every bit of the page and has some of the most visually inventive use of word balloons and panel structure (when he uses anything approaching a traditional panel structure) that I’ve ever seen. As this is the first issue in a projected saga, I’m guessing that this cast of characters will become a lot clearer as time goes on. Right now I have very little idea of what’s going on outside of Sophie’s life, but I’m guessing future issues will have some sort of character synopses to keep all this people in some sort of order. It’s a hefty thing for only $3, and it looks like it’s off to a promising (if occasionally baffling) start.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Three Bad Ones
There’s no way to accurately show it through my scanner, but this is one of Eleanor’s fantastic “comic you can buy in a gumball machiine” minis, kept in its own little plastic bubble. It’s been literally rolling around the floor in my apartment since the last FLUKE I attended and I stumbled across it today. It’s a little fable about three men (pictured above) who decide that they’re tired of doing chores and go out looking for a wife. They have a hard time finding someone they can all agree on (which is a little creepy in its own right, but fits right in with the fable theme), until they finally find the perfect woman. Charming and wonderful as always, if I had a million dollars there would be real gumball machines with these little gems in them all over the country. Anyway, plenty of minis to choose from if you click on that website, and I haven’t seen much from her that I haven’t liked…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
The Discovery
Way back when, evolution was still up for debate. Back then a man named Eugene DuBois found the skull cap for Pitheoanthropus Erectus, or the walking ape man. It was thought to be a missing link between the evolution of apes and man, but scientists at the time didn’t treat it seriously, and if I keep going I’m going to spoil every part of the book. It details his life story in regards to this skull cap, at least as much as it can be detailed in a little mini. Good stuff as always from Eleanor, and yes, the cover is supposed to look like that. I’m guessing this is $2, contact info is up there if you’d like to find out for sure. Also, I’m aware of the fact that there are some deranged nutcases out there who still think that an old man in the sky created the world in six days, fossils be damned. If any of you have the brain power to read this, please, PLEASE write to me or post something on the forums so we can have a debate about this. It’s always hilarious to me to see those people try to say with a straight face that THE DEVIL put those fossils there to test our faith…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
I’ve Lost My Spots!
If you can look at the cover and think that you’re going to get an in-depth examination of the situation in the Middle East or something, well, you’d be very wrong. What you have here is an adorable little tale about an, um, monster I guess, that wakes up one day without its spots. It finds another creature with a telescope and they spend the rest of the idea seeing spots on various things and realizing that those aren’t the spots they’re looking for. This is another one of those rare comics that is perfect to leave laying around for a small child (if you have small children of any sort in your life, that is). It’s dedicated to her Grandparents and is obviously a labor of love. Oh, and the spots inside are in color, so it’s a vibrant, cheery book in just about every possible way. I’d say this is $3 or $4 because of the color, but there’s contact info up there so you could find out for sure, if you loved cute little books about monsters looking for spots.
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Oh Charlie
It’s so easy for a comic about love and loss to turn into a hokey mess without much of a point, except for the author to bitch about what they’ve lost. Just wanted to point that out before I made it clear that this comic is nothing like that, and three cheers to Eleanor for that. This is the story of her relationship with a boy named Charlie, his death, and her life before and after. If you think I’m giving too much away, well, it’s revealed pretty early on, so you’re wrong. There will be no discussion on the topic! Time flashes all over the place here, with her going back and forth between while they were dating and after he was dead and she was dealing with it, seamlessly. These are all a page or two long, so there’s never a completely in-depth profile of these two. You’d think that would lessen the impact of their lives, but she manages to pull the whole thing off beautifully. Great dialogue, as her sparse backgrounds (for most of the book, anyway) really put the focus on what is said. Contact info is up there, I’d say this is $2, but I’d be guessing…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Mr. Bloomburg Finds True Love
What a creepy little comic book! I mean that in the best possible way, of course. This is all about a lonely, quiet man who is forced to rent out a room in his house out of financial necessity. A young woman takes the room, and the man discovers that he has a handy peephole right into her room. The rest of the comic is spent with him spying on her, until eventually he decides to transform himself into her perfect man, which he has been able to determine from long hours of voyeurism. There’s also a few neat parts of the book where you can fold back a flap and have something new revealed to you, as well as on both covers. I feel dirty after reading this, and if that isn’t a recommendation I don’t know what is. Here’s a website, another book with no price, so let’s say $2 and see what happens, OK?
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Mattie and Dodi
Another day, another gorgeous comic from Eleanor. This one details basically a day in the life of Mattie and Dodi, two sisters who are taking care of their dying grandfather. OK, just Mattie is taking care of him, as Dodi is too young and traumatized to help much. Mattie is also dealing with a loving boyfriend and a job, both of which seem to be unwelcome distractions from her other duties. Eleanor has taken a topic here that could be milked to death as a tear-jerker and was instead content to let the silences between characters tell the story. I don’t think Dodi says a word the whole time, but most of the story is told from her perspective. It’s a quiet and affecting tale about people being forced to deal with an impossible situation. Oh, and it’s her first “big” comic, hence the heftier price tag of $5, but well worth it if you’re already a fan of her stuff…
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Fish Out Of Water Now Available! $1.50
Ah, the silent mini comic. This is where I usually ramble a bit, as there’s never a whole lot to say about something that’s this short and this silent (although this particular issue does have a poem following the story). And this time? No exception. This is the story of the last moments of life for a fish, as it’s apparently caught, gutted and thrown back into the water. I did enjoy the poem at the end, which is a rarity for me, and perhaps the whole thing would have been better if Christopher had done stanza by stanza panels instead of leaving it silent and placing the poem at the end, almost as an afterthought. But, and especially when it comes to poetry, what do I know anyway? $1.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
True-Size Eyes Now Available! $2
Rarely have I been more torn in writing a review. Poetry in comics generally doesn’t do a thing for me; sorry, that’s just the way it is. However, mayhem on a massive scale is always a blast. So what’s to be done when a giant female child is terrorizing a town… in verse? My head, it does explode. I’ll stick with the easy stuff first, as Chris’s art has really grown on me over the last couple of years, and he does a great job depicting said mayhem as well as showing off some giant eyeballs. The poetry is amusing enough, it’s just, like I said, not my thing. So I suppose it all comes down to my usual wishy-washiness. It’s worth a look if you already know and like Chris’s stuff (and/or poetry), but if you’re not familiar with the guy and want to check him out there are many better places to start, like for example any one of the comics listed above this one, except maybe Crawling, as that falls into the same “poetry” category. Clear enough for you?
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Dark Matter Mission For A Cooped-Up Cosmonaut Now Available! $3
How long would it take you to go crazy if you were cooped up on an asteroid with only another cosmonaut for company? This tells the tale of an undetermined time in the future when a couple of cosmonauts are sent to observe dark matter… except for the slight fact that dark matter isn’t all that interesting to observe, and they appear to be trapped with no hope of ever getting home. Tempers flare, and we are treated to that greatest of rarities in the comics world: a zero gravity fight. Well, mostly one of them beating up on the other one while he tries to get to safety, but still an impressive display. I love the fact that Christopher isn’t afraid to wander all over the place when it comes to his comics. A lot of people stick to a topic or two that they know really well, Christopher isn’t afraid to tackle much of anything, and that has to work to his future advantage as an artist. Godd stuff, more than worth it for the slow motion attack. $3
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
The Snowman, The Bananaman, The Parking Robot and Me Now Available! $4
When there are two title options it’s OK to just pick one and avoid typing out both options, right? Good, glad that’s settled. In a constantly growing pile of minis that are wonderful, this one might just be the best of the bunch. It’s about the four characters mentioned above, with them all slowly starting their day, doing their own menial tasks (Snowman drives an ice cream truck, Parking Robot is a waiter, Bananaman is one of many fancy pants bananas who seem to run the town, and “Me” is an angry cyclist). Things build up slowly, or at least as slowly as they can in a mini comic, with everything coming together at a rally for the Strawberry Resistance. While I’d love to go on about how everything connects after the fact, there’s too much in here to be discovered for me to ruin it all by rambling. Like everything else on this page, check it out, you won’t be disappointed. No price, let’s say… $2?
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
Crawling Now Available! $2
You know why I have such a hard time reviewing comics that are mostly illustrated poems? Because I don’t know what I’m talking about, and my ideas for the meanings behind the poetry are pretty much complete nonsense. How that differentiates from my regular reviews is something I’ll leave to you to figure out, but I wanted to throw that out there before I proceeded to ramble about this one. It’s a poem for a woman named Heidi (wife, girlfriend, former lover, grocery clerk, we don’t know) asking her to take a chance with him, but as it goes on it becomes clear that he’s not so sure he’s not the one getting in over his head. Or so it appeared to me, and as for that, please see above. It has great art and some nice imagery, particularly his desire to explore everything about her in a spiritual way, you perverts. The e-mail address is up there, it’s worth a look if you’re more into the poetry than I am, or quite possibly even if you’re not. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
“No buses. Chickens.” Now Available! $2
Yep, that’s the title, as written, just in case you thought I was meandering when I typed that. This is a short mini, but wonderfully done. There were no buses, you see, but there were chickens. Mean, fast, man-eating chickens. In this brief story a woman is picked clean at a bus stop, and the man standing around waiting for the bus decides to go through her purse to find out more about her… until the chickens start to take an interest in what he’s doing too. Great stuff, recommended for anybody who doesn’t already have a phobia about chickens, because if you do this might just send you into a padded room. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 23, 2010
Website
I Walk With My Wife In The Evening Now Available! $4
What a gorgeous, gorgeous book. Oops, I gave away my opinion right off the bat. This is the story of a walk between a man and his wife, with them just walking and talking, with the man (I’m guessing it’s Christopher) meandering off mentally into a daydream after seenig a lone, odd cloud. He drifts back to an old news show he saw where they were talking about what would happen if somebody released a dangerous chemical into the air. How would the people react, would it just be calm acceptance or panic, etc. He also goes into detail about a book he read in high school detailing the remaining survivors of the world after half of it is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust and how they calmly wait for the cloud to come and kill them all. Is that On The Beach maybe? Sure seems familiar to me. Anyway, the story is engrossing, but it’s the art that takes this to another level. The attention to the tiniest details in every page is impressive, and yet it somehow comes across with the same feeling as his casual walk through a neighborhood. Not sure if that makes any sense at all, but trust me on this one. Just an all around great mini; it’s comics like this that make me want to keep doing this website forever. $4
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Posted by Kevin
