April 22, 2010
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Children & God #1
I’ve said it before on this website, and it’s as true now as it ever was: if you’re going to do good autobio, it helps to have something interesting to write about. Kelly has that down from the start, having spent years in Asia and Central America. This comic isn’t a linear progression of events; it could probably work just fine as a collection of short stories if that was the way Kelly wanted to go. It is all held together though by the idea of holding onto one’s identity in the face of oppressive rule (from the Russian’s in the 80’s) through all kinds of adversity. Subjects in here include celebrating while poor, prayer, finding places of beauty, holding onto language when you’re told that there is only one (new) proper way to speak, the quiet death of a community, and, above all, being a child and trying to live through all kinds of cultural changes. If this sounds like a lot for one mini to deal with, well, that’s true. I’ve rarely seen a comic come out of nowhere with this level of attention to detail, this much sheer artistry on every page, that also manages to tell such an important and compelling story. It’s a welcome reminder of why I keep plugging away at this website, in the hopes of getting work like this out to a slightly larger audience than would otherwise see it. $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Owner’s Manual
Here’s another sketchbook-like creation from Chris. This one has a few more of the traditional strips than the last one did, or at least the beginnings of strips, so it’ll probably be easier for the uninitiated to enjoy it. In here he deals with violence, hippies, robbery, failure, and your mother. There are also more than a few sketches, with all kinds of splashes of color all over the place and some odd pieces of clipart. As always, I’ll stick with the story based minis over the sketchbooks, but this is pretty neat if you already like his stuff.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Stun Nuts #3
I could just be making this up (and, in fact, I am), but with the publication of this story from the SPX 2002 anthology, I think every single piece in that has been reproduced as a mini comic. There were a lot of stories in there, so maybe a few are still only in that one volume, but if you’re any sort of small press completist then you’d be a lot better off getting that anthology and leaving these reproductions alone. However, if you only like a few artists in that book, chances are they’ve put out their story in mini form, so everybody wins! This one is a short bio of Edward Gorey, who was a fascinating man with a body of work that’ll probably never be matched. It would be nice if this was longer than four pages, but there are other bios out there for people who are interested in his work. It’s a good little mini if you know and love the man, if you don’t then this is a cheap and easy way to get a tiny primer in his life. I’d say that this is $1 but I’d only be guessing…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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No Work
Who loves the handmade tiny sketch books? If you don’t, it’s probably best to move on. If you do, you’re in luck! That cover is just about actual size, and inside are a bunch of tightly stapled drawings, distinguishable and indistinguishable, with a wide variety of colors, smudges and aliens. Or maybe just very odd people, it’s hard to tell. These are $3, supplies are limited and this is mostly only for people who already love Chris’ work and people who like to see pure creativity in action without necessarily being bothered by a story. Contact info is up there…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Drip
Here’s a silent comic from Chris, about making a golem and the results of doing it. Well, maybe not the intentional results, but why ruin the story? A man makes the golem out of (if I had to guess, as it’s black and white and all) toothpaste, pills and flour, when suddenly he’s attacked by some mysterious people. It’s silent, like I said, and it’s hard to over-analyze the silent ones for me, but it’s a neat story and I’m a big fan of his art, even though this story didn’t leave much room for variety, as most of it was set in two rooms. Still, it’s worth a look. Here’s an e-mail address, it should be up on the USS Catastrophe site soon and it’s $4!
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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The Diplomat #4 (Chris Cilla only)
Well, I have a dilemna. I picked this one because it looked like one of the few that I could review in a short time, as I’m here on my lunch hour and all. After reading it I discovered that it was one of the more original and unique things that I’ve read, making it hard to sum up in a few lines. The closest thing I can compare it to would be Jim Woodring’s Frank, which is what I always compare things to when I’m at a loss for words. It’s funny, it’s odd, it looks great, and you’re not going to understand a lot of what’s going on but will still come away feeling strangely satisfied. Sometimes the stories seem normal enough (like the first story about a man having a rough day) before veering off into insanity, sometimes they don’t make much sense to begin with and are over before you know what happened (like Silent Running), and sometimes you have a story like Pink Blazer, which defies all words that I know. Check it out, let yourself go, and keep your mind open.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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A Moon, A Girl… Swonk (with Greg Petix)
There are times when I can resist scanning both parts of a wrap-around cover, and there are times when I just can’t help myself. Well, take a look at it, what do you expect? I’m only human. What you have here is a collection of strips, about half of which are completely random and unconnected, and about half of which are a long tale about a man trying to gather Hitler’s paintbrush, Hirohito’s monocle, Mussalini’s hairpiece, and Stalin’s moustache. The unconnected strips deal with the real story of Jesus, Chicken Soup for your ass, learning from the Road Runner cartoons, video “reviews”, why onions make you cry, and the origin of Swonk. I can’t tell you which set I liked better, which is probably a good sign for the comic as a whole. If you like newspaper strips that actually make you laugh (and they are a very rare breed), then you should probably check this out. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Howling Swonk (with Greg Petix)
Wasn’t I just complaining about newspaper strips yesterday? Well, you’ll be happy to know that this looks like a good one. It’s a small book, granted, and the content is a little uneven, but I could see where a big book of this could be pretty funny. It’s $2 for this one and I can tell you for sure that it’s well worth the money. Tons of random things happen, which is about as vague of a description as you’re likely to see, but there you have it. Let’s see… Uri Gellar’s daughter tries to kill the President because she loves Hillary, one man buys another a cock ring with unexpected results, and the Trix rabbit freaks out. A few of many and, like I said, most of them are funny. UPDATE 7/09/04: Chris has informed me that all the Swonk books are gone, but USS Catastrophe might be putting them all up on their website one of them days, so don’t fret!
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Mung #2 Now Available! $2
Plenty of stuff to like about this one. I have mentioned before that just about all the “funny” comics need is to be funny, right? Good. Things that I liked about this: an inventor cow saying “mooooureka” (just say it out loud, it’s fun), “Uneven Boobs Weekly”, the mystery of the ring finger solved, “The Hall of Fallopian Justice”, and the inner dialogue of a man alone in a bar at 1:30am. What I didn’t like was the printing screw-up that repeated four pages, but that’s something easily fixed or, if not, easily ignored. Both of these babies are available here now, so check them out! Or check the contact info up there to send Dick an e-mail and ask him to bribe you with something, I guess it’s up to you…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Mung #1 Now Available! $2
I actually got this in the mail the same day that I begged cartoonists everywhere to make their comics more funny. Strange world, huh? I liked almost everything about this book, and, more importantly, it made me laugh. The only I didn’t like so much was the song about the monkey. Call it monkey overload, I don’t know. Maybe there should be a moratorium of a few years on all monkey-related subjects in the world of comics. Nah… Anyway, it’s a funny book, and he also has a page that’s eerily similar to the comic I did five years ago (about four people would get that reference and they’re probably not reading this), so it gets the “thumbs up”. Stuff he draws about in here include disappearing genitals, songs getting stuck in your head, infomercials and dead squirrels. If you’re not intrigued yet, I give up. It’s only $2, send him an e-mail to see where you can send him some money. It’s worth it.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Nibble #5
I’d like to congratulate Tom Cherry on being the very first person this year (at the late date of December 22nd) to give me even the tiniest bit of holiday cheer. Not that I’m always that big of a scrooge, but as for this year, “humbug” does about sum it up. He’s done it with another of his tiny mini comics, Nibble, dealing with a couple of kids making a snowman. Sounds innocent, right? Well, said snowman wakes up, becomes self-aware, and… well, what would you do if you woke up to find out that you were made entirely out of snow, had sticks for arms, buttons for a mouth and eyes and a carrot for a nose? It’s killing me not to give it away here, but let’s just say that I laughed out loud. Tom sent along a few of his comics, and I’m looking forward to getting a chance to see what this guy is all about. These shorties have looked adorable, like Tom could easily jump onto the Sunday funnies and nobody would bat an eye, but with just enough darkness to keep me interested. Even if the rest of the books all suddenly take a drastic dip in quality, this particular issue is going to be sitting on my desk for a while. I can’t think of a better holiday conversation starter than this… $.25
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Nibble #4
Add one more comic to your list of acceptable all-ages fare: Nibble. OK, maybe it’s too soon to say it after one issue, as this wasn’t perfect or anything, but it was adorable and even had a slightly amusing joke at the end for this adult brain. Granted, said brain is far too cynical to do more than crack a slight smile, but if anybody out there has managed to stay a bit less jaded than me (or has kids that aren’t quite there yet) than this is perfectly amusing shortie. I mean the shortie part too, as that $.25 price tag generally doesn’t come with books that are chock full of story. Either way the samples will probably tell you all you need to know, or if they don’t that website certainly will. $.25
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Nibble #3
It’s going to be very difficult to talk about this book, tiny as it is, without revealing the punch line. There’s a little boy, you see, with flowers for hair. While eating an ice cream cone (you know, the one on the cover) he begins to attract bees, who must love the fact that he has flowers for hair AND is eating ice cream. One bee becomes many bees, said boy manages to get away and decides on shaving his head. Anything more than that ruins the joke, and what’s the point of reading these tiny things if you already know the joke? Funny, good punchline, there’s not a whole lot more you can ask for at $.25. Worth checking out, and you can still get everything on this page for a little more than $1.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Nibble #1
Here’s another tiny mini from Tom (or the first mini, if you’re reading this sequentially, which is how you probably are reading this in the future, as that’s how they’re listed and all). This one details an alternate theory on the life and death of Abraham Lincoln, as told to a young man asking his grandmother for help with a school essay. Grandma seems slightly confused in her memory of Abe, which leads to a rather amusing (and tiny, as you might have guessed from that price tag) comic. It’s long been my opinion that people who only put out pricey comics should at least have cheapies for people like me who wander around conventi0ns and quickly run out of money to buy hefty graphic novels, and Tom certainly has that idea down cold. It doesn’t hurt a thing that they’re all funny so far and leave me intrigued as to what else he’s done. Check it out, if you can still afford a quarter in this economy.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Eric Whetsel is Johnny Tobaccoseed
You can never really go wrong with jokes about hippies, although I think the jury is still out on jokes about calling somebody with a literal pot on his head a pothead. This is another shortie by Tom (and were you aware that you could get all 4 books listed on this page for $1? That’s tiny), this time about Johnny Tobaccoseed and his journey to tell all the children about the wonders of tobacco, after first creeping them out a little bit. Unfortunately for him Johnny Appleseed is tired of his schtick being stolen, and we’re treated to a good old fashioned cartoon brawl, with flying fists and stars in a swirling circular cloud. I think I judged these too quickly as simple all ages fun, and have been drifting away from that conclusion with every passing mini. Granted, kids could probably pick these up and miss most of the humor (although with the internet and all kids are probably more worldly than I give them credit for), but Tom manages to sneak some subtleties in for adults and careful readers, which is impressive given how tiny these things are. $.25, good luck finding a better comic bargain than that.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Reader Copy
It’s hard to lower expectations more than that cover does, isn’t it? Setting the bar that low, naturally, makes it pretty easy to clear, which Tom manages easily. This is a 24 hour comic, meaning that you give up any serious expectations of quality at the door and may or may not come away pleasantly surprised. The story here, such as it is, is that a young boy and a big old talking fish decide to have a picnic. Well, the fish decides, the boy crankily agrees. The boy’s bad attitude extends all the way to him insulting the sun, and the sun responds by leaving. Meaning, for a few pages at least, solid black panels with some dialogue. Then there’s the overweight Jesus freak stripper who appears out of nowhere, although it turns out that there is a plan for her later. Or least there kind of is. Hey, maybe some people would be turned off by this level of randomness, but not me. Tom is nothing is not up front about the fact that this probably isn’t going to be his best work, and that famous fourth wall is smashed through over and over. I had a blast reading it, which is all you can ask for out of the 24 hour comics especially. $.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Muse #3
Following the bloodshed at the end of the last issue, Jamil seeks an audience with the “good” daughter of the wizard. The wizard gets wind of this and what ensues would be called by at least one television wrestling announcer as a “slobberknocker”. For those intelligent types who don’t watch such nonsense, that means a serious fight between two powerhouses. So, for my minor complaint that the last issue was a little too talky, this one ends up being about half conversation and half fight scene, which is one more reason why it’s a bit silly to review graphic novels in chunks, even if said graphic novel did come out originally in individual issues. It’s still a lot of fun for fans of the genre, please see my warnings in the reviews for previous issues if you’re not a fan… $2.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Muse #2
This seemed more like an “in between” issue than #1. You know, when a fair amount of action is followed by long text pieces and explanations about where things are going? Necessary, sure, but with all these monsters (and a genuine wizard) wandering around, it got my bloodlust going. In this issue Jamil (the young man on a quest) decides to get political and draws a cartoon about the wizard where everybody can see it… and everybody immediately knows who did it. This means that Jamil has to get out of town, but he can’t even manage to get to the bigger monsters before one of the little ones forces him to turn back. Meanwhile, the good daughter comes to terms with what happens, the bad daughter keeps her rage alive and the wizard loses all patience. Throw in some civilian casualites and you have another solid issue, if slightly less exciting than the first, whatever that means. The same caveat applies here as the last issue: if you don’t like fantasy epics, please redirect your attentions to one of the many other pages around here that instead deals with whining 20 somethings. $2.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Muse #1
Who likes a good fantasy comic? If that person isn’t you, it’s probably best to wander to another artist on this site somewhere. If you’ve been looking for a decent fantasy mini-epic, you may be in luck. A young man on a quest (is there any other kind?) jumps off a bridge to avoid being killed by a very large monster and gets fished out of the water by villagers from a secluded town. He finds himself dumped into the middle of a confusing politcal situation involving an angry dictator, a daughter with at least a slight capacity for mercy and another daughter who seems fine with continuing to kill everybody who disagrees with her at all. Naturally, our hero dives right into things, and we can already start to see the sides forming in this struggle. Oh, and did I mention the conjured dragons? Just in case you thought this was all political or something. An intriguing first issue, and there are a few more still here to get to in the coming weeks. $2.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Theater of the Meek
Whoever is on that Xeric jury, kudos. Sure, they probably miss a bunch of stuff, but when they do send out a grant, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be a worthwhile read. This is a collection of stories, mostly about Robyn’s childhood. She shares a few moments, including her skin problems, blue poop and drawing comics as a child. Then it gets a bit cute, at least in appearance, with some stories involving a repressed bunny in love. The strongest piece in the book though was “Bathe” (keep in mind that this review is from a person who just went through a tough break-up). It’s a silent piece of Robyn taking a bath. While she’s bathing her mind wanders back to a time when she was in that tub with an old boyfriend. It’s a poignant and moving piece, and not a word is needed. A great book all around. Most of you have have probably already seen this, as it came out a few years ago, but if you haven’t you should definitely check it out. It’s $2.95, contact info is up there…
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Posted by Kevin
