April 22, 2010
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Satisfactory Comics #6
These guys have won some kind of grant by now, right? I’d have to think that two people with as much practical knowledge of the medium combined with a willingness to put in some serious work AND at least a casual acquaintance with some of the best talents in the field would lead somebody to hand them a pile of money, lock them in a room and see what they come up with. The first story is one section of a map that different cartoonists took time to plot out, this one about a race of tiny people meeting a huge human for the first time. Next up is a (wrongly) rejected story from the 2004 SPX anthology about how Isaac conquered his addiction to turn-based strategic games. Full disclosure here, I’ve fallen pretty far into World of Warcraft, which is in the same general area of what he’s talking about. I don’t get how he can discount the whole experience, as he says it really helped him to look at battles and world events in a different light, but he seems to be “cured” at the moment. Then there’s a one page “guess which caption goes with which gag”, which is interesting in theory, as each answer has different ramifications to whatever gag you’re trying to set up. Their next story is done as each page being a stanza in the sestina form, and if you knew what that was before reading this you’re much smarter than I am. The story is your basic hard-boiled detective trying to figure out a mystery, but they manage to make it entertaining as well as a fun exercise. Finally they have their adaptation of a part of the Bible, for a project online to illustrate the whole sordid mess at http://www.flamingfire.com/bible.html, which is something that all of you people with some sort of artistic ability reading this should work on. Maybe it can be done in our lifetimes, who knows? And, for their last bit of creative storytelling, there are 8 two-sided cards in a pouch in the back of the comic. These cards can be arranged in any order, from any side, to tell the story of a young student trying to learn the secrets of the universe from an old master. Fascinating stuff again, as much for the ideas behind the stories as the stories themselves…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Satisfactory Comics #5
What an odd concept for a 24 hour comic. First off, this is still Isaac and Mike’s comic, but there’s a huge pile of comics talent who supplied a lot of the characters. Tom O’Donnell, Jeff Seymour, Dan Zettwoch, Adam Rosenblatt, Jesse Reklaw, Jon Lewis, Scott Koblish, Melody Lu, Jenny Blair, Liza Graham, Linnea Duvall and Bill Kartalopoulos all developed a character in this. What could possibly require that many characters? Well, there’s this young girl, see, and she gets a letter from the creature in the sample (not that she knows that it’s that creature, which was submitted by Jesse Reklaw, by the way) that’s asking for her help. Once she arrives, she discovers that she’s in a huge house with multiple levels and different dangers behind every door. I have to say, this looks great for a 24 hour comic, which I’m seeing more and more these days, so good job on that, guys. One complaint I have is that the lettering gets more than a little sloppy at places, which would be a lot more excusable if the art wasn’t so good. Spend the extra 30 seconds and make sure those letters fit in the boxes! Hey, it’s a minor pet peeve, granted, but I think it’s legitimate. Anyway, an interesting comic, especially just to see the incredible array of characters. $1, contact info up there…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Satisfactory Comics #4
Throwing a bunch of random things together (some reader submissions) and making a comic out of it is just a wonderful idea as far as I’m concerned. That being said, I’d have to imagine that it would be a fairly easy thing to screw up, and I’m happy to report that that hasn’t happened here. This is the story of Sam, a young boy who runs away in search of adventure after getting yelled at by parents. He runs into a skunk and a Pogo-like creature and they discover that a group of ogres is ransacking the area and trying to turn everybody else into ogres to help. There are a few other random adventures along the way (including a fantastic full page spread in the center of the book) and everything ends happily ever after. Not to give anything away, but that’s not the point of a book like this. The point is seeing how they use all the random things to make a greater whole. I honestly didn’t know about the concept of throwing a bunch of things together until they explained it on the back of the comic, so I guess you’d have to call that a success. Good stuff, I’d say it’s $2 and contact info is up there…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Satisfactory Comics #2
I was thinking these comics were more random than this one, or was that only for #5? Whatever the case, this one is a split comic by the same creative team, with everything coming together in the middle. On one side you have Yeliz, who’s sick to death of dealing with inadequate men, get a set of “What If Men”. One is going to adore her, one is a lover of beauty, and one is a punk. Each have their own benefits to offer but, obviously, they all have negative aspects as well. Then you have Rob, who’s just trying to get over an old girlfriend but finds that everything he sees and does reminds him of her, until he has a dream about a monkey. Hey, I’m not giving anything away here. What I’ve seen from these guys so far tells me that they’re really good when they’re focused (here) and they’re really good when they’re mixing as many things they can into the pot and seeing what comes out of it (#5). Good stuff all around, and I really liked the ending. Contact info up there, $2, check it out!
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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A Treatise Upon the Jam
Sorry, but I’m much too lazy to type that whole title. You can read it, right? The title sums it up pretty nicely, as it’s a comic which is completely Isaac and Mike talking to some random person about doing a jam in comics and how it’s a great thing for any comic artist to try, and I couldn’t agree more. Way back in the day I did a comic with Jim Roy (and other, occasionally) called Churned Out Crap, appropriately enough. He would draw 16 pages or so of the most random stuff he could think of, while still keeping the same central character, and just leave space in word balloons and captions. He would give them to me, I would take them someplace quiet, rearrange them into an order that looked like a story to me, and start writing. I’m going into that much detail about it because it was a great experience and I think more people should try stuff like that. Many years later, about two of those issues hold up as good (I think), the other ones, well, live up to the title. That’s what these two are talking about here. They can both write AND draw, but it’s much easier to push yourself to work until sunrise if you have somebody there with you. They would actually have readers send in single panels and work from there, or combine them all into a story (I haven’t gotten to the jam comics yet), and say that sure, some of the ideas were horrible, but the thing that helped them grow as artists was trying to turn those bad ideas into something workable. It’s an interesting book, as not many people talk about this kind of thing in this great of detail, and should be seen by anybody who’s interested in trying something like this. Here’s an e-mail, I’m guessing this is $2, but why not ask them and find out?
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Ploy:Rags (with TP Whited) Now Available!$1.50
Whatever happened to all the comics with a ton of text and static art? Seemed like there were a lot of them back in the day (or maybe I was just reading a lot of them along with Cerebus before that one ran off the rails). Well, whatever the case, that’s what you have here, as TP Whited has crafted a pretty interesting shortie about a corrupt, broken-down journalist who gets a story that would ruin the career of a young FBI agent. He doesn’t exactly work for a reputable newspaper, so they love the story, but he soon gets more information that tells him that this FBI agent may also be an anarchistic plant, which leads to a bit of soul searching before things get really interesting. Hey, I already told you more of the plot than I usually do, what do you want from me? Anyway, it all works, from the blank-faced, hopeless newsmen to the wonders of this prose. Good stuff all around, I hope TP tries this format for a few more comics…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Reg Maximum: Inter-Galactic Real Estate Agent Now Available! $1.50
When is a 24 hour comic a waste of time? Can it ever even be called that, as a lot of them are more exercises for the creator than anything else? Well, they still have to be remotely entertaining to the reader, and this one bored me silly, so I guess it didn’t pass that test. The art was incredible; you can really tell Donovan has done a few of these and has gained some skill in making them look good in 24 hours. So what’s this one about? Well, there’s this guy named Reg Maximum, I think you can see what he does for a living by the name of the book. He has this problem of another real estate agent, Red Marshall, always taking his jobs because he’s listening in on the conversations. Reg decides to take his revenge using the evil Michael Bolton, and any more and the whole thing is going to be ruined. I thought it was kind of silly how planets and people were clearly just backwards names with no particular meaning, but that could be due to going into something with no preconceived notions and all that. Look, this isn’t an awful book, but he’s done better. Contact info is up there, this is $1.50 and is available in the online store too…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Chucky
Ah, I do love the 24 hour comics, especially when they somehow end up looking as great as this one. This is the story of Bill Chickowski, the creator of a comic strip called Chucky Chicken. Bill started as someone with great ideas, someone who hoped to make a difference, but gave it all up when his girlfriend was gunned down in front of him protesting the Vietnam war. Bill has grown to accept the fact that Chucky has become a bland corporate mascot over the years, until he reads a story that says Chucky is going to endorse George W. Bush in 2004, and promptly snaps. It’s a great story about trying to keep some sort of artistic integrity when you’re in the meat grinder of daily comic strips, not to mention dealing with the legions of fans who can’t see why Bill would ever want to change “their Chucky”, nor do they understand why he’s able to do so with impunity. Worth checking out if you have a buck lying around, I do with people who did these 24 hour comics would put some sort of afterward in their books though, I sometimes get the idea (due to the quality of the work) that they must have been cheating a little bit on inking or something…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Null and Void #6 Now Available! $1.50
Let’s see, this comic is being reviewed on 1/25/09, years after I read the issues before or after this, meaning that I have just about no idea what led up to this issue or what comes after it outside of reading my own ancient reviews. Meaning that this review will be even less informed than usual, so be warned. There are basically two stories going on here (and I’m going to take the easy way out and treat this as a stand alone issue), one involving a young woman going to see a dopey car crash movie with a dopey guy while her while her much cooler friend (with an obvious crush) wonders what she’s thinking, the other dealing with the mutual theft of high school mascots and symbols as a way to “stick it” to the other side. There are a few moments of fun, but making fun of car crash movies comes across as more than a little dated, as us folks in the future are much bigger fans of juvenile vampire movies. And I have no idea how this comic gets us to #7, as based on my review that was a dark and somber issue and this one ends with the promise of a good old fashioned chase scene to come. Probably still worth it for the presence of a few funny moments, and what has this man been up to in terms of comics? I’ll have to look into that…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Null & Void #5
I didn’t like this one as much as the other ones, and I think it’s for a fairly simple reason: it was all set in a house. I know, the title of the story indicated that that would be the case, and it was interesting, it just seemed like there wasn’t much going on. And the spelling errors, they are easily fixed. Really. Just have somebody else read it before you print it or do a spellcheck (and I don’t mean to single Donovan out, as there weren’t THAT many spelling errors, it’s just such a simple thing to fix). The story is that Nigel and Jack have a pretty typical day, with Nigel’s Grandma giving him a hard time because a female friend of his stays at his house to get away from her abusive mother and Jack fighting with his sister. Some funny dialogue and the art just keeps getting better, with the exception (WARNING: EXTREME PICKINESS ALERT) of one panel where Jack has a bunch of oddly-drawn bubbles surrounding his head. This is one of those comics that’s better read in clumps rather than single issues, but it’s still a good book. Contact info is up there…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Null and Void #3
Another solid issue, this one is basically a day in the life of all the main characters, focusing on classroom problems and dealing with members of the opposite sex in high school. Don’t get me wrong, there are some points in these books where it gets kind of silly, but overall I think he’s on to something. There certainly aren’t many other people out there covering the high school niche. The bit with the “don’t throw away” note was hilarious, as were several of the conversations in the school. In other words, it’s worth sending him some money (they’re $1.50 per issue) to check it out. Send him some money at: 3209 Eastland, Muskegon, MI 49441.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Null and Void #2
If this was a world where everybody read comics, this would probably be one of the more popular things read by kids in high school. Unfortunately, the print run for every mini comic is tiny and I’m not sure where Donovan finds his audience. It’s a good series, about some freshmen in high school and their activities. This one is all about a party that an older classmate sneaks them into. It makes a lot of good points about drinking without getting too preachy and the dialogue is natural and believable. All ages fun. The poor guy doesn’t have much of a sense of comics history though, thinking that Alex Robinson was the first person to use the question and answer concept with his characters to flesh them out a little bit. Poor Dan Clowes is rolling over in his grave…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Hojuween Now Available! $.50
Well, at least the price is appropriate. Don’t get me wrong, this comic has more than a few fun moments and I actually thought the coloring looked good. The trouble is that (with the odd exception of the page I sampled) most of the text looked like he filled it in on the way to Kinko’s. Words are way outside the bubbles, errors have just been scratched out, you can even see him scratching out a letter on the cover! I’ll never understand why people who spend so much time on the art (and in this case color) can’t spend an extra half hour or so to make sure the simple things work. OK soapbox, you can leave the room now. The story is a simple 6 page thing which involves the gang, of course, going trick or treating. They threaten a neighbor, Hoju runs into an evil clown and a good time is generally had by all. I probably shouldn’t be so hard on him, as this is from 2002, but it’s such an easy fix: make the word balloons bigger. Ta-da! Still, it’s not bad for the price and kudos to him for coloring this thing. In other words, if you like his other stuff, splurge a little and get this. If not, try some of his more recent work first. $.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Hoju #2 Now Available! $2
I can’t really figure it out. Am I allowed to say I like something “just because”? That’s the kind of quality review work you people have probably come to expect here over the years. Really, there’s all kinds of reasons not to like this. “Your” in place of “you’re” is really fingernails-on-a-chalkboard annoying for me, and Edgar gets it wrong almost every time. It was used correctly in one panel and it was shocking. The lettering is sloppy and often crammed into tiny word balloons, with him occasionally having to draw a little addendum balloon just to finish his sentences. The stories often go nowhere at all, and he thinks “poop” is far too funny. And yet I was smiling throughout this issue and did manage to get a few genuine laughs out of it. Maybe he’s just benefiting from my Friday mood. Stories include a gangsta God greeting an annoyed young man in heaven, Hoju getting his first soul (and finding out how to deal with the ladies), the little creature in Hoju’s head telling him the secrets of the universe, Hoju going to New Orleans searching for answers (and, of course, hitting Mardi Gras), some serious mayhem involving ghosts and making new ghosts, and Hoju chatting with his good and evil sides. Again, you’d think that all the flaws would have me hating this, but it really was a blast. Now if he could get all those spelling errors worked out he’d really be onto something… $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Hoju #1 Now Available! $2
Random submissions are always a crapshoot, and this one started off a bit rough. If you look up at that top right corner you’ll see the issue number chopped off by the copier; a minor thing until you see that the first story (after an introduction of the characters, which is always a good thing) suffers from the same problem and is damned near unreadable because of it. Luckily you can still see most of it, as it turns out to be the origin story for a few of the regular characters. From there things pick up considerably, with the only noticeable errors being spelling and grammar. Seriously, if this website can do anything for the comics world, I hope it’s to relentlessly point out the difference between “your” and “you’re”, “their” and “they’re”, etc. Don’t just guess and throw one of them in there, take a half a second and find out which one is right! It’s probably just a pet peeve of mine, granted, but I always feel like the people who get it wrong just aren’t taking this seriously, which is quite possibly a legitimate position when you think about career opportunities in this field, but if you’re going to spend weeks (if not months) drawing something, can’t you at least fix the easy stuff like that? Yes, I am in fact always good for a rant on that subject, and Edgar didn’t have mistakes in every panel or anything like that. He just consistently got it wrong. As for the content, it got funnier as it went on, and he has a strange enough cast of characters that this could be the start of a very good thing. Stories in here include waiting to ambush the taco man, sadness about being fugly, turning down a date due to excessive cynicism, taking your creature for a walk in the park, the dangers of windows to a talking bird, finally confronting the real taco man, and finding out the real story of the lonely “taco man”. Finally there’s the one long piece of the comic, dealing with an accidental zombie outbreak that was oddly confined to only a few people… that they know of. All kinds of potential here if a few minor things are tweaked. Oh, and another tip to you youngsters: write your words before the word balloons. Crazy, I know, but it saves all that word cramming later. I bring these things up because I care, you know, and because there are enough things that can go wrong in making a comic that it’s good to at least have a firm grasp of the basics. Also, my lawn was doing just fine before you damned kids started walking all over it. My curmudgeonly nature aside, this is worth a look. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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My Cat is Satan Now Available! $2
Anybody who reads this site on a regular basis knows that I have the same view of cat comics as that of a stereotypical middle-aged woman: I love them. I start from that position, and unless the comic itself is terrible that’s usually where I end up after reading it. Just wanted to make that perfectly clear, in case anybody out there thought I was capable of being professional and objective while reviewing this one.  This story (which was apparently done online first, in a page a day type of thing) is about how Satan decides to force people to reborn as pets for their punishment, but all the people rise up and throw him through the pet portal instead. Satan as a cat is, oddly, not much different from many cats I’ve known and loved. He (although the cat ends up being a sh, much to his chagrin) latches onto the ceiling, barfs his acidic puke on his owner, stabs the guy in the head and is just generally, well, evil. Other stories (not so focused on the cat) include playing Mario to the exclusion of all else, a religious guy stopping by, the owner blowing all his money meant for the vet, and of course the actual trip to the vet. It’s a pretty funny collection, all things considered, but the guy still has some serious trouble with spelling. And there’s still some minor trouble with the copier, but at least you could eventually figure out what everything was supposed to say this time around.  It’s worth a look and has some potential as a series, which is all you can ever ask out of these things. $2
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Formula of the Living Dead
Yep, zombies. Stick figure zombies no less. Over three years have passed since I last reviewed one of his books, and the art is pretty much the same, but when your main characters are stick figures the art probably isn’t going to change much. Listen, it’s brutal zombie violence, so it gets the seal of approval from me. A character named Burn decides that math is too hard for him, so he’s going to make up a new form of math. To do this he grabs the nearest book, the Necronomicon. Zombies, of course, ensue. I thought it was a fun book, fairly tiny but entertaining. Oh, and Necronymous is a great name. $1.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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X-Mass (with Michael Doak, Tim Corrigan & Willard Petry)
Could it be? Am I only in a good mood because of the holidays, as I didn’t particularly love his other work? Well, whatever the case, I thought this book was cute. The story is that Santa gets his butt kicked by a group of Christmas super villains: Dr. Fruitcake, Ornament Lad, Light String and Figgy Pudding. They’re out to ruin the 12 days of Christmas one day at a time, so Santa has to call on some friends (hey, it’s no mystery, just look at the cover) to help him. Everything is done in rhyme and, while that might be annoying to some, there’s not much bad you can say about somebody who uses “forsooth” for a rhyme. It’s entirely possible that this would only be entertaining about three days out of the year, but today (12/24/02) I loved every bit of it. Contact info is above, send him $1.75 and relive the holiday!
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Unplugged (written by Derek Currant)
It’s many, many months after SPACE now, and this one only shook itself loose with my recent move. This is a series of four panel strips of household appliances chatting with each other, usually ending in a punchline. Yep, they’re “gag” strips, something that generally doesn’t do a thing for me, and it’s at this point that I should point out that plenty of people in the world like this format just fine (as the continued existence of countless unfunny newspaper comics would argue) and, if you’re one of those people, or even if you don’t have my exact brain, you may like this just fine. As for me, I smiled a couple of times but there was never an actual chuckle. I should also point out that there are only 6 strips in this tiny thing, so it’s not like there was a huge opportunity to win me over. Gags in here include a stinky fridge, a staring contest between a toaster and a can opener, a toaster that always ruins the good stuff, and an inexplicable strip with a vacuum hacking up something that was important to the can opener. It was a nice touch for the back cover to have the names of all the characters though, and it might have upped the funny a bit if I have seen that before reading this. Eh, this is funny enough, I’m probably just cranky. If you like the sample, as always, you’ll probably like the book, and it’s certainly cheap enough… $.50
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Tranz
If anybody out there has a better guess at the title than that, let me know. I’m just guessing based on the first word, and then it starts melting, so who knows? This is a mini by William Cardini aka Mark Hensel, but the website listed (which is not actually his website but will connect you with his wide array of blogs) has a comic done by both William Cardini AND Mark Hensel and no, I have no idea what that means. I’m stalling the actual review here because, in fitting with the general theme of confusion going on here, I have no idea what to make of it. This is a series of one page strips with various creatures and items melting, meditating, growing or blooming, with a three page extravaganza dedicated to an utterly indescribable creature replicating. In each of these stories the creature/item starts off normally enough, then progressively devolves as the short strip goes on. Everything looks great and William/Mark is certainly not short on imagination, I guess I’m just more old fashioned in my comics reading, what with my general preference for linear stories and all. Still, there’s a lot to be said with the “where the hell is this going to go from here?” school of making comics, and I’m all kinds of intrigued to see what he does next and what he’s already done that might or might not be more accessible than this to the common folk. If you have a decent sense of artistic adventure this is worth checking out, but I’d recommend checking around that website and getting a look around first. $2.50
UPDATE: The title is Tranz. Yeah, I can kind of see that…
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Posted by Kevin
