April 22, 2010
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Do Tell
Here’s a stand alone comic from Trevor. This one is about the futile effort to try and get anywhere in the small press world, although he might not have meant it as negatively as all that. His character, Mason Rubella, is a cartoonist who’s trying to get the alternative comics convention. Along the way he’s attacked by bees, gets in a plane crash and is gnawed on by buzzards. Oh, and he also meets Foxy Brown. Oh, and did I mention that it’s funny? That usually helps a comic out, or anything else for that matter. It’s $2, and it looks like he has a website for you to check out, so you know what to do…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Quagga #5
Three cheers for me getting to see two completely different styles of stories in two different issues of Quagga! Hey, as long as I’m keeping myself amused, right? This is about a couple of young women trying to have a good night of dancing and drinking. This happens after one of the women accidentally OD’s, but her drunk friend comes over and convinces her to go out. What follows is a confused night of drinking, dancing and going to parties, all while the OD’d woman tries to make some sense of her life and what everything means. A wonderful, insightful book, this is a full length story and I recommend it unreservedly. Everybody already knows all about this guy, right? It’s just me who’s coming in a bit late and trying to catch up, right? If not, check out his stuff immediately. Contact info is up there, this is probably $2.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Quagga #4
“Odd Tales” indeed. What better way to describe a book with a ton of short stories in it? I’d heard more than a little bit about this guy, so I was thrilled to get his latest at SPX03 and I have to say that I liked most of it. Hey, that’s the nature of putting a bunch of stories in a book. Lots of one page gag strips, which were pretty solid, but the longest story in here was “Venereal Equinox”, a meandering tale about war, power, Halloween and philosophy. I don’t mean “meandering” to be too negative, it just seemed a bit dreamy. Liked the overall message though, not that I’m going to tell you guys or anything. The middle of the book is “Urban Pest Gallery”, a collection of the oddballs who apparently harass Trevor (or does he just prefer “Alixopulos”?) regularly. You can’t go wrong with funny, insightful comics. As for “The Posieville Posse”, I just didn’t get it. There, I said it. Maybe other issues would have helped, maybe my mind was wandering, but it didn’t do much for me. Then there are a few short pieces at the end with random humor and violence, and you end up with a pretty good book. It’s $2, e-mail the man or just go here to get that and most everything else that is good in the world of comics…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Mine Tonight Now Available! $10
If you’re anything like me, tales of the 2004 presidential election can still be a little traumatic. Luckily this story deals only peripherally with that event, instead focusing on the maturation of a young man named Lukas, from his certainty that the world was going to end any minute to deep cynicism, all the way back to a belief that he could possibly make things a little better. The prologue gets most of that out of the way and is crucial to show just why he’s willing to sign up for a fairly ridiculous mission: get 5 million dollars from a front group of a billionaire (with the permission of said billionaire) and pass it along to the Kerry campaign, all while keeping his famous name out of it. This is even harder than it sounds, as all of this money has been cycled through various election front groups and tracking down the actual money is almost impossible. Along the way Lukas finds an old friend named Trevor Alixopulos and gains the trust of the only person left working at the relevant front group, and Trevor (the artist, not the character) throws in a few dream sequences and a “newspaper strip” to keep things humming and give the reader a little more insight into the characters. It’s a wonderfully morally ambiguous tale. Although Lukas knows that his actions will likely have little to no effect on the election, and although he knows that his lack of ruthlessness might well be what keeps the people in charge doing their thing, he’s still trying somewhat hopelessly to make things a little bit better. This is probably the best thing Trevor has done yet (although he has plenty of minis I still haven’t read, so who knows), relevant for our times yet never preachy. $10
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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The Hot Breath of War Now Available! $13
I don’t know if it’s my rapidly approaching senility or my bizarre work schedule, but I would have sworn that I reviewed Mine Tonight 6 months ago, tops. Turns out that it was more like 18 months ago. An irrelevant detail, unless you’re thinking that I’m some sort of authority at, well, anything. This is less a coherent graphic novel than it is a collection of 6 pieces, but they do have elements of war and its aftermath tenuously holding them together. First up is We Are Defeated, an at least mildly zany take on war, our national “strategy” of winning hearts and minds, the language barrier and the utter insanity of it all. Next is Data Recovery, as a young man who thought that data recovery would be an exciting job gets a jolt of reality, then tries to remember if there’s anyone in the world he cares about. There’s A Monkey On My Back follows, telling a story from the perspective of a child about war and how he no longer knows where to run when he’s scared. Valadolid 1936 tells a short but fascinating story of prisoners facing a firing squad, and if it’s a true story it’s even more fascinating. …And His Breath Is Hot, if you want my opinion (and if you don’t you should have stopped reading ages ago), is the best story in the book. It’s all about a young girl who meets a “victorious” solider while going out to bury her mother. Their conversation and their collective brutal honesty says all about war that ever needed to be said. Finally there’s A Journey In Time, in which three characters with distinctly different goals for the evening meet up by chance, with two of them going home together and one of them getting one step closer to going insane. It’s not a spoiler as long as I don’t tell you which one, right? Writing all this out, it occurs to me that these pieces are more closely related than I first thought. Even the last piece had a disabled bar owner who looked to be struggling to survive. It’s easy and understandable to have war fatigue in this country, even if our national media mostly either pretends the wars don’t exist or they try to fluff them up for one political party or the other. This works goes around all of that and just tries to quietly tell the story of people involved at various stages of war. It’s a damned thoughtful book, and it’s making me rethink my policy of writing a review right after reading a book. I get the feeling this one is going to be percolating in me for a while to come… $13
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Lackluster World #5 Now Available! $5
Hey look, an origin issue! Granted, it’s a little annoying after the cliffhanger ending of the last issue, but in the grand scheme of things it’s crucial to have these people as fleshed out as possible. In this issue we get to see the reason for Fahrenheit’s hatred of Kelvin and yes, he does have a damned good reason to hate the guy. We also get to see Fahrenheit at scholl and how much crap he had to put up with due to being an albino. And the parents! What origin story would be complete without at least a little bit of influence from the parents? Another solid issue, and another crucial piece of the puzzle. Now all Eric has to do is get working on #6, as it’s just plain mean to get people hooked on a series and then make them wait forever to see what happens next… $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Lackluster World #4 Now Available! $5
You’d never guess from that cover, but this is the issue where everything comes to a head. Fahrenheit is revealed as the vandal, his siblings find out and try to take him out, and two competing mobs (pro and con Fahrenheit) wage a bloody battle in the streets. Nothing Lackluster about this one, I’ll tell you what! Sorry, I just couldn’t resist. Eric has made a ton of excellent points in these first four issues and I get the impression that they’re going to gel nicely as a graphic novel. The virtual reality bits from #3, the barely controlled chaos of this issue, all combined with setting everybody up for a fall in the first two issues. Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the multiple cliffhangers at the end of this one, or the prospect of the siblings meeting each other again in prison. Uh-oh, I may have said too much. Luckily I got #5 at SPACE also, so it won’t be a mystery to me for very long. As for you, this series has been a blast so far, so I’m not entirely sure what you’re waiting for. $5
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Lackluster World #3 Now Available! $3.95
This time around Kelvin and Celsius take things to another level when they plug in their non-believer brother, Fahrenheit, to a virtual reality religious converter. Oh, you should really look at the other reviews before starting in cold with this one, it won’t make a bit of sense. The bits inside the brain of Fahrenheit are priceless, and let me run down the cast of characters that try to convert him: a fireman, robot, talking bear, missionaries, cats, and Jesus. And of course, maybe my favorite background character ever, a smiling cross with three little smiling nails resting on its arm. Sheer genius. The rest of the comic deals with Fahrenheit’s partner showing up late for work again (although he at least manages to save the day) and Fahrenheit killing Jesus 88 times in an effort to get out of his virtual world. I’ve been liking these a bit more each issue, and this one continued that trend by being my favorite of the bunch. $3.95, maybe some day soon there’ll be a nice graphic novel for all of these issues, but for now it’s worth it get it piece by piece.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Lackluster World #2 Now Available! $3.95
Any doubts I had about this series just being another “the whole world sucks and here’s why” gripefest vanished after this issue. Oh sure Fahrenheit still has plenty to complain about in the world, and rightly so, but this issue is more about his siblings, a mysterious graffiti artist and, oddly enough, fighting. One regular fight in a movie theater and one all-out brawl at a bar, to be specific. Throw in another intriguing ending (with potentially the best box in comics ever, depending on what is inside of it) and you have me really wishing that I had splurged at the con and got #3. Oh well, one of these days. In the meantime this does a good job of continuing to set up these characters and it still looks great. $3.95
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Lackluster World #1 Now Available! $3.95
What’s the first thing you think of when you see that cover? For me, I figured this would be a gothic comic of some type, probably about vampires or other bloody, silly things. Nope, it’s all about a man named Fahrenheit and his disgust with the world and most everyone in it. In this issue (the first of a projected seven or eight part mini series), Fahrenheit gets talked into a birthday party with his siblings who, believe it or not, are named Kelvin and Celsius. At the party they try to talk him into accepting Jesus as his savior (which apparently happens a lot) and he runs into some drunken co-workers, who make fun of him for a bit before wandering off. Oh, did I mention that he’s an albino? Look, comics where the main character thinks he/she is a whole lot better than the rest of the world are a dime a dozen in the small press comics world, and it’s hard to say from one issue whether this comic will just be another addition to the pile or something that really stands out. I was fearing for the worst before a genuinely intriguing ending, but it’s still tough to say where this is all going to lead. It’s enough to keep me interested in a future issue or two, which is all a first issue of a series really has to do. Here’s a website, read up on it yourself and see what you think…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
La Perdida Part One
What can I say about Jessica Abel that I haven’t said already? I’ve been wondering what she’s been doing as far as comics go, and it looks like I finally have my answer. This is projected to be a 200 page mystery and it gets off to a good start. For my money she’s the best of the “kind of autobiographical but mostly just stuff I made up” school. There’s probably a better term for that out there too but I summed it up pretty well. It’s the story of Carla, a young woman in her late teens, moving to Mexico more or less for the hell of it. She had a few reasons, sure, but it was more out of not having anyplace better to go than anything else. She meets up with a (sort of) ex-boyfriend and stays with him, which is something that he wasn’t counting on. I’m not really sure what the mystery of this whole thing is. It hasn’t gotten that far along yet. Still, I have yet to see anything bad by Jessica and this is no exception. Everything she has done so far has been a treat and I’m really looking forward to this one. Here’s hoping she can put this out on a consistent basis…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Mirror, Window: An Artbabe Collection
All that being said, I still haven’t gotten this collection yet based on the fact I have all of the comics that are collected in here. I’ll read all of them again sometime soon so I can give a half-assed review of this book, but for now I can tell you that if you liked the first book, you’re sure to love this. Longer stories though, which can be a good or a bad thing, but it’s the same old Jessica Abel.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Soundtrack: Short Stories 1989-1996
Christ, where did my afternoon go? This looked like it had mostly fat panels, that it would take me about an hour at the most to finish. Instead I just spent at least the last 2 and a half hours poring over every panel in this magnificent book. I’d seen a few of the stories before, as I’ve been reading Artbabe since the days when it was a mini comic (actually an over-sized comic, but she xeroxed and distributed it herself, so in my book that qualifies as a “mini comic”), but the vast majority of everything in here was new to me. It’s amazing to me that she tried so many different artistic styles… I’m no expert, but most of the people of the time were sticking with a style and kind of trying to make it their “trademark”, but she went all over the place and the book is a lot better for it.
Anyway, it’s broken up into 6 parts. The first part is the short fiction, and all of it works on some level. Even some of the weaker pieces (like Permanent Damage and $64 Question) have at least a line or two that makes the whole page worthwhile. Part 2 is her journalism stuff and I really wish that somebody would have kept on paying her to do this. Who would have thought that so much went on at Godzilla conventions, or that there were such strict guidelines for what constituted a good Godzilla flick? Part 3 is probably the weakest of the bunch, and I say that mostly because there’s not one story that sticks out in my mind as I’m writing this where I can think of a few stories from each other section as exceptional. Not bad though and, as before, there are a few lines in parts of this section that make it impossible to skip over. Part 4 is the funny pages and, while I wasn’t a big fan of the minimalist Kek and Poot, I thought everything else in here worked. Funny and informative, and what more can you ask for? Part 5 is the covers and, well, it shows some of her covers. Part 6 is called The Four Seasons and she saved the best for last. Every story in this part was incredible, with Viva probably being my favorite. It’s the story of a couple of girls at a bar talking about guys and life, with various friends and other people wandering through. Pure goodness.
Granted, it probably helped that I grew up an hour south of Chicago, and that’s where most of this is based. I went to the Fireside Bowl several times when I was younger, I can certainly relate to all the stories of Steve Albini being a prick and I know all about the attitude that people who wander out in below freezing weather get. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid her work up until this point in your life, buy this book. I would have thought before reading it that her regular series (and the collection of it) was better, but I have to say that I enjoy the short pieces in here more.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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Landscape of Possibilities
Flip books are one of my favorite things as far as comics are concerned, but I hate to review ’em. Just a matter of not knowing how to categorize, so don’t mind me. The other half of this is Net Result by Paul Peart-Smith, and I’ll get to that in the next couple of days. As for this one, there are two pieces in here by Nick. Am I allowed to call a comic “wordless” if the main character never speaks but there are words literally all over the place? Well, I’m going to anyway. In the first wordless tale, a young man is just trying to find his place in the world when he finds a home. Things are more complicated than they appear, but I’m not giving away more than that. The second story is a couple of friends watching tv when one of them realizes how stupid the whole thing is and tries to find something better. These are, of course, just my interpretations of wordless stories, so I could be completely wrong. Maybe they’re both about the wonders of the Republican Party and I’m just missing the subtleties, but I’m betting against that. Good stuff from Nick, as always. Contact info is up there, I’ll review the other half of this in a few days or so…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Sunspots
Before I say anything at all about this comic, I want you to look up at the other work of his I had read, The Amazing Mr. Pleebus. Now I want you to look at a sample from this comic.
Granted, I didn’t think that Nick only did children’s books, but this range of stories was a very welcome surprise. You have a man telling the story of the life he would like to live (my favorite in the bunch, it involves him living in hotels and having sex with the fattest prostitutes he can find after his band plays), a man who floats, an agnostic dog, a sheep with an identity crisis, a lighthouse named Eric, and two men who are on very different life paths. All kinds of great stuff in here and this is well worth checking out, especially for anybody who’s read all the Mr. Pleebus stuff and thinks they know what Nick is all about. Send the man an e-mail and see what other things he’s done. Oh, I should also mention that these are all from the early to mid 90’s, so I’m not sure where his focus is these days.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
The Freaky Beastie of Hill Road School Now Available! $8.50
This comic has the amazing ability to make me want to have kids just so I can read this to them. I’ve read the other two books in the series now, and it’s pretty clear that this is an adventure series meant mostly for kids, but there is so much here for everybody to look at. You can just marvel at the art, and it’s rare when I can’t find at least one lazy panel in the whole thing. Backgrounds a’plenty, the kid’s rooms are intricate and have all kinds of stuff that your average kid would have in them, and the glimpses we get of Plabbu are fascinating. This volume is about the evil Pleebus (called Subeelp, and let me know if you need help figuring the name out) and his attempts to finish the mission of the Grooble King from the last volume. This one was almost too grounded in reality, as much of it was spent at school, but that’s the extent of my negative commenting on the story. Unless I’m just way too far removed from being a kid, I think that any kid in the world would love these books. They’re cheap, they’re pretty big for the size and they’re gorgeous. Contact info is around here somewhere, or you could contact me for copies, if you’re so inclined…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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The Magic Skateboard Now Available! $8.50
Any complaints I might have had in the last volume about the whole thing being too grounded in reality were completely removed in this one. The story here is that the kids get a magic skateboard with a cryptic message on how to get to Plabbu after the original gateway is accidentally destroyed. Here, really, is the first time that the true complexity of the world that they’re dealing with is revealed, as they see a talking lion, a giant frog and a dragon, among many other things are too complex for their childish minds, but which might get a chuckle out of some of older folks. Also, I have to say that that skateboard, for whatever reason, is now my favorite character in the series. It doesn’t say anything intelligible, it’s just something about those eyes. Anyway, this is the best book of the series by far, and that’s saying quite a bit. This isn’t one of those series where you don’t need to read the other books, though, as there is no recap that I can see and everything that the kids do is assuming that you know what happened in the previous books. I hope he’s planning more of these (I see this was done in 2001) and I hope more people start to stand up and take notice, because there aren’t enough quality comics out there for children. Contact info is up there, get ahold of him or ask me for some of the copies he sent my way…
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
The Amazing Mr. Pleebus Now Available! $8.50
There aren’t too many books out there where you can honestly say that everybody would love them. That’s true of the best books, like Love and Rockets, because you have to be old enough to understand what’s going on. This book almost reads like a children’s book but, like the best children’s books, has enough innovation and imagination to make it hold up for adults too. The story in this one is that Mr. Pleebus comes into the world through a television, but is followed by evil creatures called Grooblies who are trying to take him back. That’s the simple version of the story, as I’m not going to tell you where it all goes from there. There’s an incredibly colorful cast of characters with more than a few bizarre objects scattered throughout. I was waiting to get this one before I decided whether or not I was going to buy the second book, and frankly I’m sold. I couldn’t find this anywhere online, but you can always get ahold of the publishers at Rising Trout Press P.O. Box 305 Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 8WA, UK. Oh yeah, and it’s $8.50.
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
Website
Tick
My apologies if the size of the images are a little off from usual, as I had to get them from Kenan’s website. My scanner doesn’t deal well with comics that are the size of your average calendar. Whatever happened to the ordinary tiny mini comics? Why in my day blah blah blah. This is why it’s impossible to keep a uniform size for all minis: this one needs to be the size of a calendar. It’s a mostly silent tale of a lonely young man holed up in a cabin, trying to work on his art. The time of the year is crucial to the story, as the months are in giant lettering for a good number of the pages. The middle of April has an ominous skull and crossbones, and we get to see the reason for that soon enough. Before all that though, the young boy decides to make a companion for himself, drawing up blueprints for another young man to keep him company. If I go much further than this is an explanation everything will be ruined, and there’s very little I hate more than spoiling a perfectly good comic. As a whole, it’s a thoroughly gorgeous comic about loneliness, the passage of time and attention to detail. And probably a bunch of stuff that flew right over my head. It’s a bit pricey at $8, but you did catch the part where I mentioned that it was gorgeous, right?
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Posted by Kevin
April 22, 2010
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The Pyramid
Kenan mentioned in his note that this comic takes place right before the events in On The Beach, so in the barest of nods to trying to keep things in proper chronological order, this is where it goes on the page. Of course, I have no idea where Prologue fits into all that, but it would logically go first, right? Ah, the wonders of putting these pages together. This issue unfolds much like On The Beach, as it starts with that little panel (the cover), folds out into a slightly larger panel (the sample) and gets bigger and bigger from there. The story this time appears to be that of a sudden breakup, as Kenan and a friend are packing all his stuff up to be moved into a creepy storage locker. There’s a delightfully awkward moment between Kenan and his ex as they say goodbye, then Kenan and his friend get all philosophical while loading all his stuff into the garage. That probably makes it sound stupid but, as always with this guy, it ended up being more insightful than anything else. It’s worth a look, and I have to admit to being a big fan of how they’re put together. This is one of those things that you have to read in printed form, you just don’t get the same effect looking at this on your computer. $1.50
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Posted by Kevin
