You don’t see them very often these days, but I do love a tribute comic. This is Brian’s homage to the Ninja comics of his friend Michael Anthony Carroll, who I reviewed a fair amount back in the day (before the great website update of 2010), and then apparently stopped reviewing for some reason? Odd. I’ll have to grab some of ninja comics the next time I see him at a con to catch up/get some context for this one. Not that you need much context, because: ninjas! Everybody knows ninjas. This one starts off with a brief explanation of the concept, then it’s on to the “training video” portion. Other stories include a listing of their weapons, Godzilla dressed as a ninja, a very vocal movie critic who’s not having a good time watching a ninja movie in a darkened theater, and of course Franken-ninja. I also couldn’t possibly avoid talking about probably the longest story in here, about a silent fart who takes up ninja tools and goes on a rampage. I thought it was funny, but if your eyes just rolled out of your head, maybe this one isn’t for you. Which is fine; very few people have as many comics to choose from as Brian does. I found the whole comic to be a hoot, even if I was probably missing some context, so if you’re up for some ninja mockery I’d say you should give this one a shot. $5
Hey everybody, it’s a new Val Cannon mystery! OK, that’ll wrap up this review, as… huh, you probably want me to talk about this a bit more than that. This is considered to be #30 of the Meeting Comics series, which I’ve been praising for ages, so you can probably guess where this review is going to go. But fine, I’ll go into some detail. This one is set in 1997, back in the younger days of Val. When we last saw her she was having sex with every one of her 5 of so roommates, first one by one and then (when they all found out about it) as one big group. But this issue has a bit of a “morning after” vibe from all of them, as they’ve each had time to think about what they might want in the future, and oddly it might not involve a daily orgy. To each their own, I guess! Still, that can’t possibly be the attitude of 1997 Tori, right? Also, doesn’t the title allude to a mystery? It sure does! Their house raccoon has gone missing, along with the trap they use to take it to the vet for checkups. Unfortunately they all blacked out the night before, and since this is before the age of ubiquitous cell phones, photographic evidence is a bit hard to come by. Still, they’re able to piece together enough information to get a good idea where to check out next, and they get to be in disguises to do it. Will they be discovered? Will they figure out what happened to their raccoon? Will everybody change their minds about the orgies? I genuinely don’t know, as this is the first of a two part story. I reckon we’ll find out next time though! $9
Fantagraphics lost a whole lot of money/books when Diamond publishing went out of business (long story), so they’re having a big old 30% off sale through 8/25. If you’re looking for suggestions, well I just reviewed Jordan Crane’s latest and you may have noticed that I had very nice things to say about that. Or you can do what I do and just get another book from Jason every time you order (I’ll get them all sooner or later). Or the newest Hate series by Peter Bagge was just collected, or you must have missed at least one of Simon Hanselmann’s books, or maybe one of their big old hardcover collections that always seemed too expensive is now affordable for you, etc. Help them out and get some great books in the process!
New review today for The Fifty Flip Experiment #34 by Dan Hill! Is this the last of the reviews until Cartoon Crossroads next month, since most of my review comics are gone? Eh, probably not.
I’ll admit it, there are times where I zone out when there are large blocks of text in a comic. If I’m reviewing it I fess up (as I’m somehow always guilty about it), but yeah, sometimes all the text gets me to tune out. I mention that mostly so I can say that Dan has another one of his delightful… stories? Calling it stream of consciousness rambling sells it short, as he clearly sticks to his own plan throughout. Whatever you’d call it, this time around it’s four pages instead of the usual one or two, and after reading it my brain got the clear signal that I had just read a piece of art and it was time to ramble about it myself on my website. It wasn’t until I sat down and logged in that I realized that I hadn’t read the actual comic yet. Oh laughs! It really is possible to have them by myself while reading comics and then writing reviews! So basically yes, the four page story alone is worth that measly $5. But there’s also a whole comic that comes with it! He’s sticking with full color, and I’m a fan of the idea. This one is all about Lily, the goth girl from DuoLingo (not familiar myself, but I looked it up and she’s real) getting transported to a cave of evolved dinosaurs. In this case “evolved” means “walking upright and talking,” not telepathic dinosaurs, if you were thinking about that for some reason. He goes to great lengths to mention that this story is about the real Lily, so it’s now canon that that lady has lived with dinosaurs in a cave. We see her on a beach, we see her wash her pits in a bathroom, we see her join the civilization of the dinosaurs and return to her own world. But not all is as it seems! In fact none of it is, but I’m not going to get into specifics. Here’s to another 34 issues at a minimum of this constantly delightful series! $5
New review today for Goes Like This by Jordan Crane, and after this one I’ll be going back and rereading his old graphic novels. Yes, that means I liked it!
Jordan Crane! He’s one of those people who got me into the small press comics back in the day; if you look up his name on the website his reviews are mostly from the 2001-2004 era, where all of the “site news” posts have vanished so I’ll never know exactly when those reviews were first posted. And oh, past me, to complain about an $8 graphic novel. So young and dumb! Anyway, in my world, he put out two amazing graphic novels, several years later put out a kid’s book, and then vanished. In reality, he put out five issues of a series from Fantagraphics, was working on a graphic novel that took him 20 years to complete (Keeping Two, which I’m shocked I never reviewed), and never stopped contributing stories to anthologies. Which, and sorry to take so long to get to the point, is what this volume contains. Despite my admiration for Jordan’s work, I still honestly wasn’t expecting to be blown away by this because hey, anthologies, am I right? Some good stories, some bad, many so-so. Allow me to murder any suspense that you may be feeling: this is one of my favorite books of the year. Top to bottom, with no qualifiers for “some of the stories were just OK.” Nope! This is a book I’ll be returning to on a regular basis. I have to mention the design of the book, as it very quickly moves into the realm of being one of the prettiest books that I own. And good lord, do I ever own a lot of books. The thick pages mixed in with the thin, the vibrant (and there should be a word stronger than “vibrant” for this) colors, the single or double page silent drawings between the stories (which often feel like padding but in this case masterfully raise or lower tension between the stories)… if there’s an award available for book design and he doesn’t win it, what are we even doing here people? Perhaps now you’re curious about the contents, or not willing to take my word for it. Well, I’m not going to walk you through all of it (this is a dense volume), but things start off in fairly wacky fashion, with a thief in old timey prospecting times trying to get a locked briefcase off of the handcuffed wrist of a dead man. And I was set for wacky times, I’m so fine with that! But the images in between stories told the tale and set the mood, leading to the quiet claustrophobia of “Keep a Light Out.” Then the stories shift to black and white (but not the larger drawings), with a heartbreaking story of a relationship dying a slow death, mixed with images of it when it was just getting started, which also continues later in the book. And you know what? That’s all you get from me. A solid chunk of the joy of reading this is not knowing what to expect after every page/story, and I’m not going to ruin that any more than I have to. Again, one of my favorite books of the year, and if you like comics at all (and what would you be doing here if you didn’t?), this one is mandatory reading. $39.99
New review today for the last of this round of mini kus books, Sandbox by Yuichi Yokoyama. Does this pile go out with a bang or a whimper? Also my apologies for taking the week off last week, but my review pile is at a low ebb at the moment (hint hint, to anybody looking for a quick review). Cartoons Crossroads is a month away, so I’ll definitely restock there. If I don’t get more review comics maybe I’ll dig through the boxes for some oldies? Who knows!
I briefly thought that there was a printing problem with this issue, as the title and author is on the back cover, before I figured out that it’s more like a manga. A tip for you, gentle reader, so you maybe don’t fumble around as much as I did. Or at least part of the story is, while the rest starts from the usual (in America) front of the book. Although you can kind of read that part right after the initial story on the side with the title and author and it’ll still work in that order. OK fine I’ll fess up! This one didn’t completely click for me. Blame it on the manga aspects (I still haven’t read enough of that for it to feel natural to read a story in the “wrong” order), I’ll absolutely accept the blame for that. There’s still a lot to like here, even if I feel like I’m missing the big picture. The haunting cadence of a whole lot of the dialogue, the absolutely otherworldly sandy area where they’re all trapped, the inhuman masks on the walls (and how they may or may not tie in to the rest of the mystery), all that kind of stuff. And Yokoyama has put out all kinds of books, so it’s not like he’s some new artist which, once again, proves that I’m the dummy here. These things happen! On the other hand, what a great opportunity for you to just get the bundle of four comics instead of just one. You may find this one a headscratcher too, but even if you do, you’ll have the three other latest mini kus books to keep you entertained. $8 for this, or $22 for the bundle.
Was I expecting to get my heart broken while reading the latest Nugget comic? Reader, I was not. I mean sure, Tony’s work is getting better with each issue of Nugget, and it had already started off strong. But generally speaking my overall mood after reading one of his comics has been more “what did I just read” and/or “oh, so THAT’S what he was going for,” and this one… but hey, I’m getting ahead of myself. There are two stories in this issue, one very short to start things off followed by the much longer piece. Things start off with Nugget taking a walk in the woods with his mother, where he eventually finds and takes home a caterpillar. Anybody who’s done that themselves knows what’s coming next, and that’s the shocking discovery of that caterpillar somehow being replaced by a cocoon, and then a butterfly. It’s a sweet story about the inevitability of change and accepting it when it happens, which serves to make the next story all the more devastating. It’s told mostly (though not entirely) in alternating panels or pages, and it’s not apparent what’s happening for a couple of pages. One panel will depict Nugget’s mother in a variety of scenarios raising young Nugget, then the next image will show adult Nugget taking care of his visibly older and frailer mother. It’s relentless and the end of the story is inevitable; Tony has really stepped up his game with the facial expressions to really take the reader on a journey. Nugget was clearly trying his best but overwhelmed and so very sad, his aged mother was often terrified, confused and embarrassed, and the images of some of the best moments of his childhood juxtaposed with the heartbreaking reality of those final days and months of a life were just brutal. But not completely, because there was still so much love and joy in the memories of their younger days. It was reckoning with a complete life, good and bad, and it’s probably Tony’s best work. Plenty of people will find parallels to events they’re experiencing with their own parents and family, that’s for sure. If you’re looking for more mayhem I’d recommend some of his other issues, but the overall best issue is probably this one. $10
New review today for Perfect Love by Giovanna Fabi, which is the second to last mini kus book that I have left to review this time around. And I can’t believe this to be true, but it looks like nobody has donated to Ron Rege Jr.s fundraiser in a week? Shame on y’all. No, not you, you’re too broke to donate, nobody blames you. But the rest of you? Just throw a few bucks at the man already.
Just so you know, l’il reader, I used the Google translate option to link Giovanna’s website in English. If it doesn’t actually work that way you can do the same thing, or if you know Italian (or want to learn) there’s always the original version. The clues for this story are visible on the very first page, which makes it yet another one of those comics that’s tricky to talk about without giving too much away. Should I give up on my “no spoiler” stance? Maybe assume that 90% of the people who come to this website just click on the link for the artist and don’t bother reading any of this nonsense? Eh, I kind of have to assume that people do read this, so you all once again get to witness me dancing around a comic without saying too much about it. It went in directions that I didn’t expect, including an ending that smacks the reader right between the eyes, is what I can say without giving anything away. Things start off with <spoiler>, then we shift to a rapturously happy couple in bed. There’s a sudden strangeness in the air that they both notice, then one of them leaves, as that person obviously knows exactly what that strangeness signified. A plea is made and heard for more time together, and that’s right around the part where their partner also decided to leave the bedroom and find out what was going on. I thought that the little boxes all over the pages really added to the sense of claustrophobia of the whole thing, but it looks like Giovanna uses it in a lot of her work, proving once again that “what the heck does he know anyway?” is always a valid response to my reviews. Anyway, yes it’s worth a look, and as always the better deal is getting four of these mini kus books at once for $22 rather than just one for $8. But I’m not the boss of you!
New review today for Random Short Stories By A Future Best Seller by Brian Canini. Since I’m writing this on Sunday, I have no way of knowing if Ron Rege Jr.’s fundraiser has his 100% yet, but if it hasn’t, he’s almost there, so help the man out, won’t you?
What’s left to say about Brian’s work? It’s alarming to think about how much I must have repeated myself by now, maybe 50 comic reviews in and 20 (ish?) years later. So here’s something: I’ve seen a whole lot of collections of comics by single creators that have appeared in various anthologies over the years. I’m always a fan of the idea; far too many great stories disappear from memory because they were only available in an anthology that had a print run of 20 copies and disappeared forever. But a lot of people, at least some of the time, tend to phone it in for those types of stories. I’ve read several of Brian’s anthologies now, and I’ve never once gotten that impression. Anyway, hey, look at this, it’s a collection of short stories from various anthologies! Brian lists where these first appeared for the curious, and this might be the first time where I don’t think I’ve read even one of these stories before. This one has 11 stories (even though it looks like more when the four panel strips are listed separately), starting with Gilmore Girls Vs. Godzilla, just to warn you right off if you were in the mood for some quiet autobiographical stories. An excellent punchline to that one, and some oddly plausible action before that (OF COURSE coffee would affect the Gilmore Girls in roughly the same way that spinach does Popeye). Next up is some unwelcome relationship advice in dealing with an abusive partner, which I can’t say any more about because I’m not going to spoil a thing about that ending. Then there’s the story of Brian dressing up as a hobo for Halloween (as a small child), an entirely too plausible Jurassic Park sequel (which they honestly may have done by now), and a fantasy sword slasher, sort of. Probably the most disturbing story in the comic is next, and if I told you that it’s centered around a cheese ball and that’s it’s occasionally terrifying I doubt that you’d believe me. And yet! The other big story in here deals with a man driving to Texas, happy to get away from the snow, only to land in a blizzard. Was I expecting the punchline to this one? Once again, I was not! There are also a few more stories but hey, who doesn’t love surprises? It’s another solid collection of comics that requires reading no previous issues to understand, so if you’ve been seeing Brian’s name for years here but were never sure where to dive in, right here would do just fine! $8
That mini kus train just keeps rolling along, so here’s a review for The Big Spill by Janne Marie Dauer. You know, I was going to let the Ron Rege Jr. fundraiser thing go because he’s so close to his goal, so surely that’s good enough? But no, it turns out that I can’t stand the fact that it’s at 96%. That’s so close! As of this writing (on Sunday) that’s less than $600 away! Let’s wrap this up, shall we? Don’t make me post another one of these next week where he’s stuck at 99%…
So there are a couple of ways to interpret the fact that it took me roughly half of this comic to fully understand that it’s entirely fictional. One is that Janne is such an excellent storyteller that the same thing would likely happen to most people who read this comic. Another is that I’m a gullible rube. Luckily, both things can be true! This is the story of a young woman who’s trying to save up to leave her home town to go to college. She’s working a fairly brutal factory job at a candy factory and saving even more money by living with her grandmother, and we learn a couple of facts about candy factories that are more than a little gross and alarming (unless they’re entirely made up too; I can no longer trust my own judgment). One day her boss makes an offer to her: he needs a truckload of gummy worms disappear so he can get the tax write-off, and he needs somebody to do the dirty deed. Since her main goal in life is to get as much money as quickly as she can, she has no real choice but to agree to the scheme. She dumps them in the woods, but unfortunately a massive rainstorm washes them away and right back through town, where they’ve mixed with some other chemicals in the river and have puffed up to massive sizes. The story becomes a global phenomenon, she’s mortified and avoids work for a few days before finally deciding to face the music… and finds her life completely changed, but not in the way she was expecting. The rest of the comic showcases her new skill set and the whole story is told as a confessional that gets to the bottom of what really happened. See? Plausible that I could have bought into it! Check it out, it’s a hell of a story, and you can figure out if you would have fallen for it too without some advance warning. Be honest! $8 (or $22 for a set of four comics)
New review today for Animal Denial by Emilie Gleason, as we’ve now passed the halfway mark of mini kus books. Also Ron Rege Jr. is still trying to get to 100% for his gofundme after his recent accident. I blame the fact that I forgot to post the link the last time around on it not being 100% yet. After all, the people who read this nonsense all do it because they love comics, right? He’s one of the best artists around, so if you can throw any amount of dollars his way, please do so.
If you’re wondering which of the 8 comics that mini kus sent along this time had my favorite cover, well, you’re looking at it. Come on, that should win all of the prizes. Also I’m not going to do the thing I sometimes do where I post the synopsis on the back of the comic here verbatim, but it might be the most misleading one so far, in a hilarious way (the people who read that in the hopes of reading this comic to get better arguments in favor of being a carnivore had to go away disappointed). So what’s the comic about? Well, a doofus (depicted below being told that he should use his hat as toilet paper, based on his previous arguments) finds out that he can’t get anything with meat in it at a party. Furious, he leaves to find meat. Biting a dog doesn’t end well, so after his encounter below he chases a runner, because she must eat meat! Nope, she’s vegan too, and lists lots of famous people who are also vegan (with the important disclaimer that they’re all also rich). But he does finally make his way to the slaughterhouse, and there is where the fun really starts. Is it really fun? Good god no. It also passes up several opportunities to turn preachy, instead relying on the most terrible thing of all: facts. What the lives (and deaths) of the cows are like, the tortures that pigs go through (and how they’re forced to live before and during those tortures), and let’s not even get into the grim reality of chickens (what did you think their lives were like now that breasts and thighs are so much bigger)? The amazing thing about the comic is that it somehow manages to be hilarious at several points. It shouldn’t be! But Emilie gets there. Still, if you’re already vegan, you should pass these out to your friends who are still resisting. If you’re like me and still hanging on the meat eating lifestyle, this will thoroughly expose the fact that only argument you’re left with is “but it tastes good!” $8 (or $22 for a pack of four mini kus books)
Posted by Kevin 
