Collier, James – Insomnia Funnies

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Insomnia Funnies

(Note: I got this book through Domino a few weeks ago, but it looks like it’s currently sold out. Future people, between this link and the link to James’ website, maybe it’ll get reprinted soon?)

Insomnia! It sounds funny until you’re the one going through it, at which point it shifts to being the most horrific thing in the world. You want to sleep, your body needs sleep, your brain is barely functioning… and there you are, laying in bed, either staring at the ceiling or stubbornly keeping your eyes closed as if that will solve the problem. This comic right here is one of the more faithful depictions I’ve seen of that miserable state, as things start off (after a few surreal images of a city landscape) with our hero in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking of heartbreak. He gets out of bed, because why not, and goes through a series of tasks to distract himself from his plight. After these attempts fail he decides to go for a walk, which can already be a surreal experience at the right time in a big city, but much more so when you haven’t slept for three days. After these adventures and images of things observed, he decides to head back home and give sleep another try. Can he do it, or is he trapped in a terrible loop? Read for yourself to find out! Parts of this comic felt like they were giving me second hand insomnia, which I didn’t think was possible. There’s a certain kind of fatalistic futility present in insomnia that’s bizarrely combined with the hope that things will turn around soon, on top of knowing that your body HAS to sleep sooner or later, and James handles all of that wonderfully here. Unless you’re one of those people who gets insomnia through the power of suggestion, this one is well worth a look. $5

Update for 1/3/24

New review today for So Buttons #13 by Jonathan Baylis and his gaggle of artist friends. Start taking your bets now on the first time I forget the year for these updates! If I can get through January I’m usually golden…

Baylis, Jonathan (with Various Artists) – So Buttons #13

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So Buttons #13

What’s this? Am I attempting to sneak in another Karl Christian Krumpholz book under a different name? No, you silly things, he just did the cover and a story for Jonathan’s comic. This time around the theme is (more or less) Hollywood, his time in it, and Harvey Pekar (and his time interacting with Harvey). Mostly, anyway, as he always has room for random stories. Topics in this one deal with him discovering Alan Moore as a young comics kid and how it shaped him (it also mentions that Alan drew a strip for Harvey Pekar in 1990, which I now have to locate) (art by Tony Wolf), his time working for the Sundance Channel and how it eventually ended up with him sitting directly behind Harvey Pekar for the premiere of Harvey’s movie (art by Joe Zabel), a solid choice for a midnight movie experience (art by Bernie Mireault), his time going to school with Eli Roth and his joy at watching him shoot Hitler in Inglorious Bastards (art by Gary Dumm), an entirely too detailed depiction of his having to get his Lasik eye surgery adjusted (art by Maria and Peter Hoey), his love of a good Ennio Morricone soundtrack (art by Rick Parker), a well-earned love letter to Tallulah Bankhead (art by Michael T. Gilbert), Nolan Ryan’s disgusting trick to toughen up his fingers to pitch a baseball (art by T. J. Kirsch), and of course the story with Karl Christian Krumpholz with the odd bit of synchronicity of them talking about The Friends of Eddie Coyle when I just watched that movie a few weeks ago. Coincidence? I mean, obviously. Still, it’s an obscure enough movie that I’m tickled by it being mentioned. Obviously there are few more stories I’m leaving as a total surprise for the reader (I mean, I didn’t even mention Whit Taylor’s piece), but even compared to his already solid body of work, this issue is a shining example of what Jonathan can do with a solid cast of artists and when everybody is firing on all cylinders. What does that mean exactly? Probably a car thing. Anyway, heck yeah you should check this one out. $10

Update for 1/1/24

I’m ringing in the new year with some mini kus! New review today for Gym Gains by Gareth Brookes.

Brookes, Gareth – Gym Gains

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Gym Gains

It’s Gareth Brookes! Sorry, I sometimes get way too excited when an artist I’ve been reviewing for a lot of years ends up with a mini kus book. If you’re curious about his older work, click on his name and you will see a whole lot of me rambling about him. Anyway! This particular comic deals with a love triangle, sort of, between three people who are obsessed with working out and workout apps. There’s a brief affair between two of them, a new lady enters the picture, and the dude ends up with her. It all plays out through online messages, and the comic has the appearance of a hastily crumpled up note that quite possibly also gets tossed into a lake and then retrieved. Roughly half of the messages are distorted mirror images of existing messages, really bringing home the panicked but still somehow distant and opaque nature of the dispute. There’s no contact between the original couple past a certain point, or at least it’s not depicted on the page. Instead it’s an online cheering session and, as it always ends up, an opportunity to trash the happiness of the newer couple. It’s a dreamlike (or nightmarish, depending on your perspective) tale of betrayal and jealousy that’s inextricably mixed with an obsession of (hey look at that it’s the title) the gym goals of the main character. If you’ve ever buried the pain of heartbreak with a compulsive need to work out, this comic is for you! It’s also for you if you wonder if those types of people are capable of honest self-assessment after the fact. It’s worth a look for just about anybody, is what I’m saying ($7.95 for the issue but, as always, I’d recommend getting a bundle of four comics instead of just one)

Update for 12/21/23

New review today for Girls Named Meghan: A Teenage Memoir by Beth Heinly. I reviewed a few of her comics in anthologies in the before times (meaning the big update in 2010 that deleted all of the old review dates), but this is her first graphic novel that I’ve seen. Oh, and as for updates during the Xmas times, maybe? Maybe not next week, but probably the week after that. Or maybe both weeks. Who knows? It’ll be an Xmas miracle either way!

Heinly, Beth – Girls Named Meghan: A Teenage Memoir

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Girls Named Meghan: A Teenage Memoir

Ah, teenage friendships. Often a mess, but they can still leave lasting impressions for the rest of your life, especially the ones that were (in hindsight) a terrible idea. This is the story of Beth’s teenage years and how they intersected with a girl named Meghan in her school. To start things off we see two girls named Meghan, best friends with each other, and they’ve seemingly bonded over Bon Jovi (the story starts in 1996). One Meghan vanishes for a few months, and when she comics back the Meghans have split up. Beth’s Meghan (just referred to as “Meghan” from now on, OK?) tried to kill herself, which kind of but not really explains their split, but Beth was looking for a best friend, Meghan was newly friendless, so it seemed to make sense to pursue her. And it worked, sort of, as Meghan quickly because Beth’s best friend. Still, her obvious trauma made things tricky, to put it mildly. They joined up with a couple of other friends to make up a coven (it was a thing at the time, believe you me), which went well enough until Meghan freaked out and tried to kill herself in front of them all. Then Meghan came back, in full goth phase, and the warning signs really started piling up at this point. Not to get into too much more, as there’s lots to discover here for yourself, but their eventual breakup was messy, confused, violent, and very real. Beth also says up front that the story is based on memories, so obviously she could be getting a few things wrong. But the best thing I can say about it is that it really calls back to the days of teenage friendships, and you’d better believe that a few names/faces I haven’t thought of in decades popped into me head while reading this. If you’re looking for a nostalgia joyride/cringefest, you’d have a hard time finding a better way to do it than reading this book. $15

Update for 12/19/23

New review today for Fun Time Fall 2022 by Mike Dawson. I got both books I’m reviewing this week from Domino Books, which is an online shop that Austin English is running. Get your comics there, they have all kinds of great stuff.

Dawson, Mike – Fun Time Fall 2022

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Fun Time Fall 2022

I had to check to see the last time I reviewed one of Mike’s comics (been reviewing his stuff since the very early days of the website) and was surprised to see that it’s been over a decade. If you’re curious about the gap between reviews, read the review for Troop 142. I go on and on about it. What I know about Mike these days is his podcast (that may or may not be done) going over the Star Wars movies minute by minute, mostly because several comedians I like made appearances on it, and that he’s still making comics. This one is almost too personal for me, because he really goes into what must have happened to the “Generation X” people that made them into maybe the Trumpiest generation today. Outside of the very olds, I guess. I think Mike is roughly my age, and as somebody who seemingly gets more liberal every year, the state of my generation is a constant source of annoyance and confusion to me. It’s like the world kept going even after my generation seemed to think “nothing matters” was a solid rallying cry and a significant chunk of them would prefer the world to burn rather than admit they were wrong. Anyway! This is about Mike’s comic. Several stories in this one, mostly about the cover theme. He goes into the exact moment that he first saw someone log in to the internet and how urgently they treated it (circa 1993), talks about rereading Generation Ecch! (I also bought it for the Evan Dorkin art), explains his theory about how Quantum Leap was the quintessential 90’s show because now the problems to be fixed would just be too great to deal with (which makes me wonder how the remake handles the idea), explains how his first cartoon was the Rambo one (look it up, it’s as absurd as it sounds), hearing about a trip of his friends where they all took mushrooms and then talked about politics (he’s right, that sounds nightmarish), watching Twister with his daughter, a guide to spotting fascists, and finally a deep dive into the juxtaposition between the gender bending hair metal bands of the 80’s and 90’s and the rampant homophobia of the time. It’s still baffling, but he has some solid theories on what the whole thing was all about. So overall, yes, the man can still make a hell of a comic. And it looks like he’s still putting out stuff regularly for his Patreon subscribers, if you’re looking to get a steady fix of his comics… $7

Update for 12/15/23

New review today for Apoqueerlyptic by Mitch E. Viciuex, which was a healthy reminder that I should get to the local comic shops for review comics more often instead of waiting for random stuff to come in the mail. Not that I’m discouraging that practice, mind you…

Vicieux, Mitch E. – Apoqueerlyptic

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Apoqueerlyptic

This was one of those side effects of the pandemic that I’ve been wanting to read a story about ever since: what happened to people who were transitioning at the start of it, and how was their experience getting through it? Mitch seems like the perfect person to tell that tale, as they were scheduled to get their top surgery in May of 2020. Otherwise known as the worst possible time to have a complicated medical procedure scheduled, if your short term memory is that bad. There were delays, confusion, annoyance at the world, and of course the inevitable constant sexy dreams/images. That’s what surprised me the most about this comic, and in a good way: once I read the synopsis, it seemed like I might be in for a depressing slog of a comic. Somehow it never ended up there, even though Mitch had every excuse for falling into a deep depression. Instead these strips were a lot funnier (and OK, hornier) than I was expecting. These are mostly 4 panels strips, chronicling their time before, during and after top surgery, and it’s the “before” section that gave Mitch the most time to consider their options, although it didn’t take long. Contrary to the beliefs of dipshits, getting top surgery isn’t exactly a casual decision, so they’d already had plenty of time to think things through. It’s also less linear than I was expecting but, again, in a good way. There’s a complete absence of “on this day this happened, the next day I felt this way about it, the day after that I etc.” type of storytelling, which was a solid choice. Some subjects of strips in here deal with trying to answer a gender question to a phone surveyor, making sense of famous gender quotes, contemplating why all their D & D characters were dudes, putting on a binder (before the top surgery, obviously), dealing with the aftereffects of the surgery, and being a lot more open about sex in their art than they are in real life. And lots more, of course; this is a fairly hefty mini. They also spend quite a few strips detailing the surgery (not in gruesome detail, for the squemish types), both the look and the feel of it. It’s informative if you’re curious about the procedure, and funny if you’re not all that curious, which means that heck yeah I’d recommend giving this a shot. $5

Update for 12/12/23

New review today for Medieval Comics by Rob Jackson. One of these days I should add up how many reviews of his comics I’ve done over the years and see how close he is to being in the lead…

Jackson, Rob – Medieval Comics

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Medieval Comics

I just had a terrifying thought: I’ve written so many reviews of Rob’s comics over the last decade or so that I’d bet any halfway decent AI program could fill in the blanks here pretty easily. Sure, the real artists should be OK, at least for now, but lunks like me who just talk about comics are in trouble. Ah well, best not to dwell on my once and future obsolescence. Let’s talk about comics! There are a couple of things you can always count on with Rob’s comics: he’s never going to cheat the reader (this one is 48 pages and it’s rare that he puts out less than that) and you never know quite what his comics are going to be about. This one, sure, that title gives you a solid hint right off the bat, but having a comic set in medieval times still leaves a lot of room for stories. This one starts off with a monk trying to see his abbot about a vision he (the monk) had overnight. Rather than dismissing him the abbot takes it seriously and calls in a few of his closest advisers to hear the monk out. His vision was about a field of the bones of 100 martyrs, which was big business at the time, and he’s given permission to set out with a few helpers to verify the truth of his vision. No big loss to the church if it was nonsense, so they didn’t tell anybody about it, but potentially a big reward if it was true. From there it’s a genuinely odd but engaging quest story, with the monks picking up companions along the way with mysterious (or not so mysterious) motivations, intrigue, hardships and even a murder. And once they do get to the location the monk had dreamed about, there’s still the question of the purpose of the vision and whether or not it was really a good idea to follow it through. This here is another in a long line of really solid work from Rob, and at this point it’s safe to say that I’d be able to entertain myself for a day without leaving the house if I just laid a stack of his comics in front of me first. And boy howdy, after all these years, it’d be quite a stack. So if you’re intrigued by old timey religion and artifacts, not to mention some genuinely bizarre visions, I’d say you should give this a shot. If that’s somehow not your thing, check out his back catalog. Believe you me, there’ll be something on there that gets your attention.

Update for 12/6/23

New review today for Far Tune: Winter by Terry Eisele and Brent Bowman. Remember the olden times when I wouldn’t post a review of somebody again before the initial review shuffled off the front page? No? Good. It would be weird if you did.

Eisele, Terry & Bowman, Brent – Far Tune: Winter

Website (Terry)

Website (Brent)

Far Tune: Winter

A bit of personal history here, which applies to why I used the sample image. Back in my early days of working at the Board of Elections in Columbus (I’ve since moved on to a different BOE, which confirms that I’m a glutton for punishment), I noticed that a whole lot of names that we got from the naturalization process were for January 1st of whatever year. It took me a few years to get a solid answer as to why that was the case, but if you’re curious, Fartun lays out the reasoning here. I’d just let everybody pick their own birthday, which is one more reason why I’ll never rule the world. Anyway, this volume picks up shortly after the holiday break is over, and we’re shown exactly why that’s an odd time to be in Ohio from somebody who went from a refugee camp to a few years in London. We see a bit more of the camp too, including more detail about how Fartun’s mother died and her reaction at the time. There’s a constant background tension around her brother and father; guess I’ll find out in the next volume whether it gets resolved or if it’s just a part of trying to fit into a foreign (and often hostile) culture. This volume spends a lot of time on slam poetry, so if you’re as unfamiliar with it as I was you’re going to learn a few new things here. We also see some of the more overt racism so far, as Fartun is forced to participate with another school because her bully told everybody to boycott the team if she (Fartun) was on it. It’s a fascinating subculture, with a lot more rules that I would have guessed. Oh, and there’s also a bit of Somali mythology, as she tells her friend Bea the story of Dhegdheer, essentially a monster that was used to keep children from wandering off but with a tragic backstory. There are at least a few actual poems included from the time depicted (still in 2005), which was a nice touch, and it showed that she had some serious poetry skills right off the bat. It looks like the series concludes in the next volume (so much for my theory for their being a book for each of the four seasons), and these are some hefty books that are currently going for $10 each on Amazon. Or maybe a package deal if you’re lucky enough to run into Terry at a con…

Update for 12/4/23

New review today for New Things by Lauren Barnett, and for those of you who don’t read the reviews but do read these weird little update thingies (a category of people I just made up), “new book by Lauren Barnett” is all you need to know.

Barnett, Lauren – New Things

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New Things

Remember how in those old timey movies about a reporter going after a hot story you’d often see them take out a little tape recorder to record notes for themselves? You know, leads they’d need to follow up on, that sort of thing. Well, I read my review for Lauren’s last book (Ruining Your Cat’s Life, in case you need a reminder) and I mentioned missing several of her books/comics and needing to rectify it soon. I have not done that thing! Will I remember to fix that this time around? Well, if this book doesn’t lodge that into my memory, nothing will. This is a collection of a bunch of Lauren’s new strips, and two things are true about this at the same time: there’s some ridiculously funny stuff in here, and it would be wonderful if like 90% of it really did happen/start happening in real life. I mean, the sample image! What a fantastic idea. And spare me with the “oh, think of the food that would be wasted, the chef would have to make full size portions of each just for little samples.” No! She’s trying to imagine a better world here, and this would absolutely apply. If you’re new to her stuff, or unsure, her website has all kinds of sample comics. If you can scroll through that for a few minutes without laughing, I guess you won’t enjoy this, but I also feel sorry for the lack of laughter in your life. For the rest of us, if you’re curious what goes on in this particular volume, Lauren has some suggestions for other medical practitioners and the samples they could be giving out after appointments (seriously, why is it that only dentists do this?), new vanity plates, ways to disguise a cell tower, condiments that help you out, new vegetables, new appetizers, dream restaurants, new fruits (and seltzers, and animals, and jelly beans, and ice creams; again, the world would be a better place with a lot of these things in it), and some movie ideas that should happen as soon as possible. As always, just describing these takes some of the humor out, which is why I keep it vague. There are also a few more ideas in here I’m not even going to mention (except for the pajamas that show cats knocking things off of shelves), but the important thing is that they’ll make you laugh. Yes, that’s a guarantee. $15

Update for 11/30/23

New review today for Enough Nonsense by David Robertson and his trusty gang of comics pals, by which I mean artists. And probably pals, at least in some cases, why not?

Robertson, David – Enough Nonsense

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Enough Nonsense

I was curious so I just looked back on how I labeled all of my old reviews on David’s books, as he’s the writer but usually only the artist on some of the comics. I was all over the place over the years, sometimes calling him an editor (which I’m sure he is too), sometimes listing the various artists, usually not. This is all to say that all of those names in the tags? Those are all of the artists in this issue. I never go story by story in these reviews, so if you liked one piece in particular, look up that artist why don’t you? Christ, now I’m telling people how to use the internet. OK, moving on. This is another collection of short pieces by David and friends (nothing is longer than a couple of pages this time around), and it’s yet another solid pile of stories. If you’re thinking that “yet again” is a slam, no it is not. Somebody putting out quality work on a consistent basis should never be taken for granted. Stories this time around deal with whether or not the Titanic cracked in half before sinking (I had no idea that this was a controversy for decades before the wreckage was found), explaining the gap in observable work between comic writers and artists, car people vs. non-car people, the disturbing process of “weeding” in public libraries (basically pulling books from the shelves permanently that haven’t been checked out in a certain number of years), trying to do a nice thing for a new writer, how some painful memories may be ridiculous but still manage to haunt you, rejecting the cop-out answer that saying you believe in god doesn’t hurt anything because you’re covered if it does or doesn’t exist, how the official Star Wars Celebration has changed over the years, and being yelled at by an automatic fridge to close the door. That last one was illustrated by Peter Conrad, another one of those artists who were around in the early days of the website but I’ve since lost track of. Well, he’s still making comics, which is always a positive sign. I mentioned maybe half of the stories in here, so that leaves plenty of surprises for you to find. So, to recap: are these great stories that I will enjoy? Yes. Are there a wide variety of stories so that I’ll still like plenty of them even if some of them aren’t for me? Also yes. When in doubt, should I just throw money at indie comics in case I like them, because even if I don’t like a particular issue that still means that the artist is more likely to make comics in the future? Absotively yes. All clear?

Update for 11/28/23

New review today for The Re-Up #2 by Chad Bilyeu & Juliette de Wit. And yes, of course I’m still reviewing comics from CXC. I’d be surprised if I got through this stack before the end of the year.