Optical Sloth

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Meeting Comics #13

In this issue, the undisputed star of the 20’s finally makes its appearance: give it up for the coronavirus! It’s only a few strips in this issue, but if I had to relive the early, awkward and confused days of the virus, this is the perfect comic to do it. Still, this issue is mostly just regular strips about the gang, so maybe I should tell y’all what this one is all about, huh? Subjects include an awkward misunderstanding about adulting, a delighted and clueless white man who’s thrilled about how “everybody” gets the day off for MLK day, a Trump impeachment song (first impeachment, and it’s hilarious that I have to specify), finally getting a dress that has it all, a rapping clown whose sole duty is to break the news to fired employees, a miscommunication about the attendance policy for the company orgy, and a brief (and, for Kevin, sexually awkward) trip back into the origin story of Val. As usual, that’s only the first half of the strips, meaning that I’m not going to get into any specifics about the corona strips. Ah, we were all so young and confused about the whole thing back then. And the Ribbon Cutters! Good lord, it feels criminal not to mention what they did in this issue, but I must stay strong! There’s also the return of Mitch Cranberry, and clearly I can not be trusted to stay quiet about what’s in the rest of this issue so the reader can discover it for themselves, so I’m shutting this review down. It’s still hilarious, but that was mostly true at the beginning. What it has at this point is hilarious strips along with some serious depth for the characters, so maybe you should do what I’m doing and try to catch up with the series. $5

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Meeting Comics #12

It’s an issue with a theme! If you’re just jumping into my weekly Meeting Comics reviews at #12 and are wondering what I’m talking about, you know what? I’m not going to hold your hand. Go back and read the other ones to make sense of it. If there’s one thing the consistent childishness of the antimask folks proves, it’s that coddling doesn’t do a damned thing. That’s right, antivaxers turned me militant against recaps! It’s all makes sense somehow. So what’s the theme? There’s a movie premiere coming out, and it has music from Kevin’s band, an invitation to appear for the Ribbon Cutters (yep, now there are officially two of them), and is directed by Val’s old boyfriend. So right away there’s obvious tension all around. Not that Val’s ever tense, but her appearance is bound to make things awkward for her ex and Rob. Hey look, that’s what the sample image is all about! Also the Ribbon Cutters confront both bootleggers (who are selling merch without permission) and two imposters who also went to the premier as the Ribbon Cutters. That whole storyline unfolds beautifully, so I’m not going to spoil any other twists and turns. Still, there were a few other strips in here that were unrelated to the premier, and I reckon it won’t hurt anybody to briefly talk about them. There’s Don learning that his mother is somehow becoming even more of an asshole, Val coming to Kevin’s Thanksgiving dinner, Val promoting somebody else to the management team, and one of the gang getting to ask a single question of the Dark Lord about anything they want. Wow, I guess more of this comic was about that premier than I thought. He also mentions in his afterward that the comics are going to start being about the pandemic as of the next issue because hey, that’s what was going on in real life at the time. Good thing that’s over with, says I from the comfort of 2/3/22, when deaths are only… a couple thousand a day? Yikes. Anyway, give it a shot! This might also be a good one of to show to newbies to get them interested, as it’s more or less self contained. $5

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Meeting Comics #11

I should have thought of this ages ago, but what the heck, it’s never too late, right? Here’s my Meeting Comics challenge for y’all, and it actually extends back to all the other reviews. Can you read the sample comic without laughing? I guess I’m giving away the game about how easy it is to determine whether or not you want to give a comic a shot, but seriously. I just started to go into all the ways that it’s funny before remembering that doing such a thing is a guaranteed method to kill humor, so never mind. If you can look at that and not even crack a smile, I’m afraid your inner joy has been murdered, my friend. So, what’s new this time around? Gil gets to meet the in-laws, and what a group they are. Ribbon Cutter is already sharing the crimefighting duties with his wife, but who’s the mysterious new figure who’s also wearing scissors? Don eventually gets out of the hospital, and he has something to show everybody. The shadows are loose! There’s also a clown involved, which is new. As always, that leaves roughly half of the book completely unmentioned, so don’t worry, there’s still plenty of brand new funny here for you to uncover. Bring a copy to your next office meeting! If they get an attitude about it, just say that it’s about how to make meetings better, which is clearly indicated by the title. Who knows, maybe they’ll even fall for it! $5

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Meeting Comics #10

That cover has a pretty big spoiler. Can you spot it? No, it’s not the slight white marks from where I accidentally gave the comic an elbow drop. Funny story! Anyway, the series has made it to double digits, and the fun thing about reading comics from the past is you can see dreams being broken in real time. Andrew has an announcement here that the collected edition was going to be coming out in February of 2020, and I’m sure he had cons and all sorts of other promotional activities planned. Sorry, but covid had other plans. This issue also had some sort of printing problem, as several strips were lighter than others, but everything is still legible, so don’t worry, you’ll still get all the jokes. What’s the story this time around? Val pays off a bet in which she has to shake out her hair like a sexy librarian, we meet Dolores (who’s been a temp for 14 years), Kevin does some just on the borderline of racist rapping, they learn that the new Fantastic Four will be a rap battle (and boy was I ever tempted to put that as the sample image, but it was just too good to ruin), the Ribbon Cutter goes on hiatus, and Kevin’s baby briefly goes missing. Much, much more, as always, and it’s not like Andrew lost his funny since the ninth issue, so you’ll get some solid laughs this time around too. Go on, buy a copy, help the poor guy make up for the accidentally terrible timing of his book release date. Actually, that book is probably the way to go, as it collects the first six issues. But if you’re not willing to risk it, exactly zero of these first 10 issues were terrible, so I like your chances. $5

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Meeting Comics #9

Anybody else enough of a former Marvel comics geek that they tried to get a No-Prize, that joke prize for finding mistakes in comics that I sadly didn’t understand until I was an adult? Well, the inside cover for this one says it’s #8, but it’s actually #9! …do I win anything? I’ll just wait for my award in the mail. Speaking of Marvel, Andrew really messed up by not putting some version of “in this issue, someone dies!” on the front cover. Silhouettes of some of the characters, gravestone in shadow, that sort of thing. Because this one does start off with a death, even if it doesn’t mean all that much to the story. One of the horde of people at Kevin’s house, his father, starts the issue off by croaking. Spoiler, I guess, but it’s literally the first strip. Anyway, Kevin didn’t much like the guy, and and even when he passed away it didn’t exactly bring up a wellspring of emotions. At the funeral it quickly becomes clear that the feeling is widely shared, which is a nice and honest change of pace from the way deaths are usually handled in four panel gag strips. Unless deaths aren’t usually handled at all in such strips and I’m just making things up, which is entirely possible. Also the image of their baby going all emo after witnessing the death got a real laugh out loud from me, and I just realized that I just used “emo” in both reviews this week, despite probably never saying that word out loud. Huh. Other subjects in this here funny book include Gil hitting on the boss’s granddaughter, finding out what’s under the beard, finding out what’s under the hat, a real “oof” of a strip about adopting a cat while passing an ICE center, flex out a tiddy, how quickly an angry mob forms if a cartoon is rebooted with the lead character having a different race than the original, and the new girl. And lots more, of course; as usual I’m only mentioning roughly half of the strips. As always, check out a few samples on his website if you’re still on the fence, otherwise this is another solid issue. $5