New review today for Brick By Brick from David Craig. Cartoon Crossroads this weekend, anybody who is anywhere near Columbus Ohio! If you see a blond weirdo wearing a Tortilla Comix shirt wandering around on Saturday, come over and say hi! You will freak me all the way out by doing so.
Craig, David – Brick By Brick
October 1, 2021
How much can you really do with several stories written about bricks? Quite a bit more than you’d imagine, I’d say. This is a collection of several stories featuring this brick (or is it a different brick every time? Bricks are short on identifying features) having adventures. Sometimes they’re single page stories, sometimes they go a few pages or even longer. The whole book is silent outside of his crossover with Robb Mirsky and his Dingus and Dum-Dum characters, as their chattiness clearly could not be contained. This is yet another review where I try not to spoil too much from a mostly wordless comic, because if I did that you’d have no incentive to see what’s in here for yourself. His website also has several samples, because that’s how websites work. So, let’s see… in here you have bricks rocking out, bricks doing chores, bricks skateboarding, bricks pooping, bricks playing sports, bricks taking an eye exam, bricks carving a pumpkin, etc. There are a whole lot more stories in here, but even describing the premise tends to give away a huge chunk of the concept. I’ll just say that David is able to get more out of the three holes and square shape of a brick than I would have thought possible, and he has a few other comics available as well, so he’s not new to the concept. I read this one before the other comic he sent me, which apparently has the origin story of the brick, so maybe I’ll eventually find out how this brick got sentience? Eh, I’m just guessing here, but I doubt it. Some stories don’t need explanations. He put the price listing under Canadian monies, but it looks like it’s roughly $12 for any American types out there.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/29/21
September 29, 2021New review today for 10 Sim Lane by Essi Nieminen, which is unfortunately the last of the mini kus pile. But that’s OK! Clearly, as this is issue #102 of their series, it’s just a matter of time until new ones are released into the wild.
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Posted by Kevin
Nieminen, Essi – 10 Sim Lane
September 29, 2021
Who out there has played a Sims game? Or one of the equivalent games that asks you to control the lives of various avatars that generally do nothing more complex than what you do in an average day? Well, this one is for you! This starts off with a misdirect, as we’re introduced in the game to what appears to be our hero. Well, surprise, our hero is being controlled by somebody else! The mundane tasks that the avatar was doing are then carried out in real life by the player, and the juxtaposition of the two of them really brings home the banality of his “life” (and the question of why he feels compelled to play out the same events on the screen). Still, it wouldn’t be much of a comic if that’s all that happened, so eventually the player has to make a trip to the grocery store. While he’s out he runs into either an old girlfriend or somebody he has an interest in (it’s not spelled out), and his first foray into live human interaction in possibly several days goes quite poorly. But that’s OK! When real life goes wrong, he always has the simulation. There were some creepy bits, but generally of the “harmless creepy” category, as no humans were harmed. Maybe call it a cautionary tale of playing too much Sims? Sure, let’s go with that. It’s an oddly compelling story, considering how little actually happens. Give it a shot, you can’t go wrong with mini kus! $7
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/27/21
September 27, 2021It’s accidental (almost) silent comics week! Yep, it’s a peek behind the curtain: these days I often write the reviews over the weekend and set them to post during the week. That way you scofflaws can read reviews during the work week and I don’t have to scramble for time. This week I grabbed three comics that either have very few words or none at all and this one (Nugget #1 by Tony DiPasquale) is completely wordless. Hm, maybe I should try to come up with a way to write a wordless review to go with these comics. There has to be a way…
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Posted by Kevin
DiPasquale, Tony – Nugget #1
September 27, 2021
Now that there is one heck of a cover. I mean really, if you were to see that in a comics shop, that sucker practically jumps off the shelves. This is a collection of the surreal adventures of a little dude (purely guessing on the gender over here) called Nugget. It’s also a collection of silent stories, meaning that if I go too far in describing them I’m going to end up writing the whole comic in the review. So, in the interest of pulling off the balancing act of telling you about the stories without telling you THE stories, I’ll just say that the stories in here feature our hero getting sucked into a cup, finding a bottle at sea at ending up in a series of increasingly disquieting adventures, eating eggs and the horrific results (including one solid double page spread in the middle), finding his own twin and the desperate pull of the void, and the horror of the red doppelganger. It’s occasionally funny and often unnerving, which is a solid combination in my book. If that’s the case for you too, give this one a shot! $7.25
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/21/21
September 21, 2021Lots going on around here, so you get just the one review this week on top of none at all last week. I know, life sucks! The good news is that Cartoon Crossroads is happening in Columbus next weekend, so if you’re anywhere near Ohio (and if past years are any indication) I’d say it’s a good idea to get your travel plans in order. New review today for Survival Mode by Dileydi Florez, another from the mini kus pile.
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Posted by Kevin
Flores, Dileydi – Survival Mode
September 21, 2021Website
The mini kus folks are breaking off another hundo (hat tip to Comedy Bang! Bang!), as this is #101 in the series. Sure, it’s almost all different creators for each issue, but it’s still one heck of an achievement. So what direction are they going now? Not that one unrelated issue has anything to do with anything else, but let’s pretend that it sets the tone for a minute here, OK? Well, this issue is maybe the most straightforward issue of the series yet. Regular readers will know that once in every dozen or so comics the meaning just flies right over my head; in several other issues I have to make leaps as a reviewer that I probably mostly get wrong. Well, this time around we are introduced to a group of three friends who decide to go mushroom picking in the wilderness. Along the way they (and the readers) get a brief class on which types of mushrooms are edible (if they have a jelly-like consistency, stay away!), how the wilds in Iceland got to their current state, and… well, that’s about it, really. No swerves, no aliens land, no murders, just a straight story about picking mushrooms and talking about the sustainability of the planet. I guess you’d call it a message comic, but it’s a solid message, and you can tell from the samples that Dileydi is a pretty spectacular artist when it comes to conveying the majesty of nature. So if you’re looking for mayhem, give this peaceful comic a shot, then come back for #102. I’m sure the madness will begin again in no time. $7
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/9/21
September 9, 2021New review today for Heel on the Shovel #2 by Michael Kamison and Steven Arnold. Y’all are vaccinated, right? I just like to assume that I don’t have any dummies in my audience. Dare to dream, probably, but it’s a good dream…
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Posted by Kevin
Kamison, Michael & Arnold, Steven – Heel on the Shovel #2
September 9, 2021
Sweet Christmas, this is one behemoth of a comic. Can a comic be a graphic novel based purely on size? Because if this wasn’t the second issue of a three issue series, this 80 page beast would definitely qualify. I hope you’ve read the last issue, because this is going to be impossible to review without spoiling how that story ended. Which was by (last chance to bail if you don’t want any spoilers for the first issue) Muriel, the wife and one of three main characters (the other being the husband and the small child), dying. In rather slapstick fashion too, which was particularly brutal considering all the character growth she’d undergone. This one starts off with her funeral, which we get to see entirely from her perspective. Meaning lots of people saying their final goodbyes to her body, and her child just thinking she was sleeping and not getting the whole death thing at all. This time around we spend a lot of time with Klaudia and Rocky, a couple that had broken up in the first issue (which each of them being friends of one of the main characters). This is by necessity, as Adler (husband) has fallen into a deep depression, so most of his scenes in the first half of the comic are with him being completely immobile. Daniel gradually comes to accept what happened, but by then he’s been half adopted by another family who’s willing to take care of him while Adler tries to work through his grief. Still, this all seems fairly normal, and if you look at that cover you see a pretty solid indication that things are going to get weird. Adler, throughout his depression, has been watching several movies over and over again. One of them is called Re-Animator, and if you’ve seen that I don’t have to tell you where this is going. If not, see if you can work it out from the title alone. It’s fairly straightforward! The rest of the issue deals with the complications of making that happen, and naturally that also gets the police involved, which sets everything up nicely for the big finale issue. Well, small finale issue, as I’ve seen it and it’s nowhere near the size of this one. Maybe I’ll get to that one sooner rather than later, as I’m really curious to see how this is all wrapped up. This one could work on its own, I suppose, but I’d really recommend getting both issues. There is SO much here that I’m gliding right on by. Several damned near brilliant sequences with the kids, with the sad cop that gets drawn into things, with the relationship troubles of Klaudia and Rocky… lots of great stuff in here. $10
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/7/21
September 7, 2021New review today for Long Live the Witches by Valentine Gallardo, which also just so happens to be mini kus #100! They chose to go low key for the milestone issue, even though by comic book law they were legally able to include a crossover with Green Goblin or Venom. Their loss!
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Posted by Kevin
Gallardo, Valentine – Long Live the Witches
September 7, 2021
Finally, a new approach on witches! Sure, dopey historical figures have tried burning, stoning and drowning them. But has anybody considered the healing powers of music? Oops, I’m already into spoiler territory. Eh, sort of, anyway. This one starts off with a young girl picking some herbs in the forest. On the way back she’s bullied by some local kids, and we soon see that she’s living with a “witch.” Meaning an older lady who knows the basics about which herbs help with certain ailments. From there we meet the other important members of the story: a traveling doctor (who speaks for the Lord, which goes about as well as that sort of thing usually does), a musician and the various other inhabitants of the town. There’s a town meeting, what happens when you question somebody who thinks he speaks with a divine voice, and something distinctly resembling a mob. It’s an engaging tale with a few twists that I should shut up about, proving once again that the only reason this website exists is to point in various directions and say “Look! Read this comic!” while not giving much away about the actual comic. Oh, and not for nothing, but this is mini kus #100, which I think legally means they’re allowed to take over the world now. But honestly, who would want it? $7
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/3/21
September 3, 2021New review today for Super Magic Forest by Ansis Purins. See if you can spot the Zombre!
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Posted by Kevin
Purins, Ansis – Super Magic Forest
September 3, 2021
This is one of those books that’s going to be impossible to properly review. Which is odd, as there is a coherent quest at the center of it, one of them there “heroic journeys” you read about. But when it comes to the page by page specifics of this book, there’s too much to talk about in any kind of coherent fashion. Would you like to play “spot the stamp” with his panels? Because you could; there are several tiny stamped images strewn throughout the book. Not on every panel though, as that would be too easy. Zombre, the anchor of so many of his past books, has a brief cameo in this one, but that’s about it. There are SO many panels with SO much going on in them; I just flipped the book open randomly to the image of two sleeping bears, and even on that image I just now found a tiny bug, seemingly serving as a watchman of sorts, on one of their paws. Missed it entirely the first time around. So if you’re one of those people who measures quality of a comic by how much time you can spend with it discovering new things, this one is damned near priceless. Every page that has a crowd shot has a ridiculous amount of things happening in the background. Eh, I probably should talk about the story. We start off with an elf (Twit Leaf) gathering berries. Somebody pulled a prank on him and the bucket has a hole in it, so most of his berries have been eaten by birds that were following him around. Still, he needs berries for the banquet, which means he has to look for them in a more dangerous area. This leads him to an abandoned pocket video game system, which might as well be magic as far as he’s concerned. After a few more events he makes his way to the banquet, hoping that the game system will make up for his lack of berries. This is the meaty center of the book, where we get to spend some quality time with the whole extended civilization going on and the bizarre cast of characters. Which is why I used them for the sample image, and the ones shown below are only a small minority of the oddities. Twit Leaf eventually decides to go out for more berries, which is where he runs into a Cryptmunk Slayer (he had thought them to be extinct). Oh, and there’s his elf friends. And the demon. And the floofy monster that’s capable of killing all other monsters in horrific fashion. And so, so many others. I’m wrapping this up here, but to be perfectly clear: this is the opus of Ansis Purins, at least so far. It’s his crowning achievement, and whether or not you were already a fan, you should absolutely check it out. You’re unlikely to see anything this thoroughly, delightfully inventive anywhere else, and this is coming from a guy who reviews delightfully inventive comics on a damned near weekly basis. Check it out, spread the word, and enjoy. Oh, and this behemoth is also somehow only $16.95; I’m a cheapskate and my guess would have been $30. Gather those pennies and buy this book!
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 9/1/21
September 1, 2021New review today for Flowers Intertwined by Ema Gaspar, which just so happens to be the 99th issue of mini kus. Collect them all!
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Posted by Kevin
Gaspar, Ema – Flowers Intertwined
September 1, 2021
Do you know why I love the mini kus books, even though they’re almost all from different authors, with dozens and dozens of different approaches to the art form? It’s because of a book like this one, where I spent a good chunk of it thinking it was going to fall into the “visually gorgeous but narratively baffling” category where these books occasionally land, only to have it all come together with perfect clarity in the last several pages. Well, it is me, so there’s a solid chance that I still didn’t read it correctly, but it all came together in a lovely and satisfying way. If you don’t get there, it’s fine! This book is a true joy to look at, and you’ll have that regardless. This one starts off with a woman watering a vase, which she is tired out doing but feels is necessary to keep her shadow side at bay. She eventually realizes that this is all related to a terrible memory of hers and decides that she has to steel herself to do something about it. In between all of that are several images of what she sees, what she imagines and how things could be. Yes, I’m being vague, as I will forever be if the other choice is to walk people through a comic. This is the 99th issue of mini kus, after all, so most people probably already know if they’re on board with the general idea. I thoroughly enjoyed it, anyway. Now I just have to fine some place to put it where my increasingly agile kitten won’t chew on it, like what happened with the last issue… $7
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/30/21
August 30, 2021New review today for Meeting Comics #1 by Andrew Neal, for all the employed and trapped in an office environment readers out there. Like me!
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Posted by Kevin
Neal, Andrew – Meeting Comics #1
August 30, 2021
One thing they skip over in reviewer training (it’s an intensive course over several months but I, like all reviewers, am sworn to secrecy on the specifics) is what to do when somebody sends you their entire collection of published comics all in one chunk. Andrew is up to 20 issues of this series already, so he sent along quite a stack. Stay tuned while I figure out how to review them all! Anyway, the instantly worrying thing about receiving such a large stack is simple: what if the first issue is terrible? Not unheard of, after all; just think how many of your favorite small press comics had rough first issues before finding their way a few issues in. Well, no worries this time around, as the first issue had me literally laughing out loud several times. This is a collection of four panel strips that were done while Andrew was on his lunch break at work. While he doesn’t specify his specific job, probably for a very good reason, it’s clear that he has spent a lot of time in maddening meetings and/or dealing with office culture. So if that’s something you have to deal with too, chances are you’re going to love this one. The strip about a guy repeatedly asking further questions after the “we’re done here unless there are any questions” message from management and the staring of daggers by the coworker who couldn’t believe that the guy would not shut up has certainly happened to me before. Maybe you’re lucky enough to work in an office where nobody does that, in which case please let me know if they’re hiring. As these were mostly done on a lunch break, some of the art can be a little rough (just look at the panel borders in the sampled strip), but it doesn’t do a thing to take away from the humor. The version I got is the second printing, which is probably what enabled Andrew to include letters from people, and there’s also a pretty damned funny introduction by Jamar Nichols. What about the strips, you say? Well, keeping in mind that describing humor is a good way to murder it, subjects in here include the bare minimum required to sell your soul, who can and can’t quit on a dime, how casual Fridays can get, the physical manifestations of the soul crushing nature of work, and the HR robot and his preferences. And a whole lot more; there’s a lot of comic here. If you’ve ever had an office job you’re going to love this, if not I envy you like you wouldn’t believe, but you’d still find a lot to laugh at in here. $5
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 8/25/21
August 25, 2021Busy busy week, so you’re only getting one review: World Ceramic Fair by Jooyoung Kim. That’s right, it’s more mini kus! Don’t worry, I have a few books here that need reviewing, and I’ll get to them soon. I just need a few more hours in the day…
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Posted by Kevin
Kim, Jooyoung – World Ceramic Fair
August 25, 2021
I would not have guessed that you could get this much of a story out of a ceramic’s fair, but Jooyoung has proven me wrong. This starts out as a general overview of a ceramic fair, with the different types of booths, people running the booths and the types of people who come to them asking questions (and occasionally “accidentally” smashing ceramics). This is all a prelude to the main event, which is a large booth that two attendees stumble on at the end of their long day. The proprietor informs them that she makes ceramics “to talk about racism with the audience.” This causes said attendees to make a run for it, but don’t fret! A couple of dummies come by the booth next, and they don’t have nearly the amount of self-awareness necessary to figure out that engaging might be a bad idea. As they question each piece the ceramist (yes, it was just today that I learned that this was the term for people who make ceramics) engages them and tells them the bits of racism that she’s experienced that inspired the pieces. Ever oblivious, what follows is a grimly funny example of the cluelessness of racists, the unwillingness to learn anything about it, and even them going through comments and suggestions that they really think are helping. There’s also a big surprise towards the end, but you’ll get no spoilers from me! This was a cleverly done tale and who knows, maybe it’ll reach a few people who need to see it? We can only live in hope. Give it a shot, or maybe just give it to the racist in your life that you can’t completely disavow because they’re a close relative. If you have a racist friend, I’d just refer you to the They Might Be Giants song on the subject from the early 90’s (My Racist Friend).
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Posted by Kevin
