New review today for But a Dream! by David Robertson. According to Google there’s a Canadian comic person by that name too, but this isn’t that guy. It’s the original, the one who’s been on this site for over a decade now. Accept no substitutes!
Robertson, David – But a Dream!
August 2, 2019
But a Dream!
This might be a turn of phrase that I’m not supposed to use as an American, but I’m going for it anyway: this one did my head in. David’s comics can get abstract occasionally, sure. But to do an entire comic on dreams, and to have it end up as… um… dreamy as this one? It’s impressive as hell. Partially that’s because it can be tricky to tell when some of his stories end and the next one begins; he’s not a big fan of a title page indicating the start of a new story, and in this one there aren’t even page numbers to keep you grounded. It’s just stories of dreams, some bound by a loose connection, others not at all. To give you some idea of why this messed with my brain, here’s an example. One of the stories deals with an ape man who’s chasing David. He throws bananas to distract it as they climb up the side of a building, then enters the rocket ship on the roof. The ape man fires his gun at the rocket, which discharges a bullet that’s bigger than the ship. In the next panel David hears a bang, which he determines came from his kitchen. Even though he was in a rocket in the previous panel. That kind of thing happens a lot in this comic. It’s skillfully done, but occasionally unnerving. Usually this is the part where I’d tell you what these stories are about. It’s tradition, so I guess I’ll give it a shot, but be warned: this will make even less sense than usual. Stories in here deal with a giant purple naked man who’s the year 1994, running to catch a show and then dissolving literally into laughter, wordless Star Trek, trying to determine the appropriate height to fly in a dream, being in the room for a Tony Blair interview, the Star Wars actors getting stuck in an Ewok TV show, and having his spaceship overrun by giant naked men. Even that doesn’t do this issue justice, so I’ll just say that if you’ve enjoyed his previous work, you’re bound to love this too. Or possibly be very confused by it, but I think that’ll settle into love.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/31/19
July 31, 2019New review today for Trolls: Operation Great Wall by Michael Aushenker. Hey, guess what? I’ve been writing comic reviews on this website for 18 years now. Should I have more of a celebration than a random aside on a post that isn’t even a review? Eh, maybe. Thanks for reading along all these years, or months or days maybe! I’m still mildly annoyed that I don’t have any millionaire readers who are willing to bankroll this into a full time project, but what are you going to do.
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Posted by Kevin
Aushenker, Michael – Trolls: Operation Great Wall
July 31, 2019
Trolls: Operation Great Wall
This issue is a little less completely insane than the last one I read, but considering the fact that that was about a drunken party in an airport (among other places), there was bound to be at least a slight return to “normal.” Although you can look at the sample image below and see that there’s no such thing as a normal, quiet day in this world. We join our heroes in the Honolulu airport, where they’re casually chatting about Wayward’s girlfriend and what he can possibly see in her. She’s a bit on the dramatic side and comes from a conservative family. After nearly getting into an accident her parents take her to China, the Great Wall specifically (title might have given that away, huh?), and our heroes decide that they have to rescue her. But they’re air traffic controllers, not pilots, so you can probably guess how well that turned out. The rest of the comic has hijinx all over the place, what with the international incident and all. It also has an appearance by a former president, which isn’t the president I would have guessed in a comic with “wall” in the title. The previous issue may have this one beat for pure insanity, but this is quite the enjoyable read too.
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/29/19
July 29, 2019New review today for So Buttons #8 by Jonathan Baylis and a gaggle of artists.
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Baylis, Jonathan – So Buttons #8
July 29, 2019
To those of you who read these reviews in order, yes, I did review a collection of the first 8 issues of this series already. And I wrote a review of #9. But he was also nice enough to send along a copy of #8 for review, and roughly half of the stories in here weren’t included in the collection, so it’s kind of like new! To those of you who don’t care at all about such minutiae, my apologies. I’ll treat it like a regular old comic and won’t even mention which of these stories were in the collection, how about that? Partially because my memory is garbage and I’m not completely sure without looking back at the book. Stories in this collection include (after the American Splendor homage cover by Noah Van Sciver) his struggle with pork (he’s Jewish) and the best dumplings in New York, his early years experimenting with gory special effects (and the time he got into a fender bender while wearing gory face makeup), what almost turned out to be the perfect day, and the story of his history with pets, up to an including the tragic story of the first dog he adopted. So if you were curious if just getting the collection would cover you for the first 8 issues worth of stories, sorry! That was merely a “best of” collection. Plenty of great stories still around in these individual issues! $5
Leave a Comment » | Reviews | Tagged: Adam Walmsley, Corinne Mucha, Ech, Jonathan Baylis, Noah Van Sciver, Rachel Dukes, So Buttons, T.J. Kirsch | Permalink
Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/19/19
July 19, 2019New review today for Andros #8 by Max Clotfelter. I should have probably gotten to this months ago, but it fell into the comics swallowing vortex that follows all reviewers around. Why else do you think it takes so long for certain comics to get reviewed?
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Posted by Kevin
Clotfelter, Max – Andros #8
July 19, 2019
There’s something profoundly unnerving about the stories in here between the stories about Max’s past. Or are they just disturbing because they’re inherently disconcerting? That’s a question that’s above my pay grade. This is a mix of autobiographical tales and those old timey Hee Haw skits if they were done by David Lynch on a bender. Those stories are best read by you without any clue of what’s coming, but subjects include (being as vague as I can here) spicing up a meal, falling in love, a pun, making your own bait, and excessive fingernails. There, good luck making sense of all that. His other stories are a lot more grounded, and they deal with his getting his first gun (and then a bigger gun, and what happened when he finally got around to firing it), catching fish with his dad (and what happened to the fish afterwards), the true story behind a group of ghosts that he saw, and his brief time with one of the worst temp jobs I’ve ever seen, and I have been through some temp jobs in my day. It’s another solid mix of stories by a man who’s been doing this long enough to have his (artistic) shit thoroughly together by now. Give it a shot, unless you’re easily grossed out. In that case, give it a shot anyway. That way you’ll know that your previous bar for being grossed out was probably too low. $2ish
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Update for 7/17/19
July 17, 2019New review today for Urscape #1 by William Cardini. What could possibly happen in a second issue of this series? Who knows!
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Cardini, William – Urscape #1
July 17, 2019
Sometimes I wonder what would happen to me if I gathered all the William Cardini comics I’ve picked up over the years, took an afternoon and read them all in a row. I’m honestly not sure what that would do to a person. I mean that in the best possible way, of course; comic-induced madness always seemed like a likely fate for me. This is the story of… you know what? I’m cheating on this one. Here’s the description lifted from his website: ” The Miizzzard descends into the Urscape and gets slabbed. Take a psychedelic, enigmatic journey with the Miizzz through 20 pages of textural, intricate drawings at the speed of one panel per page.” Yep! Trying to read one of his books quickly, without taking some time on each page to soak in everything that’s happening, is really a waste of an amazing comic. Can you describe it to a friend over lunch? Not coherently, no. But reading his comics tweaks that certain something in your brain that’s convinced that other worlds and realities are always there, just out of the corner of your eye. If you’re interested in a peek into that world, this guy is one of the few people out there who seems able to see it clearly. Give it a look, see if you still perceive the world entirely the same way when you’re done. $6
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Update for 7/15/19
July 15, 2019New review today for Palm Tree by Grant Thomas, as there don’t seem to be any laws against reviewing an Easter comic in July.
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Posted by Kevin
Thomas, Grant – Palm Tree
July 15, 2019
Palm Tree
This is a wee thing of a mini comic, which means it’ll most likely be a short review. It’s been decades since I was raised religious (Roman Catholic), so I can remember the gist of the story in this comic, but I’ll get enough wrong so that this might be funny/enraging to anybody who takes it seriously. Palm Sunday is a Christian holiday. I think it’s before Easter? Followers wave palm fronds to signify… something something Jesus. How did I do? Eh, that’s why Google exists; if you’re curious, go nuts with the searching. Anyway, this comic is the silent tale of Grant (or a stand-in) getting a palm tree, caring for it, having some issues with it and finally having it grow into a full tree. There’s a brief shot of Jesus with people waving palm fronds at him, so I guess it’s triumphant? Again, I’m long out of the religious world. Anyway, this would probably mean a lot to a religious person in your life, maybe as a stocking stuff, but for Easter. You know, this is actually small enough to fit into a plastic egg, with a little creative folding. Perfect!
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/11/19
July 11, 2019New review today for Tortilla #5 by Jaime Crespo. If you’re around Columbus he’ll be here September 26th through 29th for Cartoon Crossroads this year. I’m still kicking myself for missing the one last year, and I won’t be making that mistake again…
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Posted by Kevin
Crespo, Jamie – Tortilla #5
July 11, 2019
Jaime has a new website! I just wanted to make that clear for everybody who only reads a sentence or two of my rambling reviews. And this is his first series to get to five issues, so congrats to him! He mentions in his intro that he attempted to make this an all humor comic, as he knows that some of his stuff gets heavy. Despite the fact that I usually love his stuff, every time an artist says something like that my immediate reaction is “I’ll be the judge of that” and, well, what can I say. I laughed out loud at the end of three of the stories and grinned at the end of the fourth, so I’d call that a successful humor comic. Stories in here include aliens demanding to see our leader (and while I usually hate giving away the gag on a sample page, this was just too good for me to resist), a tale from his childhood about him and a friend trying to avoid a bully that ends with the bully throwing a spear at them as they were fleeing (and probably my biggest laugh of the book), how he came to accept the spider in his house (OK, maybe the final panel of this one was the biggest laugh in the book), and a story about the teenage years of Jesus that he held off on publishing until his very Catholic mother passed away. So if you usually like his stuff but find him a bit heavy, this comic is for you! If you have good taste and already liked his stuff, you already know that you need this in your life. Oh, and if you managed to get a copy of Tortilla #1, he apparently lost the original artwork and the comic is out of print, so you might be sitting on a goldmine. Billionaires buy comics too, right? $4.50
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/9/19
July 9, 2019New review today for The Ghost Pirate #1 by Michael Aushenker and Marcus Collar. Should I be making a pirate pun here? It feels like I should, but I’m going to resist that urge. You’re welcome!
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Posted by Kevin
Aushenker, Michael & Collar, Marcus – The Ghost Pirate #1
July 9, 2019
The Ghost Pirate #1
Are you interested in ghosts and/or pirates? If so, I’d say the title has probably already convinced you to give this one a look. If not, there’s an awful lot in here about a ghost pirate, as you may have guessed,so maybe it’s not for you? What’s that, you’d like my impressions before you make a decision? OK, but just so we’re clear, I am mostly not interested in ghosts and/or pirates, so bear that in mind. This one starts off in 1775 with a group of British soldiers defending an island. A pirate shows up, murders almost everybody, digs up his old treasure, murders every other pirate who helped him dig it up, then opens up the box. Very bad things immediately happen, to the pirate (Molitar) and the lone British survivor of the massacre. From there we go straight to modern day, and a good chunk of the rest of the book is spent introducing the characters, what their lives are like, worries, motivations… character building! It’s a great idea in a first issue, and kudos to them for doing it when so many first issues are about bang for your buck. There’s a fair amount of that in here too, don’t get me wrong. Once our heroes move to the island a string of deaths happen, which leads to the mandatory creepy old resident telling them the story of the pirate and the curse that befell the island after that. Huh, I can’t remember the last time I used “befell” in a sentence. Feels like I should stop there. It’s an intriguing beginning, and I still have a lot more questions than answers. If the price I saw on Michael’s website is correct, $12 is a little steep for the first issue of a series. Yes, I know that is costs more to produce and distribute your own comics, but that’s a graphic novel price, not a comic price. But if you’re a fan of the subject matter and don’t mind the cost, you’d probably get a lot out of this. $12
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/5/19
July 5, 2019New review today for Rodeo #1 by Evan Salazar, have a great weekend everybody!
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Posted by Kevin
Salazar, Evan – Rodeo #1
July 5, 2019
A peek behind the curtain: generally speaking these days (2019) I review a few comics on the weekend, set them to appear during the week and go about my life. Usually I read a few comics on Saturday or Sunday, see if I have anything mildly compelling or interesting to say about them, then say it regardless. Magic! Anyway, I say all this to point out that I read this one a week ago and I’ve been bouncing the main story around in my brain that whole time. Does that mean I’ll have something especially profound to say? Eh, probably not. But the fact that it’s wedged into my brain (that’s already chock full o’ comics) is notable. Hi, there’s a comic I’m supposed to be talking about! The main story is about a fictional (?) family or a mom, dad and daughter. One day the mother leaves “on a trip,” nobody will talk about it and on that same day a mysterious visitor with a head bandage showed up on their doorstep. Our hero (the daughter, Abigail) tries to get to the bottom of just who this guy is, using increasingly esoteric methods. Until one day, it’s no longer and issue, and she’s left even more confused that before. The kicker puts the story into a whole new light, but I’m not going to give that away here. There are also a few other short pieces in here, one about a man cleaning a mall while he’s trying to compose the perfect sentence in his head (all creative types can relate to working while your mind is a million miles away), another about a cat with regrets, and a brief philosophical discussion by two… creatures on the back cover. The comic looks fantastic, the main story in particular (but really the whole thing) is great, give it a shot why don’t you? $5
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Posted by Kevin
Update for 7/3/19
July 3, 2019New review today for The Rain is Slow Coming by Alex Nall, as “hey, all these comics have kids in them” week continues!
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Posted by Kevin
Nall, Alex – The Rain is Slow Coming
July 3, 2019
The Rain is Slow Coming
I’m not proud of it, but the twist in this one got me. Sure, if you think about it for a few seconds it doesn’t make sense, but it’s the sign of a great storyteller if you forget all about that kind of thing while you’re in the story. This is the tale of a farmer and his tiny daughter, maybe five years old tops. His wife has died in an accident and he’s in danger of losing his farm because he can no longer afford it and can’t avoid the bill collectors forever. Meanwhile, his daughter is oblivious to all of this and is fascinated with crocodiles, watching that segment of Peter Pan over and over again. So one day they’re out on the farm, the dad is waxing philosophical and the daughter wanders off to the pond. Once she’s there she thinks she sees a crocodile, but it’s only a frog. She loses her footing, tumbles down almost into the water… and that’s when she realizes that something else is in the water. It’s a riveting and oddly haunting story, so give it a shot why don’t you! $6
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Posted by Kevin
