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Eclectic Comics #2

Andrew has narrowed his focus this time around, as there’s only 4 stories here (and one page at the end from his son).  These are all still started from a creative exercise, such as drawing something important to the story (a box) without ever revealing what’s inside, illustrating a quote about turning into a god, illustrating random lines from science fiction novels (which Andrew was able to collect into this story), and a story for an unpublished anthology about losing your lunch.  The story with the box is mostly an unfocused but fun slugfest, the bit about turning into a god was also amusing and had a good punchline, the story based on science fiction quotes was a bit chaotic (as you might expect after reading his creative process) but the bits with General Patriot were amusing at least, and the bit about losing your lunch was about what you’d expect.  And what happened to the Monet story?  “To be continued” indeed.  Maybe in issue #3?  The backgrounds are a little more fleshed out this time around, at least for certain panels, but far too many of them have half formed scribbles where a background should be.  It’s a lot of work, sure, but it does help make the finished product look significantly better.  I have an aesthetic suggestion too: put the creative process descriptions at the back of the book instead of at the front.  That way people could read the stories without any preconceived notions (except for the people who automatically turn to the back of a book first, but there’s no helping those weirdos).  All told it’s an amusing book, something I’m still not totally crazy about but that’s growing on me bit by bit.  $3

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Eclectic Comics #1

This may be the first family comic I’ve seen.  I don’t mean “family friendly”, as there are plenty of comics out there that fit that description (this one included), I mean something where a whole bunch of family members play a creative role.  Andrew’s son helped with the colors and formatting some files, his daughter contributed a few strips she did for her college newspaper, and various family members pop up in the stories.  So what’s this issue about?  It seems to be at times a creative exercise, as a number of these are in response to various challenges, such as drawing a 20 panel page, illustrating song lyrics (something regular readers of this site know isn’t high up there on my list), illustrating three examples of the Sneeze Theory (preparation, action, recovery), draw a biography (Monet, in probably the strongest piece in the book), working backwards without a script, taking every object from a pictionary card for a comic, and drawing an instructional comic.  The way you can tell he succeeded in most of these things is that they read just fine as regular old comics, not as obvious intellectual exercises.  Stories in here include Andrew’s “origin” as a superhero, giving his daughter a smock, the very early years of Monet (to be continued after he leaves his teenage years), the man-purse, Andrew’s induction into a new team of heroes, and a cute strip of Andrew drawing with his little boy.  I could have done without the song adaptations, as always (“Taking Care of Business”, in particular, never needed to be illustrated), but even me and my cynical heart were charmed by the bulk of this comic.  Granted, the art looked rushed at times and his backgrounds are generally either nonexistent or hastily sketched, but this first issue has a few genuinely funny moments and serious potential, which is enough for it to get by.  There’s a second issue here too, and when I get to that we’ll see where I land.  $3