Blindspot #2
Let’s all take a moment to mourn the death of the individual comic. Oh, not in the small press world, as mini comics are still all over the place. I mean more any of the established publishers, like Top Shelf, Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, those types of folks. Joseph includes a rejection letter from Fantagraphics in this one that is probably the worst kind of rejection letter: they loved his work (with a few suggestions for improvements), but since there is just no market for single issues there’s not a thing they can do to help him. It will be a different story when he gets enough material for a collection, possibly, but for now his only option is to either self publish or let his work pile up until he can put it in a graphic novel. Overall I don’t mind this trend, as I’m happy to wait a couple of years between large books, but it really sucks for books like this which fit perfectly as single issues and might be a bit of a mess as a collected book. Anyway, this comic has a few stories, all new for this issue (the lack of a new Ace Goddard story is explained on the back cover). He starts off with a letters page, and I must confess that I do miss a good letters page. The first story is a delightful romp (I don’t think I’ve ever used that in a review, and if I did it was misapplied like it is here) through the mind a genius in his own head, a young man who gets annoyed with his audiences while playing his guitar at open mic nights and ends up putting six months and a ton of money into his dream project. The ending is a thing of beauty and says a lot about the power of any positive reinforcement. Next up is a date gone horribly wrong, with a social sin that there is just no coming back from. The bulk of the comic is next, and it’s the story of an older man who feels like control of his life is slipping away, as he’s ignored at work and notices that the options of jobs for older men are getting worse all the time. He tries a few desperate ploys, they mostly don’t go well, and I’ll leave the rest of it to the reader. Finally there are two short pieces, about a cheery security guard and Joseph’s sadly brief time working with Harvey Pekar. Joseph ended up drawing the last (?) thing Harvey wrote, a book on Cleveland, and I’m really curious to see it. Anyway yes, this is another solid issue, and you should buy it if you really do support such things. If you don’t or are indifferent, there’s always the inevitable collected edition, or at least there will be if Joseph doesn’t give up hope due to lack of support of his individual issues. Do you really want to risk that? $5
Posted by Kevin 
