Bishop, Eli – Spinnerrackreverie

November 6, 2025

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Spinnerrackreverie

I wonder how many of the people reading this remember spinner racks. Fellow adults/middle-aged people, give me a second here. Younger folks, you could literally spin those racks in a circle, and the racks would be covered by the latest comics available. Sometimes a little digging would uncover hidden issues in these racks, or if you were lucky even the last few back issues of whatever series you were looking for. Sure, the rack kind of beat up the comics a bit, but it was definitely convenient. This not particularly helpful explainer doesn’t say much about the inside of this comic, but at least now you know what the title means! This is a collection of Eli’s interpretations of the covers of several old comics. He first shows his version of two covers, then on the following page shows the actual covers along with a synopsis of the stories and whatever he knows about the covers (or trivia about the contents, if it’s relevant). I recognized a few of these (including this one) before I got to the actual cover, and in every instance that I recognized Eli’s version was an improvement. I also hadn’t realized that so many older comics never credited the cover artist, let alone the colorist or letterer for it, so a lot of that stuff is literally lost to history. Which is why I tend to call it out when I review a mini comic with no contact information in it. Before you know it it’s 20 years later and somebody is discovering your comic for the first time, and they’ll have no clue who made it. Anyway, this was a blast for me, and I think it would also be interesting for people who’ve never heard of spinner racks (but I must admit that my opinion is not exactly subjective). $12

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Posted by Kevin

Bishop, Eli – Nine Faces of Nothing

September 24, 2020

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Nine Faces of Nothing

Eli mentions right on the cover that these are depression comics, but since it’s late September of 2020 as I write this and all kinds of people are depressed for all kinds of new reasons, these comics can be a bit, you know, depressing. Obvious disclaimer out of the way, there’s some really masterful storytelling going on here. There are nine pieces, mostly touching on aspects of depression (one of them is an adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story, but his reasoning for why it was included in here was compelling). He touches on the devastation going on in his brain sometimes when trying to keep up a polite smile around people, the danger of letting your true feelings out around other people, living with a voice in his head that’s always telling him how he’s going to die, trying to pinpoint the last moment he was really happy, his brief periods of being catatonic and trying to figure out why it was happening (and how to stop it if possible), and how he was once thinking of self harm and happened upon the perfect means to do it (but he wisely wouldn’t say what it was) before eventually having his job move away from that location. Now, I’m not saying that the reader should take all of these things literally, that every moment of Eli’s life is plagued by every one of these thoughts. They’re stories, and it’s possible if not probable that I’m misinterpreting a message or two. But these stories are devastatingly accurate depictions of what can go through your mind while depressed, or very suddenly while you’re thinking you’re not depressed at all. Knowing you’re not alone in your darkest thoughts is one of the best ways to manage depression, so if you’re feeling that way at all I can’t recommend this book highly enough. $10

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Posted by Kevin

Bishop, Eli – Busybody

October 6, 2017

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Busybody

One of the things I really love about this “job” is when I get a new comic from somebody that I haven’t heard from in years. With Eli, I think it had been a decade since I saw his last comic, or at least close to it. The physical size of this one laughs in the face of the name “mini comic,” but nobody ever came up with a better name for these things that I know of, so a mini comic it must be. Eli has a few stories in this one, with a few very short bits coming from his older minis. The bulk of this is new, so don’t worry about that. Things start off with a double story; one story continuing along the top of the page and one along the bottom. The top portion (“Discovery”) deals with that feeling you get when you meet somebody, chat with them for a long time and leave the conversation realizing that you’ve forgotten their name. When you see them again you might have a brief window to ask for their name, but really you shouldn’t do even that, so you’re already stuck. Eli takes that concept to a delightfully extreme conclusion here. The story along the bottom of the page is a silent piece about a therapist and his strategy for bringing couples closer together. This concept is also taken to an extreme, with some terrifying consequences for some of the participants. Next is a story called “The Refresher,” told from a first person perspective with the reader slowly discovering what’s really going on, which doesn’t leave me much to tell you, as why should I ruin the surprise? Finally there’s the first part of “Shift Report” (meaning he’s still working on comics, which is good news), and this one does some genuinely innovative things in splitting up the characters and the story. We see the perspective of various nurses and patients as they go about their routine, sometimes with them bumping into each other, sometimes doing their own thing. And all the while there’s one section of the page that’s in a fog, which is difficult to realize until you start to see vague images in that fog, and once again I shouldn’t say anything else about it. It’s good to see Eli back and making comics, give it a look! $10

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Posted by Kevin

Hob – Florence of Arabia #2

April 23, 2010

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Florence of Arabia #2

Ever read one of those comics where you just don’t have any idea what to think about it until it’s over? This is one of those. Not individually, though. The two issues Eli sent me were short but interesting, it’s just that he’s heading towards a conclusion and it’s not here yet, leaving my opinion about the whole thing in limbo. I like what I’ve seen. A disembodied head, a snail disguised as a camel and a naked scientist from the future all lead up to, at the very least, an interesting story.His art is what they call “easy on the eyes” as well. Kind of resembles Scott Mills, if I had to pick anybody, but more layered and complex. Not to be putting down Scott or anything… Anyway, these (this and #1) are worth a look, but you might want to wait until the whole thing is done so you can tell just what the hell is going on… Contact info is above, in case you’ve never seen my page before.

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Posted by Kevin

Hob – The Therapist

April 23, 2010

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The Therapist

A great wordless mini about couples going into therapy, with a revolutionary technique to get couples to stay together. It’s a good idea and he does a good job of it with this, and you can’t ask for much more than that. Oh yeah, if you don’t want to use your computer to get these, you can always write the guy at: P.O. Box 420596 San Francisco, CA 94142-0596.

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Posted by Kevin

Hob – An Inside Job #3

April 23, 2010

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An Inside Job #3

Formerly known as Eli Bishop, he will now foverer be known as Hob on this website, only a few years after everybody else has already been calling him Hob. That’s this website, always with the up to the minute info. Anyway, it’s been far too long since there’s been a new issue on An Inside Job, and the whole genre of dream comics seems to have mostly faded away, or at least faded from the comics I seem to be reading. Themes in here include death, zombification, werewolves, failure, flirting, scandal, mystery, murder (eventually), a squat-boy. a survival game, and the ever-popular peeing in your sleep. Of course, picking just the theme of the little stories tells you a tiny bit, but there’s so much more to be gained from reading them as a whole. If you asked me what it was I’d run screaming from the room rather than try to nail it down, but trust me on this one. $4

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Posted by Kevin

Hob – An Inside Job #2

April 23, 2010

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An Inside Job #2

Sometimes, in my paranoid moments before I fall asleep at night, I think that Eli only sends me his comics to prove how crappy my scanner is. I can fiddle with that thing as much as I want and I still can’t do his comics justice. Anyway, it’s another interesting dream comic. Feel free to buy it and psychoanalyze to your heart’s content, I know how bizarre my dreams are and prefer not to start that sort of thing for fear that people will ask me what I dream about. Things in the dreams include broken legs, pot, sex, snowballs, Senators, and urination. Go to his website and send him a couple of bucks, OK?

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Posted by Kevin

Hob – An Inside Job #1

April 23, 2010

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An Inside Job #1

Eli wonders on his website whether or not the world needs another comic about dreams, and for good reason. I thought they were kind of rare until I started seeing minis all over the place that were all about dreams. Luckily it doesn’t matter because the world can always use another good comic, and he’s managed to pull that off. There are a half dozen dreams in this little book and he manages to make it feel surreal, which is pretty necessary for this type of thing. Is it odd that we’ve both dreamt of “fly-seats” though (flying seat cushions)? Maybe it’s more normal than I thought. Anyway, this one is a couple of bucks and it’s well worth checking out. Look at his website for samples and a fantastic links page, among other things. By the way, his comic doesn’t really have a rainbow colored border, it’s just plain grey. But for some reason my scanner thought it looked like a rainbow and I thought it was pretty cool, so here you go.

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Posted by Kevin