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Various Anthologies – Liquid Sunshine
Liquid Sunshine
Have you ever wondered what comics creators do all day when they’re stuck at a convention? Most of them don’t have a line at their desk all day long and some of them (especially when they’re at one of the big conventions where the small press people are sometimes all shoved into a far corner of the building) get very few visitors at all. Well, sometimes they do little jam comics like this, purely for the hell of it. This tiny comic contains all sorts of people, namely Andy Runton, J. Chris Campbell, Duane Ballenger, Chris Pitzer, Sam Henderson, Rob Ullman, Jacob Chabot, Chris Giarrusso and Justin Gammon. If it wasn’t for the table of contents I would have no idea who drew which pages, as they mostly aren’t even using their usual drawing style. This book doesn’t say for sure, but I’d guess that they would do a panel and pass the book along to the next person to see what they came up with, as this doesn’t follow much of a story or have much of a point. There’s some liquid sunshine, you see, and a boy is carrying it around. Another boy wants to steal this glass of liquid sunshine for the obvious piles of money he’ll get for it, but abruptly drops this idea to urinate in the glass instead. It wanders around a bit more after that, but you get the general idea. This is a great comic for those of you who are curious about what artists do in their spare time at these conventions, otherwise it’s easily skipped. No price, but it can’t be more than $1.
Roman, Dave (editor) – Life Meter #1
Life Meter #1 (by Various Artists including Dave Roman) Now Available! $6
I’m guessing that most people reading this are between 20 and 45, and if that’s the case most of you have played video games on a fairly regular basis at some point in your life. If you’re male you almost certainly grew up with them. Yes, that may be a sweeping generalization, I’m just speaking of all the male friends I have. This book is a collection of short pieces about video games, so that long winded intro was to tell those of you who have never played video games that you will be utterly lost reading this comic. It even dealt with any concerns I’ve had about anthologies, as all the pages are numbered, there’s a table of contents and it even lists the video games on which these pieces are based. Hey, I’m practically an expert on old video games and even I needed the occasional hint. Stories in here include a day in the life of Frogger (by Dan Abdo), Debbie Huey’s take on the obsession of Toad from the Mario games, Faith Erin Hicks has a continuing series about a horny fangirl who is hiding out from zombies, Dave Roman shows us what’s inside the Moto Bug (in one of those pieces that flew right over my head), Jamie Dee Galey shows us the dangers of shaking trees, Phil McAndrew has a piece on Pac-Man commiseration, and Lea Hernandez tells us all about Mickey’s ghetto booty from Kingdom Hearts II. There are also full page (or half page) comics about various assorted video games that’ll be better left as a surprise, but I have to mention the highlight of the comic: Jacob Chabot’s piece on Burger Time. I don’t think you even need to have played the game to love this strip, as we are treated to an origin story of the chef from Burger Time and shown that a man with a spatula and a salt shaker can, in fact, be a bad ass. If you don’t have some love in your heart for video games this comic probably won’t do a thing for you, but if you do it’s hard not to love it.
