Blog Archives
Tanner, Jamie – Funny Man
Funny Man
My general rule of thumb for comics is that if I read three things from a guy and I like them all, chances are I’m going to like everything he or she does. One comic, it could just be a fluke. Two, the chances are that I’m going to like them from then on but, say, I probably wouldn’t buy their next book if it was a $20 graphic novel. But once you get to the third book, forget about it, I’m hooked. Jamie has reached that plateau. This is the story of a man with no arms and legs who manages to become an unfunny comedian, mostly because of the novelty of having no arms or legs, and his rise and fall back into obscurity. Mostly his life after his fall though, in case you were hoping for something cheery. Oh, and don’t forget the dream scenes and/or hallucinations. Great stuff again, like I said, more than slightly disquieting. $3
Tanner, Jamie – Unraveled Bandages
Unraveled Bandages
There are certain comics where the general point of the whole story doesn’t matter so much compared to the random little things that are happening. Does that make sense? Well, if it does, then this is a great comic. Otherwise it might be in trouble, but I’m going for the first choice. What you have in here are a bunch of people in masks, a mannequin in love, a cat in jail who makes fun of the guard, an old man with a sleeping prostitute, a drunk young man, and a dog that says “Rather high-strung young fellow, I daresay.” Does it all make sense now? So, in cases like this where the official whys and wherefores of the comic aren’t readily apparent, it’s best to go on little things like dialogue, which Jamie has perfected from what I can tell, and the art, which is splendid. Hey, if you can pull off an angry cat in jail, you have my vote for whatever it is you’re running. Contact info is up there, he has a few books out and everything I’ve seen has been interesting.
Tanner, Jamie – The Social Circle of Professor Winterbottom
The Social Circle of Professor Winterbottom
What a delightful comic. I’m not sure if that’s an appropriate thing to say for something that has more than one person get their head knocked off by a robot, but it’s true. This is the story of a dog and a man who program a robot to like gin. It is apparently also a pugilist, but wasn’t given any kind of safeguards to avoid killing people. That’s all well and good, but the dialogue is what makes this worth seeking out. English dialect between a genius dog and a robot needs to be read to be appreciated. Turns out that he has all kinds of other minis available at his website, which is always great news when something makes my day like this one did. It’s probably a couple of bucks, get it right away or check out what else is available.
Tanner, Jamie – Amber
Amber
To those of you who think my opinions my be a bit dense at times, let me prove how right you are: I just now got the fact that these comics, while maybe not necessarily parts of a large cohesive story, definitely have characters that bleed over from comic to comic. If you’re sitting around with a pile of Jamie Tanner comics this is the most obvious thing in the world to you, although in my defense I’ve been getting about one of these a year. This comic is about a young man who drinks himself to death but hangs around as a ghost, so he decides to keep drinking. The only way this is possible is to inhabit the bodies of other people until they drink themselves to death, which never seems to take very long with a ghost inhabiting them. Meanwhile the whole town has been flooded and most people are already dead anyway. And that robot bird, Christ, the look in his eye on that last panel is going to haunt my dreams for weeks. It’s really a melancholic comic, with the whole town underwater and everybody else sitting around in bars there’s a sense of hopelessness that permeates the whole thing. Also in here are that dog and the robot sitting at the bar, and I believe the mannequin from one of the earlier minis. Pick up everything Jamie has available and start drawing connections, I have yet to see anything resembling a bad comic from this guy…$3
