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Trubble Club – Trubble Club #1

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Trubble Club #1

You know, there really are times when it’s pointless to review a comic.  It sounds like a cop out, I know, but Trubble Club is a jam comic involving about a dozen cartoonists in Chicago.  They meet every Sunday, put together some jam strips, and (I’m guessing here, as the actual information about this process on the website was sparse) put out a new book whenever they put enough material together. Who are these people?  Really, this should be all it takes to convince you to check this out: Al Burian, Lille Carre, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Lucy Knisley, Rachel Niffennegger, Bernie McGovern, Onsmith, Laura Park, Grant Reynolds, Becca Taylor, Jeremy Tinder and Marco Torres.  If you’re new to this site and these names aren’t familiar to you, plug just about any of them into that search option up there (the full list of artists will be restored one of these days, I swear) and spend some time checking out some quality work.  Future volumes, judging from the website, will have other people, and visiting cartoonists will probably get in on the act as well.  Honestly, I’m confused as hell about the process here.  Every single page is its own story, and it seems most of the time like the next page starts with an idea from the previous page before veering off in its own direction… except for the times when it seems completely new.  And I thought for a while that it was one artist per page, but upon closer inspection maybe others are jumping in on different panels.  All I know for sure is that this much talent thrown together in a room can’t go wrong, and I hope they keep it up for… let’s see, they’re probably all in their late 20’s or early 30’s… how about another 50 years or so?  OK, fine I’ll mention a few of the topics, just to prove how pointless it is to analyze such a thing.  An unhygienic stump, Sackley, a doomed giant hot dog, “footsie”, mancakes, and we gotta cook this hog.  This is $3 and worth every penny.

Park, Laura – Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream #2

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Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream #2

Here’s one more person who just had to be on my site somewhere, but other than Trubble Club (which you should all be reading), it looks like she didn’t have her own page.  Huzzah for being able to fix that!  This is a pile of short strips, mostly diary strips with a few “origin stories” thrown in.  There’s her getting swallowed by Lost (I can relate), people watching, talking comics with friends, accidentally hurting a baby mouse, making a pile of money through a day of odd jobs, getting a rude reception at a Korean restaurant, o a quest for a new iPod, doing taxes, wallowing, drawing entirely too many panels, getting drunk, and caring for a baby starling.  My favorite strip (sampled, as always) is her “do I go out or not” dance, as who can’t relate to that?  Effortlessly social and popular people, you say?  That’s OK, I don’t think those folks read comics.  Oh, and she also has a strip dealing with a loose tooth and too many olives from when she was a kid.  My only problem with the book is that her cursive is occasionally unreadable.  If you squint really hard you can generally get the idea, but there were a few times when I had to just let a word or two fly by, which messes up the narrative flow a bit.  Overall though, an excellent comic.  She’s open, self-deprecating (without really pouring it on), and can draw a mean hobo, among other things.  Definitely worth checking out.  Her website is still under construction (here’s hoping that’s a new message, not something that has been up there for years) but you can always get a copy through the old e-mail.  $3

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