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Lindner, Ellen & Day, Jeremy (editors) – Strumpet #2
Strumpet #2
Who likes their anthologies to be international? Everybody? Then you’re in luck! Women from all over the globe contributed to this one. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, like all anthologies, but that mix still leans heavily in favor of entertaining/thought-provoking stories. Stories include the mundane aspects of a day in the life of an astronaut in the future by Myfanwy Tristam, Robin Ha’s trials and tribulations while traveling through Italy, Rachael Ball with probably the most visually striking piece about (literally) capturing shadows, Ellen Lindner’s work as an extra and her quest to meet Bill Murray, J. Homersham’s silent tale of a fish party, Patrice Agg’s story of communication problems and their unfortunate resolution, an excerpt from Nicola Streeten’s tale of her abortion (which I’m guessing also includes other subjects, but the excerpt just deals with the abortion and the immediate aftermath), Karrie Fransman’s tales of two different comic conventions, Shamisa Debroey’s plans for the future, Badaude’s story of artists at work and play, Lisa Eisenberg’s homesickness manifesting itself into a floating trip home, Emily Lerner’s tale of a road trip to retrieve some old items from storage, Julia Scheele’s love letter to a bus and Kat Robert’s delightful idea of a very brief interlude between this life and the next. I’m leaving a few out because hey, what’s life without surprises? Overall this is a damned solid pile of stories, more than worth shelling out $10 bucks to give this 90+ page book a shot.
Various Spark Plug Anthologies – Bird Hurdler
Bird Hurdler
A free sampler of some cartoonists you publish? What a great idea. And not just your average sampler, as the stories in here are self-contained, not just bits of stories to show off the artwork. They even have more available! It’s a good thing to be this impressed before I even get to the contents. Stories in here include Julia Gfrorer’s (and I would love to hear how that’s pronounced) story about getting killed by the chief man-witch and having to babysit for his child, Andrice Arp’s tale of a creep on an Amtrak train getting shot down, Zack Soto’s quiet piece about a relationship falling apart (told as an actual physical beating), Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg’s story of a cat trying to figure out the treat it got on Thanksgiving that was the best thing ever (and its sorrow at never being able to get said treat again due to the ethical constraints of its vegetarian owner), Farel Dalrymple’s piece on a botched magic spell and a girl who beats up boys on a regular basis (the only story that was a “part 2”, but it held up fine by itself) and a silent sleepy story by Theo Ellsworth. On the Spark Plug website they say that it’s available for $.01 and postage, but I’ll bet if you ordered a healthy stack of comics from them and asked politely they’d probably throw a copy in for you. Or maybe Nerd Burglar is better (as it’s also free), but I haven’t seen that one yet and this one if fine by itself. Any time I get a story told from the perspective of a cat I’m happy, as I’m apparently slowly turning into a middle aged woman. I still only own one cat though, so all hope isn’t lost for me yet…