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Yost, J.T. – Losers Weepers #3
Losers Weepers #3
It’s been a few years since I reviewed an issue of this series, so it’s best if I catch everybody up on the “rules” for it. J.T. finds letters or journals (or his friends find them) and he, without any context of what they were really about, turns them into comics. And a fine job he does with them too! The stories in this one come from a flyer, a letter and a cryptic phrase. That last one is the only one that feels like it was shoved into this story, as it doesn’t have much to do with the overall theme, but it also serves as a coda to the story so there’s no harm done. The flyer was an advertisement to learn Spanish with a few ridiculous typos/spelling errors that should make anybody thinking about calling the guy think twice. For that portion of the story we see our hero getting copies of his flyer and dealing with the copy shop employees. From there he finds out that his mother is in jail and needs bailing out, and when he goes to ask his girlfriend if he can borrow some money he finds a letter to her from a man in the same jail. This letter is the real highlight of the comic, as the prisoner is losing his mind more than a little bit and wonders why this lady hasn’t talked to him since he went to jail. As this letter was addressed to his girlfriend, this sends our hero into a bit of a rage and he goes out in that mood. As is often the case, that’s when he happens to run into a cop. J.T. still types the letters into the appendix in the back in case you have trouble with the handwriting (although this around I didn’t need it), so no worries if you have trouble with certain types of handwriting. It’s another solid issue, and I continue to be amazed at how he ties such disparate letters together into a coherent and compelling story. $5
Yost, J.T. – Losers Weepers #2
Now Available! $5
Losers Weepers #2
For those of you who didn’t read the review for #1, this series is based on J.T.’s interpretation of letters and scraps of paper that were found by himself and/or friends that lack all context. This time around there’s a heartbroken letter from somebody mourning a break-up, a note that looks like it came from a playground, another note from a child (one can hope, anyway) requesting more pizza in the cafeteria, and an angry note found on a car. This time around J.T. connected them all into one story which, as a work of fiction, worked out just fine. It’s a little difficult to see all these things going together in real life, but he more or less made it work. I do love how he prints that actual letters, just to show that he is working from real stuff and not just making it all up. Either that or he’s skilled at changing handwriting styles or using friends to write them, but even I’m not that cynical. Anyway, as this all comes together the stories include the woman (dumper) talking crap about the guy (dumpee) after his death, her kid getting into trouble at school (although the note for this section didn’t have a lot to do with the actual comic), another kid writing that letter about the pizza, and finally her seeing that note on her car. The ending certainly made plenty of sense after all the events of her day, and as a complete comic it was pretty damned good and oddly coherent, which this review probably isn’t due to lack of sleep, so apologies for that. Hey, if you wanted coherency in reviews you probably wouldn’t stick around this site very long anyway, am I right? $5
Yost, J.T. – Losers Weepers #1
Now Available! $5
Losers Weepers #1
Are you the type of person who picks up random scraps of paper if you see that they have handwriting on them? How about journals or notebooks that you see lying around? I’d answer “yes” to each question, provided that they’re not laying in a puddle of gunk or something equally nasty. J.T. uses a couple of found items as launching pads for a few stories, fitting nicely into the “tragi-comic” theme he mentions in his intro. First up is a journal that he found and decided to keep because only a few pages had been used. But those few pages… hoo boy. He’s also nice enough to reprint the entries in legible writing, and kudos to him for that, or this would have been a whole lot tougher to follow. The gist of it is that a young woman is dating a guy and doesn’t know how to get out of it because the guy is not all there mentally and she’s sure that her leaving will devastate him. Then there’s another entry much later (when she’s much less concerned about what’s going to happen to the guy) and one final entry dealing with her moving to a new town and having a hard time making friends. The story for this one bleeds into both of the other stories, and they involve a set of wildly offensive lyrics and one garbled note about watching a wallet and “borrowing” some coke. All of these elements end up jumbled together and we get a story about a new relationship, running into an ex on the street, an open mic night involving those lyrics, and the potential meaning behind that last note. It’s a combination of stories that could have fallen apart pretty easily, but J.T. makes good use of the material and crafts and pretty compelling piece about it all. There’s at least one more issue in this series, and I’m very interested to see if he can pull this off twice, but this issue was solid. Entertaining, darkly funny at times, and yeah, a little tragic. $5
