{"id":15632,"date":"2010-07-06T14:00:45","date_gmt":"2010-07-06T19:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/?p=15632"},"modified":"2010-07-22T22:44:12","modified_gmt":"2010-07-23T03:44:12","slug":"van-sciver-noah-blammo-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/?p=15632","title":{"rendered":"Van Sciver, Noah – Blammo #6"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Blammo #6<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a theory about the longevity of small press comic artists, based upon many years of observation of the behavior of these fascinating creatures in their natural habitat.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m going to avoid naming names because otherwise I’d be sure to leave somebody out or offend them, but it seems like most of them need either the money or artistic validation to eventually get published somewhere.\u00c2\u00a0 Your fantasy\/superhero types want to eventually make it to the “big leagues”, and that’s true of the smaller “big leagues” of the alternative comics world.\u00c2\u00a0 There are also plenty who don’t give a shit and they’ll keep making comics until they eventually get tired of it, and these people you can usually spot because they always come back to the business, even after being away from it for years.\u00c2\u00a0 They just can’t help themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 Then there are people like (not naming names, but there is certainly more than one), who seemed to have a really good thing going but just gave up the ghost after a few really great issues.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t say that I blame them for quitting, as doing as thankless a job as making comics\u00c2\u00a0 without any significant compensation must be trying.\u00c2\u00a0 Where was I going with all this?\u00c2\u00a0 Oh yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 Noah Van Sciver is on the sixth issue of Blammo, as you may have guessed from that prominent “#6” up there.\u00c2\u00a0 He is still self-publishing.\u00c2\u00a0 He is also getting better and better with each passing issue, even though I continually think he must have hit a high water mark.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know if Noah is the type of person to eventually give up if Fantagraphics\/Top Shelf\/Drawn & Quarterly don’t publish him sooner or later, but do we really want to take that chance?\u00c2\u00a0 Take a risk, one of you guys, this guy is more than worth it.\u00c2\u00a0 So how about the comic?\u00c2\u00a0 I sampled the very first page, as I just couldn’t help it.\u00c2\u00a0 Other stories include Abby’s Road (told from the perspective of a 21 year old juggalo\/stoner who’s “dating” a 17 year old high school girl, he’s exactly what you think he is and it’s a perspective not often seem in small press comics), As I Remember It (written by Noah’s brother, a quiet moment in the life of the early Van Sciver family), Chicken Strips (still going, Bill goes to heaven, with a fantastic final page spread), Convention (yes, these are fairly common in these types of comics, but it’s still insightful as hell and worth it for the haunted look on the face of John Porcellino), The Krampus Visit (dealing with an asshole singer and an even assholier man trying to get an autograph), and The Easy Life (telling you how easy it would be to quit your job, kill your boss and take over the world).\u00c2\u00a0 There’s also his sure-to-be breakout hit Punks Vs. Lizards, which is exactly what it sounds like: 5 pages of punks gruesomely killing giant lizards.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 If all his smart and meaningful strips can’t make him millions, maybe this one can.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, and don’t forget a few pages of shorter strips, reader mail and last words.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a whole comic book experience, in other words, and one that most people don’t bother putting together these days.\u00c2\u00a0 I doubt if I have much in the way of “cred” in the small press hierarchy, but if I have a shred of it, I am asking somebody to take a risk and publish this man.\u00c2\u00a0 We can’t risk losing him to apathy or one of those paying jobs I keep hearing about.\u00c2\u00a0 Barring that, the least you can do individually is buy his comics, and you get the added benefit of owning a really fantastic comic.\u00c2\u00a0 Where’s the flaw in that?\u00c2\u00a0 $3.95<\/p>\n

UPDATE 7\/7\/10: This was actually published by Kilgore Books & Comics from Denver.\u00c2\u00a0 That big “Kilgore” on the cover should have clued me in, but I missed it, and anybody who published a comic like this deserves the highest of praise, not being left out of the article entirely because I wasn’t being careful enough to include them.\u00c2\u00a0 Mea culpa.<\/p>\n

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Website Blammo #6 I have a theory about the longevity of small press comic artists, based upon many years of observation of the behavior of these fascinating creatures in their natural habitat.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m going to avoid naming names because otherwise I’d be sure to leave somebody out or offend them, but it seems like most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2246,3342],"class_list":["post-15632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-blammo","tag-noah-van-sciver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15632"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16336,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15632\/revisions\/16336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}