Website Sherlock Holmes vs. Skeletor I feel for anybody reading these reviews every day and trying to get some sort of consistency out of them, I really do. One day I’ll say never to judge a book by its cover, and the next I’ll get something like this in the mail, see that title and [...]
Website King Cat #71 I’ve long resisted implementing any kind of a grading scale for reviews. No “8 out of 10″ for anything, no “5 stars!”, none of that crap. It’s not because what I have to say in the body of a review is all that important, it’s mostly just because such a simplistic [...]
Website E-mail Walking Man Comics #34 Matt Levin has been doing comics for a very long time, or at least he has in “internet years”. I reviewed one of his books age ago (oddly, it was #38), but he just sent me a few books, so it’s clear that he is still cranking them out. [...]
Website Monstrum Horrendum Volume 2 #2 Ah, to live in a small press comic book world where every book was as gorgeous as this one. Granted, the $8.65 price might drive some people away, but this is a huge book with a vast array of colors all over the place, and they’re used to illustrate [...]
Website Pang The Wandering Shaolin Monk Volume 1: Refuge of the Heart Finally! Now I can quit the reviewing business. It was all just a cynical ploy for me to get a free copy of a really fantastic hardcover edition about the history of Shaolin monks, so my work here is done. OK fine, I’ll [...]
Myspace page Facebook page Bad Press website Khaki Shorts #24 First thing first: I have no idea if Mark Sampson is really the editor of this comic. He wrote the intro for the book and introduced everyone, so I’m just assuming here, and am hoping that the fine folks who sent me this comic will [...]
Website Memory Foam #1 What an f’ed up nose. Sorry, I shouldn’t start off with something so meaningless to the quality of the book, but it’s just sitting there. These are autobiographical stories from about a year of Toby’s life (7/08-8/09), dealing with all sorts of things, so if you’re a hater of all thing [...]
Website The City of Abacus #1 You know what I like to see in a small press comics series? Other than talent, writing that will blow my socks off and genuinely innovative concepts, that is? Ambition. This series is trying to put out 7 issues between May and November (and they only have 2 on [...]
Website E-mail The Island Here’s a little bit 0f “inside reviewing small press comics” trivia, in case you were curious. If you were not curious, my apologies. Reviewers have an unspoken ability to use images from comics for review purposes, provided that they don’t cross the line of using too many images or (at least [...]
Website Robots Are People, Too #3 Here’s a useless fun fact to start off my ramble: I’ve been going through my old comics recently, trying to see what I can sell or otherwise get rid of, when I came across my sole copy of Heavy Metal. Oddly, the cover did not have giant robotic breasts [...]
Website Blaster Al Ackerman’s Tales of the Ling Master #2 I seem to have found another character that will always cause me to enjoy a comic: a very large living burrito that is set on revenge. Of course, as I’ll almost certainly never see that in another comic, it is a tough theory to prove. [...]
Website 27 I occasionally get actual letters with review comics, things that people have clearly put a lot of time and thought into. I rarely respond to these letters, partially out of some vague desire to keep the reviewer/reviewee separate (as if there’s a line in this business) and partially because they often say such [...]
Website Go Wildlife! I’m a big fans of comics as entertainment, obviously, but I’m an even bigger fan of entertaining comics that also teach me something. This comic taught me plenty and was funny throughout, so I’d call that an unqualified success. Some of the best stories were done as two page spreads, otherwise picking [...]
Website Yo! Burbalino #3 What we have here is the tale of two comics all wrapped up in. The first half of the comic is one story, dealing with our hero the chef , his wife, and his friend the squirrel. Chef Don has a romantic dinner planned with his wife for Valentine’s Day, while [...]
Website The Experts #2 Is it insulting to call this smarter than it probably should be? Yes, that is almost certainly insulting. I only mean that if you’re one of those people who judge a book by its cover (and quit it if you do), you might not have high expectations for “Mad Motorcycle Mayhem!” [...]
Website Everything Dies #2 If this series doesn’t win some small press comics award, I’m turning in my fake membership badge. He has apparently put out a few other comics, but I rarely see stuff this polished and this perfect. So what’s there to write about when I have no complaints? Well, how about the [...]
Website Crass Sophisticate #11 I’d like to start this review off with a little rant to people that probably only exist in my head. Hey you! Yes, you, the person who is going to skip this review because they’re offended by the cover, or simply think that it means this comic is going to juvenile [...]
Website Schmuck #14 – Blue Plate Special Oh makers of small press comics, will you never learn? How do you expect to sell your comics if you don’t list them on your website? Granted, Mark does have a nice site with all kinds of samples (including the first half of this book, if you’re curious),. [...]
Website The Fifty-Flip Experiment #11 In case you’re curious, yes, the back cover does show the end result from the pose depicted on the front cover. No, I am not going to show it to you. Buy the damned book! Although at the moment Dan’s website appears to be down, and this has also followed [...]
Website Asbestos Wick I have no idea what the fuck is going on in this comic. There, I said it. Anything that I say from this point on will be babble, my attempt to make sense out of something that is most likely not in any way meant to be taken literally. First, let’s get [...]