Mecha #1

That’s what Brian was missing: giant robots!  Sorry, did I give away the ending?  I was guessing people would have picked up on the giant robot thing from the title.  Anyway, this is about twice as big as the usual BJM mini comic and, if this is at all easy to produce, I suggest he go with this format all the time.  Much easier to turn the pages and bigger pretty pictures to look at, what’s wrong with that?  This is the story of a man who can’t even remember his life before the Martians took over and has been fighting for his life as a gladiator.  He eventually gets away with a group of people, spends years fighting Martians and eventually meets the woman of his dreams.  Sadly, a happy ending is impossible in these books and things take a turn for the worse.  This leaves our hero at a loss for what to do with his life… until he finds one of the old giant robots used at the start of the war with the Martians.  I’m starting to just accept the fact that Brian has the ability to put out half a dozen series or so on a regular basis and have them all be intriguing in their own way, but it’s best to remember not to take this sort of thing for granted.  Sure, he’s not the artist so he has that going for him, but I’d almost think it would be harder trying to keep the attention of a half dozen artists for the length of a series.  Whatever it is he’s doing he should keep it up, as this is yet another winner.  Or maybe it turns to crap in the next issue, but the guy has more than earned the benefit of the doubt by now.  $1

The Clouds Above

There’s one definite pattern in my reading of comics that has shifted since starting this website 9+ years ago: I don’t read as many of the titles from the “big” publishers.  It’s odd, as I was an avid reader of most things D &Q/Fantagraphics/Top Shelf put out back in the day, but between the piles of free minis (three cheers for review copies!) and publisher who do send me their books, I just don’t get around to the big three as much as I’d like to.  That might be changing, as the library here in Champaign has a much better selection than the one in Columbus, so I get to answer on of the many nagging comic book questions in the back of my head: “Whatever happened to Jordan Crane?”  He’s done other books, as you can see on his website, but I was thrilled to see he made the leap to Fantagraphics.  They have a very low bullshit thresh, after all.  This book blurs the line between being kid’s book and a graphic novel, although I suppose you could say that it’s both.  It’s the story of a young boy named Simon who is late for school and his fat cat Jack. After unsuccessfully trying to sneak into class, Simon discovers a staircase that leads up straight up, seemingly to nowhere.  Jack isn’t thrilled with the idea, but the two of them go up the staircase, run into a group of misinformed birds and learn that they can walk on clouds. They find a cloud who is sad because it can’t fly so they give it a few pointers and also encounter a group of storm clouds before getting in some serious trouble.  If you’re thinking this sounds exactly like a kid’s book and not at all like a graphic novel, well, you’re sort of right.  I’ve never been completely comfortable with the term “graphic novel” anyway.  For the adult enthusiast, the use of color here is brilliant in all senses of the word, and there enough cute turns of phrase to make most folks smile, at the very least.  But yeah, it’s a children’s book more than anything else, complete with the “This book belongs to: ____” on the inside front cover.  It’s up to you to decide whether or not that’s a good thing; I generally prefer the stuff more geared to adults, and it looks like Jordan has kept up on that end of things too with his other comics.  If you’re simply starved for color in the dreary black and white world of small press comics, this could be a welcome antidote, or if you’re looking to get your kids into comics by quality artists where they can eventually grow into their older work.  Parents, it’s your call.  For the rest of us childless heathens, maybe stick to some of his other stuff, unless you’ve somehow managed to stay a kid at heart…  $19 (for hardcover).

Silent V #1

Is it bad if I’m hoping that something is an undeclared 24 hour comic? That’s not to say a thing either way about the story, but these are such simple drawings with such nonexistent backgrounds that this guy could put together a monthly series in no time if he wanted to.  As for the story, well, wow.  I need to narrow that down a bit, so how about “damn”? In a good way?  OK, let me try again.  This is the story of a man who has been protecting the Earth (or at least something very close to this planet) from alien invasion since he was a baby.  Literally, as he would throw homemade molotov cocktails at the ships while sucking a pacifier.  He seems to be friends with, or at least work professionally alongside, a bird who has apparently faked his own death.  The dingos are not interested in helping against the invasion, the dead have started to rise, and goblins are dancing naked. Meanwhile, there are other babies who are being cared for by a woman who probably should get a different job (and the babies seem to be highly explosive when dropped from a great height) and a member of the invasion may yet win the whole thing for the good guys.  It’s a delightful mess of a story, in other words, and I chuckled in awe of the guy behind it more than a few times.  I can only hope this really is only the first issue and there’s more to come, as this was a blast.  While the art may lean a bit on the simple side, it gets the point across and that, more than anything, gives me hope that Kyle could start cranking these out if there was enough of an outcry.  Like, say, the outcry caused be the good comic loving people of this site sending him some orders for the first issue?  Couldn’t hurt, anyway.  No price listed, but a buck or two is probably about right…

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 “Gareth Brookes” on the front, and it will be clear quickly that the cover won me over completely.  Ah well, consistency is for the weak!  This is, as you may have guessed, about the feud between Sherlock Holmes and Skeletor.  What, didn’t you hear about that one?  If you’re looking for apocalyptic action as depicted on that cover you might be disappointed; if you’re in it for the funny you’re going to go away very satisfied indeed.  This is a series of pranks between the two, um, “men”, and it took a few pages for me to get that Holmes even knew that Skeletor existed.  It seems a shame to spoil even one of these pranks by revealing them here, but as a reviewer I suppose that the spoiling of fun is, like it or not, in my job description, so here goes: potato, Aniston, “it burns”, wattage, poo, cheating, birds, and an infernal contraption.  There, that seems vague enough.  Look, if you’ve been reading this site for any length of time you should know that getting a book from Gareth Brookes is as close to a sure thing as you can get in this medium.  If not, search around a bit and check out some of the older reviews.  Really, all this rambling is irrelevant, as one look at that cover should be enough to convince you one way or the other.  If it’s the negative way I mourn for the lack of fun in your life, if it’s the other way you won’t be disappointed.

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 way of doing things really belittles something that took an artist weeks, months or even years to accomplish. That and it often makes little sense; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a review on CHUD.com tearing a movie to pieces, explaining in excruciating detail how every little thing about the film is terrible… and then they give it a “4 out of 10″ grade.  It’s gibberish, I tells ya!  So why bring this up?  Even with my feelings against such a system, I’m starting to think I could grade King Cat comics on a “wistfulness” scale.  It would still be simplistic and cheap, but it might be handy for the folks out there who can’t wait for each issue.  This issue is more wistful than most, as John moved to Gainesville, FL at some point during the making of the comic and has apparently ended up there without his cats, which is mildly baffling to me, but he doesn’t get into it (or I read the last story of the book and assumed that that’s still his situation, which is probably wrong).  Stories in here include a pearl of wisdom from Jesus (the guy had a lot of nice things to say, too bad he’s depicted now as a dude who wants poor people to suffer), a daydream about a missed personal connection, a genuine white trash moment, another one that isn’t labeled as such, a visual aid to all the new forms of life John is seeing in Florida, a drunken lighter request, some lingering silence, and a really fantastic essay detailing Denver before everything became profoundly commercialized.  Of all the comics in the world, I hope I can say “more of the same” with this one and have the reader understand what a unique and tremendous thing that is.  I also love John’s willingness to just get up and go when he thinks that life is pushing him in a specific direction; if only everybody had that kind of courage.  In conclusion: of course you should get it.  If there was an issue that disappointed you, I’m going to resist the urge to say it was your fault and just say that this issue in particular really moved me, for whatever that is worth…$3